From Saudi peace to Gaza war – six takes on Israel’s whiplash year

US PRESIDENT Joe Biden embraces Rachel Edri, flanked by her son Evyatar Edri, during a meeting with those directly impacted by the Hamas attack, in Tel Aviv

This was the whiplash year for Israeli diplomacy and indeed for the country as a whole. It was a year that challenged the Israeli perception of two of the pillars central to its self-identity: democracy and security.

It was a year when societal divisions over democracy, which had threatened to erupt into a civil war, dissolved on October 7, when Israelis were faced with a greater external existential threat posed by Hamas and its war against the Jewish state.

It was a year in which Israel dreamed of regional peace – symbolized by a potential Saudi deal and a US-led plan to turn the country into a regional transport hub and economic corridor – but instead found itself on the cusp of a regional war.

Israel began the year by closing the door on a politically diverse self-declared government of change led by two novice prime ministers, Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid, and welcoming back to its helm its most veteran and skilled diplomat, Benjamin Netanyahu.

His new government, composed entirely of right-wing parties, was sworn in precisely one year ago, on December 29, promising to restore order to what it described as the chaos that had gripped Israel since Netanyahu’s exit from the Prime Minister’s Office in June 2021.

Netanyahu returned to office, as the longest-serving prime minister in Israel’s 75-year history, having already achieved several significant and in some cases historic successes.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu chairs a cabinet meeting at the Kirya military base, in Tel Aviv, Israel, December 24, 2023 (credit: Ohad Zwigenberg/Pool via REUTERS)

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu chairs a cabinet meeting at the Kirya military base, in Tel Aviv, Israel, December 24, 2023 (credit: Ohad Zwigenberg/Pool via REUTERS)

As finance minister he had overseen the transformation of the country’s social welfare economy to a free market one. Then, as prime minister, he led a country that was a global economic, cyber, and security powerhouse.

Netanyahu entered into the historic Abraham Accords by which four Arab countries agreed to normalize ties. He signed deals with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Morocco, and entered into a normalization agreement with Sudan that has yet to be formalized.

The United States, due to his close ties with former US president Donald Trump, had recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan and moved its embassy to Jerusalem.

Netanyahu’s corruption trial did not dim his popularity, as he consistently bested his opponents at the polls, winning the 2022 election with 32 seats.

On his first day in office, on December 29, he summed up his history, stating: “We have already brought to Israel the ‘Golden Age’ – the best years in its history.” Then he boasted, “Now we will take Israel to new heights, and we will do so as a responsible and dedicated government that will [complete] its term.”

Instead, the democracy debate, which lasted until October 6, and the Israel-Hamas war in the Gaza Strip, which followed, wreaked havoc on Netanyahu’s diplomatic agenda, with an array of speculative diplomatic trips that never came to fruition, such as to the United Arab Emirates, China, India, and Turkey.

Netanyahu suffered a dramatic loss of support, with recent polls predicting he would garner only 18 seats in any upcoming election, after Israel suffered one of the worst security failures in its history on October 7. On that day, Hamas breached Israel’s borders, killing over 1,300 civilians and seizing some 200 hostages, sparking a major war in Gaza.

1. From Saudi peace to the cusp of regional war

Netanyahu began 2023 pledging to “dramatically expand the circle of peace” and pushing specifically for a normalization deal with Saudi Arabia, which he believed would open the region as a whole to Israel. It was a goal he shared with the Biden administration, which had hoped to broker such a deal by March 2024 at the latest. Foreign Minister Eli Cohen predicted that there would be direct flights between Tel Aviv and Mecca in 2024.

At the United Nations General Assembly in New York in September, Netanyahu held up two maps, one underscoring Israel’s regional isolation in 1948, when it was created, and the second highlighting its growing alliances in 2023, by way of emphasizing that a new Middle East was on the horizon.

Visits by Israeli officials to international conferences in Saudi Arabia breathed additional life into the tantalizing possibility of peace. A Foreign Ministry delegation, Tourism Minister Haim Katz, and Communications Minister Shlomo Karhi all traveled to Riyadh. Karhi’s trip, which included a prayer service in his hotel for Sukkot with a Torah scroll, occurred in early October, just days before the start of the war.

Hamas’s successful attack, which showed that Israel was more militarily vulnerable than its enemies and allies had imagined, brought a grinding halt to Saudi peace efforts, now believed to be impossible while war rages. The presumption that such a deal could not be concluded after March 2024, due to the US presidential elections, can only mean that such an agreement would likely have to wait until 2025.

It was not the only loss. Netanyahu had planned to visit Turkey in the fall, as a sign of renewed ties between Jerusalem and Ankara, with additional talk of a possible Erdogan visit to Israel. Those ties instead went into deep freeze, with both countries recalling their ambassadors.

Chad, which had just opened an embassy in Israel this year, recalled its ambassador, as did Chile, Colombia, and Honduras. Bolivia and Belize cut off their diplomatic ties with Israel altogether. Tensions are also high between Israel and its stable regional patterns, Egypt and Jordan.

Hamas’s attack against Israel, which had the backing of Tehran, did not occur in isolation, but in conjunction with the heating up of violence against Israel on other fronts, particularly from other Iranian proxy groups, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen, who have attacked cargo ships along a vital maritime corridor in the Red Sea.

In a speech this week, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant described Israel as a country in the midst of a multifront war, explaining that it had been attacked from seven fronts: Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank, Iraq, Yemen, and Iran.

2. Palestinian statehood back on the table

Israel’s government entered office with many of its members opposing Palestinian statehood, and Netanyahu recently boasted that he had thwarted its creation during his time in office.

Until October 7, several of Israel’s significant allies, primarily the United States, had been willing to concede that the timing was not right and that efforts should focus instead on regional peace, efforts that initially appeared to have a better chance of success.

That stance was seen by Netanyahu as a testament to his philosophical belief that peace with the Palestinians could only happen after, and not before, normalized regional ties.

The Gaza war has convinced the United States and Israel’s allies, including the European Union, that Palestinian statehood must now be a top agenda item.

3. Chilly Russian ties

Netanyahu had been expected by some to pivot in the direction of Russian President Vladimir Putin after entering office. Instead, he held the lines of neutrality put in place by his predecessors as he attempted to maintain ties with both Moscow and Kyiv, despite Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. If anything, he pivoted more in the direction of Ukraine, with Cohen traveling to Kyiv in February in a show of support for Ukraine. He was the first high-level Israeli official to do so.

Both Cohen and Netanyahu, however, irked the Ukrainians by failing to provide defensive arms, a move that was seen as a redline by Russia. Relations were further strained as Moscow tightened its military ties with Iran, purchasing armed drones for use against Ukrainian civilians, issued stern statements against Israeli regional activity, and hosted top Iranian officials, such as the country’s president and foreign minister.

Israel, in turn, summoned the Russian ambassador to protest a visit to Moscow by a Hamas delegation in the aftermath of the group’s October 7 attack on Israel.

The strain, however, did not prevent Netanyahu from calling on Putin this month to use his diplomatic clout to help secure a deal for the release of the remaining 129 hostages.

4. Iran closes in on weapons-grade uranium

Blocking a nuclear Tehran was Netanyahu’s top priority upon entering office, particularly as he feared a US revival of the defunct Iran deal.

That agreement has remained dormant, but Iran has continued its slow march to weapons-grade uranium enrichment. The International Atomic Energy Agency reported this week that Iran has increased the rate by which it is enriching uranium up to 60% purity.

It’s Iran’s conventional military activity, however, that has kept Israel occupied this year, as it has backed regional violence against the Jewish state. Some have speculated that Iran has sought to distract Israel from attempts to halt its nuclear weapons development by heating up Israeli border violence, such as Hamas in the south and Hezbollah in the north. Some believe that October 7 was an attempt by Iran to stop the Saudi deal, which included a security pact between Washington and Riyadh against Iranian aggression.

5. From dictatorship to genocide

Netanyahu’s diplomatic agenda was in trouble from day one, as his government pursued a controversial judicial reform plan. Its supporters claimed it would strengthen Israeli democracy, and its opponents warned it would transform the country into a dictatorship.

Key Western allies, such as the United States, Germany, France and Great Britain, along with the European Union, in general all expressed fear about the loss of Israeli democracy, as they underscored the importance of shared values.

Netanyahu’s diplomatic trips to Paris, Berlin, and London in the first half of the year were all dogged by protesters chanting “democracy,” as well as private and public criticism by the top officials in those countries.

It was tension that evaporated overnight, as those leaders and others from Europe rushed to make solidarity visits to Israel in the aftermath of the October 7 attack. The diplomatic guest list was dizzying, as the world leaders pledged their support to the Jewish state and visited the sites of the destroyed southern communities, a move that became the informal protocol for any visit.

That support, however, was tempered, as the war dragged on, by the high casualty count in Gaza and the humanitarian crisis caused by the IDF’s military campaign to oust Hamas from the enclave.

Pro-Palestinian protests erupted on European and American streets, expressing support for Hamas and accusing Israel of genocide in Gaza. It was a stance that created a second front on those two continents, as Jews felt increasingly unsafe in the face of growing anti-Israel and anti-Jewish sentiments. The Anti-Defamation League reported a 337% spike in antisemitic incidents in the US since October 7.

Iranian women hold posters of senior Iranian military commander General Qassem Soleimani as they attend a rally marking the annual Quds Day, or Jerusalem Day, on the last Friday of the holy month of Ramadan in Tehran, Iran April 14, 2023. (credit: Majid Asgaripour/WANA/via Reuters)

Iranian women hold posters of senior Iranian military commander General Qassem Soleimani as they attend a rally marking the annual Quds Day, or Jerusalem Day, on the last Friday of the holy month of Ramadan in Tehran, Iran April 14, 2023. (credit: Majid Asgaripour/WANA/via Reuters)

6. US cold shoulder and embrace

Netanyahu began the year at odds with the United States over the judicial reform and his government’s moves to deepen Israel’s footprint in the West Bank, which it refers to as Judea and Samaria.

National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir’s public walk across the Aqsa Mosque compound on the Temple Mount in January stoked tensions. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s call to wipe Huwara off the map, a statement he later retracted, also fanned the flames.

The US accused Israel of breaking diplomatic pledges, after the Knesset voted to repeal the 2005 Disengagement Law as it applied to northern Samaria. It was a move that allowed for the authorization of the yeshiva on the Homesh hilltop. It opened the doors for the potential reconstruction of the four northern Samaria settlements Israel destroyed in 2005, lifting the ban on Israeli visits to those sites.

As a sign of those tensions, US President Joe Biden failed to extend to Netanyahu the White House invitation traditionally issued to newly installed Israeli premiers. Biden met Netanyahu only in September, on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly, as moves toward a Saudi deal eclipsed all other considerations.

It was a situation that seemed to deepen, rather than heal, the bipartisan rift on Israel that had been so evident during the former Trump administration.

Those tensions disappeared after October 7, as the Biden administration offered Israel unprecedented diplomatic, military, and financial support for its war on Hamas. Biden flew to Israel in October, becoming the first US president to visit the country during wartime.

US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, and National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan visited Israel as well.

All those top officials, plus State Department spokesman Matthew Miller and National Security Council spokesman John Kirby, have condemned Hamas, vigorously defended the IDF military campaign, and rejected accusations of genocide. The latter two do so on almost a nightly basis at press briefings.

Biden is credited with helping to close the hostages deal in November, in which 110 captives were freed. He and US officials have also met with hostage families, leaving them with the sense that America has their back.

The Biden administration has also given Israel diplomatic cover at the United Nations, rejecting Security Council resolutions that demanded a ceasefire, allowing two texts to pass that called instead for a humanitarian pause to the war.

The US has backed Israel’s demand that Hamas must no longer govern Gaza and has not allowed the difference of opinion over what should happen in the Strip to eclipse its support of the IDF’s military campaign.

The Biden administration has also issued sharply worded condemnations of antisemitism. Biden and Blinken have, at times, explained how the issue is personal for them, not just diplomatic, stemming from their private relationships to the Holocaust and Israel, as they have placed their hearts behind the Jewish state.