The brutal execution of whole villages, the detention of young children and the parading of half-naked women seemed like scenes from a Viking raid of the middle ages. These unspeakable atrocities were then wilfully ignored, or even celebrated, by a bigoted group of protestors on the steps of the Sydney Opera House.
It is a tough week to be a member of the human race.
But as tough as it is, worse could be yet to come if we do not temper the understandable and emotive desire for revenge with a cool, hard calculation of what should happen next.
Many have described the barbarity committed by Hamas as Israel’s 9/11 moment. The comparison is apt and so we should reflect on the errors we made in response to that world shattering event.
I remember the rage felt after the twin towers fell. We let that rage dictate decisions and we made catastrophic errors.
America was right to hold al Qaeda to account for the attacks and pursue them in their hideouts in Afghanistan. But then we went too far and supported two unwise occupations (in Afghanistan and Iraq) that took two decades, trillions of dollars and thousands of lives before culminating in failure.
We should support Israel to pursue the perpetrators of this week’s attacks on innocent women and children. Australia has designated Hamas as a terrorist organisation for the last 20 years. This latest outburst of terror from them deserves a swift and brutal response. The clear goal should be to cripple these outlaws just as happened to al Qaeda in the wake of September 11.
But we should not play into the hands of Hamas who clearly want to generate the kind of over-reaction that could plunge the world into war. Before a week has passed there are already unwise calls to broaden the conflict to attack Iran. Influential US Senator Lindsey Graham has said that the US should bomb Iran if Hezbollah attacks Israel from its northern border of Lebanon. American congressman, Dan Crenshaw, called for the defeat of the Iranian Ayatollah.
It is as if we have all forgotten the term “weapons of mass destruction”.
The costs and fallout of strategic errors made today could be much greater than they were twenty years ago. Back then, the western world was coming out of one of the greatest surges of economic prosperity since the industrial revolution. Government debt levels were low. We had no net public debt in Australia.
We were still basking in the glow of the end the Cold War and the invention of the internet. There were no major conflicts on the eve of September 11.
Today the world is a very different place. Government finances have been wrecked by the global financial crisis and the COVID pandemic. The western world is facing a stalemate in a major war in Ukraine against a nuclear-armed adversary.
Our manufacturing industries have been decimated as we let China into the World Trade Organisation while never making them comply with the rules of that club.
We then doubled down on this folly by signing the Paris Agreement and crippling our energy security. Once again, we have allowed China to ignore the rules as our energy prices have spiralled. China is building two coal fired power stations a week this year.
Any over-reaction in the Middle East, would also further play into China’s hands and could even encourage China to move on Taiwan. That risks a much bigger and devastating conflict.
We simply do not have the resources to respond as we would like to every example of man’s inhumanity to man. Over the past few months, Azerbaijan has conducted a brutal campaign against Armenian Christians. Over 100,000 Armenians have been expelled from their homes yet this humanitarian crisis has received almost no coverage in the western media.
Like the Jewish people, Armenian Christians have suffered a history of genocidal attempts on their existence. Ironically, Israel has provided Azerbaijan the arms to commit this latest round of oppression. Azerbaijan is a major supplier of gas to Israel.
The main realisation of this week is that we cannot always impose our wish for peace everywhere and. It is a sobering and frustrating reality. It is partly a limit we have imposed on ourselves because of our hubris on energy, climate and security matters over the past generation. We must make decisions with a clear understanding of these limits before more mistakes cause a wider conflict and possibly even another world war, which would cost many more innocent lives.
