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1973 vs. 2023: Could Aftermath of Gaza War Lead to Diplomatic Breakthrough?

Prime Minister Golda Meir (R) accompanied by her Defense Minister Moshe Dayan, meets with Israeli soldiers at a base on the Golan Heights after intense fighting during the 1973 Yom Kippur War. Photo: Reuters

Many have highlighted the similarities between the 1973 Yom Kippur War and the brutal Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, in terms of the scale of the intelligence failure and the enormity of the costs to Israel. It is possible that the postwar political process will be similar as well. And the end of the Hamas-Israel conflict will offer the US a great opportunity to replicate a historic diplomatic achievement.

Following the Yom Kippur War, the US led a diplomatic process between Egypt and Israel that brought about two interim agreements. Those agreements culminated in the historic peace treaty signed by Israel and Egypt in 1979, which was the product of effective American mediation at Camp David a year earlier. A key question is whether there are similarities between the factors that made a diplomatic process possible after the 1973 war and the circumstances that might emerge from the current war.

There are, of course, major differences between the wars. But there are sufficient similarities to create a foundation, however imperfect, for a productive political process when the current war ends. Of course, we don’t know how or when this war will end, but it is never too soon to think about the “day after,” even with the limitations on our current knowledge.

To evaluate the potential for diplomatic arrangements, we must first examine the capacity and motivation of the three major parties: the Arab-Palestinian party, the Israeli party, and the Americans. We will focus here on the capacity and interests of the US to advance a diplomatic process.

Why did the US, first under the leadership of Henry Kissinger and then President Jimmy Carter, begin to focus on the peace process in the Middle East, mainly between Egypt and Israel, after the 1973 War? There are two main reasons. The first concerns the superpower crisis with the Soviet Union toward the end of the war, which entailed a Soviet threat of intervention and a response to the American nuclear alert. The danger of escalation of the regional conflict into a third world war focused attention on that conflict. The second reason for rising American diplomatic engagement following the 1973 war was the oil embargo imposed by the Arab states in response to American support for Israel. The embargo quadrupled oil prices, which had devastating economic effects in the US and beyond.

These two factors reinforced American interest in Middle Eastern peacemaking in the aftermath of the 1973 War. But what about the American capacity to advance peace following that war?

The Yom Kippur War demonstrated the depth of Israel’s security dependence on the US, as exemplified by the American airlift during the war. Israel’s need for this arms delivery showed that it required a source from which to resupply weapons and ammunition during high-intensity fighting. The only source that could — and potentially would — do this was America.

The American capacity to promote a settlement also grew in relation to Egypt. Despite the strategic surprise Egypt and Syria achieved at the beginning of the war, which gave them a major military advantage, and despite major arms supplies from their Soviet patron, they were unable to defeat Israel. In fact, by the end of the war the IDF was deployed around 100 kilometers from Cairo. This state of affairs proved that the Soviet patron was unable to deliver the goods. On top of that, the rise in Israel’s security dependence on the US following the war showed Egyptian President Anwar Sadat that only the US could exert pressure on Israel to make major territorial concessions in the Sinai Peninsula. The restoration of Egyptian control over the Sinai was Sadat’s key objective in resorting to war.

The combined effect of such postwar conditions sent a clear message to both parties that the US, and only the US, could promote a political settlement restoring the Sinai to Egypt while protecting Israel’s security. Israel could be confident that as an “honest broker,” the US would ensure that any political settlement seriously considered the security arrangements it requested.

Both American interest in advancing a political settlement and its capacity to do so have increased considerably since the onset of the ongoing Hamas-Israel war. It is noteworthy that interest in advancing a Mideast political process was quite low on the priorities list of the Biden administration when it took office in January 2021. Previous efforts to promote such a process had failed, including that of the Obama administration. Biden served as Obama’s vice president, so he had direct experience with that failure. Moreover, the Biden administration came into office not only with a full-blown socioeconomic agenda but with a highly loaded foreign policy agenda as well, most of which concerned areas outside the Middle East. The key foreign policy issue was (and remains) the growing competition with China, so the administration’s focus was on the Indo-Pacific region.

Also, the US has become energy-independent in recent years. This has led to a decline in the importance to the US of the oil-rich Middle Eastern states — though the region has not lost all relevance, as key US allies remain dependent on Middle Eastern oil.

A third reason for the decline in American interest in the Middle East was the disillusionment of the American public over the US failures in Iraq and Afghanistan. In those military interventions, the US paid a very heavy price in both blood and treasure — but at the end of the day, its efforts at regime change and democracy promotion failed. The great winners from the American interventions were terrorist entities, especially the brutal Islamic State and most notably Iran, which became a dominant actor in Iraq through its Shiite militias there. In addition to Iraq, Iran exerts major influence in the region through its coalition of Shiite militias in Lebanon, Syria and Yemen.

The 2022 outbreak of the Ukraine war had complex effects on American engagement in the Middle East. On the one hand, it created a new area of interest outside the Middle East and thus potentially further marginalized that region. On the other hand, the war reinforced the importance of Middle Eastern energy resources because of the termination of Russian energy supplies to Europe. The latter development increased the centrality of Saudi Arabia in global politics as a leading actor in what has come to be called the “Global South.” This is the large group of states that are aligned, at least formally, with neither the West nor the anti-American revisionist camp. Following these developments, President Biden changed his attitude toward Saudi Arabia — specifically toward its de facto leader, Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman. After the 2018 brutal murder of Saudi-American journalist Jamal Khashoggi, Biden called Saudi Arabia under bin Salman a “pariah” state. In the aftermath of the outbreak of the Ukraine war and the energy crisis, Biden went to Saudi Arabia and fist-bumped with bin Salman, even though the CIA had alleged that the Saudi leader was responsible for Khashoggi’s murder.

The next stage in Saudi Arabia’s rising centrality was when the US became concerned that it is “losing” the Saudis following the Chinese mediation that restored diplomatic relations between Riyadh and Tehran in early 2023. The challenge to American hegemony in the Middle East grew further with the rising alignment between Iran and Russia over the war in Ukraine. Iran became a major arms supplier to Russia, and as China and Russia also strengthened their relations after the war broke out, it appeared that the anti-American axis was deepening its involvement in the region. Moreover, it seemed that this axis was tightening its relations with Saudi Arabia, which was considered not so long ago to be a key American ally.

The Biden administration’s response took the form of talks on normalizing relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia. In exchange for American security guarantees, the Saudis had to commit to establishing relations with Israel, while the latter was supposed to make concessions to the Palestinians. Normalization with a key Arab and Muslim state was intended to deepen Israel’s integration into the region.

This development was received as very bad news by Hamas and probably affected its decision to proceed with the violent invasion of southern Israel on October 7. While the anti-American axis might not have directly initiated the brutal Hamas attack, there is no doubt that it served the interests of this axis by undermining the American peace plans in the region and the renewed relationship between the US and Saudi Arabia.

Every weakening of American influence is an accomplishment for the revisionist bloc. Russia gains from declining American attention on Ukraine, which translates into less military aid. China benefits from a reduced American focus on Sino-US competition in the Indo-Pacific and on support for its allies in that region. China also believes that support for the Palestinians will reinforce its position in the Global South. And Iran, of course, enjoys Israel’s suffering at the hands of its Hamas client and benefits from the demonstration of its arch enemy’s vulnerability.

All that said, the war between Israel and Hamas has produced an exceptional opportunity for the US to initiate a comprehensive political process in the region. Despite the differences, the 1973 analogy offers a glimpse of hope. As in the post-1973 situation, the US has a rising interest in a diplomatic engagement in the region and also a growing capability, if limited, to promote a diplomatic process.

As was the case in 1973, this interest originates primarily from great power competition, which has been rising throughout this year in the Middle East as well as elsewhere in the world. In a parallel with the Soviet-American struggle over Egypt in the early 1970s, the most keen competition today is for the “great prize” — oil-rich Saudi Arabia. In the 1970s, Egypt was the leading Arab state and thus the main target of superpower competition in the Middle East. Many upheavals have taken place in the Arab world since then, and today we see the rise of Saudi Arabia. Bin Salman has great ambitions to use his country’s vast wealth and resources to modernize and empower his nation. Saudi Arabia has thus become the leading state in the Arab world and one of the most important countries in the Muslim world, particularly as it hosts Islam’s holy places on its territory.

If Washington’s postwar diplomatic process is designed to lead to a two-state solution, Saudi Arabia would have a much easier time leading a pro-American camp of pragmatic states in the region. These states, which are interested first and foremost in economic modernization, include the UAE, Bahrain, Morocco, Egypt, and Jordan. Facing this group is the violent Iran-led coalition, which has proxies spread across the region.

Each US administration has shown an interest in advancing Arab-Israeli peace, but the current confrontation makes clear what the cost of an endless Israeli-Palestinian stalemate might be. The stalemate can be readily exploited by extremists, which can lead to a dangerous escalation in the region and beyond because of the involvement of external powers. The US must do its utmost to reduce the burden of its attention and resources being spread across three arenas that involve (or could involve) violent conflict: Ukraine, Taiwan, and the Middle East.

Will the American capacity to promote a settlement rise in the aftermath of the Hamas-Israel war? There is a parallel with the rising Israeli dependence that followed the 1973 airlift. In the current conflict, the US provided Israel with major military and financial aid, including the deployment of two groups of aircraft carriers. Jerusalem’s security dependence on the US gives Washington significant leverage over Israel. The Arab and Palestinian parties, for their part, know full well — as did President Sadat 50 years ago — that only the US holds such leverage.

After destroying Hamas, Israel will need security and political arrangements that drastically reduce its security vulnerability. Only the US can lead a pragmatic Arab coalition that will take upon itself the responsibility for civilian administration in Gaza and strengthen the capacity of a revitalized Palestinian Authority to govern the West Bank, and possibly Gaza as well in time. The US might also be able to lead or at least build a combined Western-Arab international force to take care of security issues inside Gaza, while the IDF would be in charge of defending — forcefully and with a powerful deployment — Israel’s borders with Gaza. At any rate, in order to mobilize international and regional engagement in the new civilian, financial and security arrangements in Gaza, there need to be political horizons of some kind of diplomatic process for addressing the Palestinian issue even if this process takes quite a bit of time.

American interest in, and capacity to advance, such a diplomatic process after the war is the key element that will make Israeli-Palestinian-Arab peace possible. This process will have to address the major shortcoming of the Abraham Accords: the marginalization of the Palestinian issue. The two-state vision seems completely unrealistic today, but rising American interest in advancing a diplomatic process can make the fulfillment of this vision more likely in the long run.

Benjamin Miller is a professor of international relations and Director of the National Security Center at the University of Haifa. His most recent book, Grand Strategy from Truman to Trump (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2020) focuses on explaining changes in US grand strategy. A version of this article was originally published by The BESA Center.

The post 1973 vs. 2023: Could Aftermath of Gaza War Lead to Diplomatic Breakthrough? first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Iranian Media Claims Obtaining ‘Sensitive’ Israeli Intelligence Materials

FILE PHOTO: The atomic symbol and the Iranian flag are seen in this illustration, July 21, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo

i24 NewsIranian and Iran-affiliated media claimed on Saturday that the Islamic Republic had obtained a trove of “strategic and sensitive” Israeli intelligence materials related to Israel’s nuclear facilities and defense plans.

“Iran’s intelligence apparatus has obtained a vast quantity of strategic and sensitive information and documents belonging to the Zionist regime,” Iran’s state broadcaster said, referring to Israel in the manner accepted in those Muslim or Arab states that don’t recognize its legitimacy. The statement was also relayed by the Lebanese site Al-Mayadeen, affiliated with the Iran-backed jihadists of Hezbollah.

The reports did not include any details on the documents or how Iran had obtained them.

The intelligence reportedly included “thousands of documents related to that regime’s nuclear plans and facilities,” it added.

According to the reports, “the data haul was extracted during a covert operation and included a vast volume of materials including documents, images, and videos.”

The report comes amid high tensions over Iran’s nuclear program, over which it is in talks with the US administration of President Donald Trump.

Iranian-Israeli tensions reached an all-time high since the October 7 massacre and the subsequent Gaza war, including Iranian rocket fire on Israel and Israeli aerial raids in Iran that devastated much of the regime’s air defenses.

Israel, which regards the prospect of the antisemitic mullah regime obtaining a nuclear weapon as an existential threat, has indicated it could resort to a military strike against Iran’s installations should talks fail to curb uranium enrichment.

The post Iranian Media Claims Obtaining ‘Sensitive’ Israeli Intelligence Materials first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Israel Retrieves Body of Thai Hostage from Gaza

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz looks on, amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, in Jerusalem, Nov. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun

The Israeli military has retrieved the body of a Thai hostage who had been held in Gaza since Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack, Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Saturday.

Nattapong Pinta’s body was held by a Palestinian terrorist group called the Mujahedeen Brigades, and was recovered from the area of Rafah in southern Gaza, Katz said. His family in Thailand has been notified.

Pinta, an agricultural worker, was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz, a small Israeli community near the Gaza border where a quarter of the population was killed or taken hostage during the Hamas attack that triggered the devastating war in Gaza.

Israel’s military said Pinta had been abducted alive and killed by his captors, who had also killed and taken to Gaza the bodies of two more Israeli-American hostages that were retrieved earlier this week.

There was no immediate comment from the Mujahedeen Brigades, who have previously denied killing their captives, or from Hamas. The Israeli military said the Brigades were still holding the body of another foreign national. Only 20 of the 55 remaining hostages are believed to still be alive.

The Mujahedeen Brigades also held and killed Israeli hostage Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, according to Israeli authorities. Their bodies were returned during a two-month ceasefire, which collapsed in March after the two sides could not agree on terms for extending it to a second phase.

Israel has since expanded its offensive across the Gaza Strip as US, Qatari and Egyptian-led efforts to secure another ceasefire have faltered.

US-BACKED AID GROUP HALTS DISTRIBUTIONS

The United Nations has warned that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli blockade of the enclave, with the rate of young children suffering from acute malnutrition nearly tripling.

Aid distribution was halted on Friday after the US-and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said overcrowding had made it unsafe to continue operations. It was unclear whether aid had resumed on Saturday.

The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, overseeing a new model of aid distribution which the United Nations says is neither impartial nor neutral. It says it has provided around 9 million meals so far.

The Israeli military said on Saturday that 350 trucks of humanitarian aid belonging to U.N. and other international relief groups were transferred this week via the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza.

The war erupted after Hamas-led terrorists took 251 hostages and killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, in the October 7, 2023 attack, Israel’s single deadliest day.

The post Israel Retrieves Body of Thai Hostage from Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say

Palestinians carry aid supplies which they received from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in the central Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed/File Photo

The State Department is weighing giving $500 million to the new foundation providing aid to war-shattered Gaza, according to two knowledgeable sources and two former US officials, a move that would involve the US more deeply in a controversial aid effort that has been beset by violence and chaos.

The sources and former US officials, all of whom requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that money for Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) would come from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which is being folded into the US State Department.

The plan has met resistance from some US officials concerned with the deadly shootings of Palestinians near aid distribution sites and the competence of the GHF, the two sources said.

The GHF, which has been fiercely criticized by humanitarian organizations, including the United Nations, for an alleged lack of neutrality, began distributing aid last week amid warnings that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli aid blockade, which was lifted on May 19 when limited deliveries were allowed to resume.

The foundation has seen senior personnel quit and had to pause handouts twice this week after crowds overwhelmed its distribution hubs.

The State Department and GHF did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Reuters has been unable to establish who is currently funding the GHF operations, which began in Gaza last week. The GHF uses private US security and logistics companies to transport aid into Gaza for distribution at so-called secure distribution sites.

On Thursday, Reuters reported that a Chicago-based private equity firm, McNally Capital, has an “economic interest” in the for-profit US contractor overseeing the logistics and security of GHF’s aid distribution hubs in the enclave.

While US President Donald Trump’s administration and Israel say they don’t finance the GHF operation, both have been pressing the United Nations and international aid groups to work with it.

The US and Israel argue that aid distributed by a long-established U.N. aid network was diverted to Hamas. Hamas has denied that.

USAID has been all but dismantled. Some 80 percent of its programs have been canceled and its staff face termination as part of President Donald Trump’s drive to align US foreign policy with his “America First” agenda.

One source with knowledge of the matter and one former senior official said the proposal to give the $500 million to GHF has been championed by acting deputy USAID Administrator Ken Jackson, who has helped oversee the agency’s dismemberment.

The source said that Israel requested the funds to underwrite GHF’s operations for 180 days.

The Israeli government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The two sources said that some US officials have concerns with the plan because of the overcrowding that has affected the aid distribution hubs run by GHF’s contractor, and violence nearby.

Those officials also want well-established non-governmental organizations experienced in running aid operations in Gaza and elsewhere to be involved in the operation if the State Department approves the funds for GHF, a position that Israel likely will oppose, the sources said.

The post US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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