Hamas attacks were “one of the most successful Arab operations”

O October 7 was “one of the most successful Arab operations in a thousand years” and a disaster with global war potential, according to historian Simon Sebag Montefiore, who, alternatively, also sees “an opportunity” for the Middle East.

The 61 year-old British best seller, who has already written about the Romanov dynasty, Stalin or the biography of Jerusalem, was in Lisbon this week for the launch of his new work “The Cauldron – The formation of the present Middle East, 1900-2026”.

The book (edited by the Planet) is part of the end of the Ottoman empire and division of the territory by the European powers to the most contemporary events, including the attacks led by the Palestinian Islamist group Hamas on October 7, 2023 in Israel, which burned down the region.

“It’s a kind of guide to how we’ve come so far,” sums up the historian from Cambridge University and translated into 48 languages, in an interview with the Lusa agency, about a book that I’ve always wanted to read but didn’t find, about a wider Middle East, “that speaks both of Turkey and Iran, Sudan and Israel, and so on.”.

Throughout the nearly 500 pages of his new work, Simon Sebag Montefiore is set on very current events, such as the October 7 attacks, which he defines as “one of the most successful Arab military operations in the last thousand years.”.

The actions of the Gaza Strip militias were designed “to revive and mobilize Palestinian resistance,” as well as to inspire support for their cause in the West, and to undermine Abraham’s Accords on normalization of the Arab world with Israel – “and this resulted,” it analyzes three years later.

At the same time, “it proved incredibly counterproductive and disastrous for tens of thousands of Palestinians”, who were killed in the Israeli offensive that followed on the territory.

“It has also been disastrous for Israel,” he notes, in pointing out a country “traumaized and brutalized” by Hamas attacks, adding that the events of that morning in 2023 led Iranians and Israelis to “a direct war and that is not what Iran intended, because it put the whole regime at risk.”.

In this sense, it was also a starting point for “the United States to get involved” and a “threat that undermines the paradigm of all Arab states in the Gulf, which were the most successful in the region”.

At this point, the “caldeirão” can become a “ignition to a global war”, in the face of the “real danger” that all conflicts that cross the region can unite in something “wider and deeper” and that goes beyond the Middle East itself.

The historian points out the existence of less common actors such as Pakistanis and even Ukrainians in Arabia, Greeks, Turks and Indians, and the outbreak of “a very violent and multifaceted war” in East Africa. And that means that “these regions are now linked in a way that they were not before the Middle East”, which, in turn and as a result of this involvement, has “been larger”.

This “disastrous” potential that emerged from the 7th of October, coexists in parallel and in opposition to “the opportunity to redefine the region in a way that you may not even be able to imagine at the moment,” he highlights.

In concrete terms, it lists southern Europe and Asia and the African continent as potential new players and “other possibilities and combinations” that bring “a stabilizing factor and something constructive”.

Montefiore considers that the war in Ukraine, triggered by the Russian invasion in February 2022, and October 7 in the Middle East are redefined moments and “two sides of the same coin, such as attempts to undermine what was established after World War II and which lasted 50 or 60 years”.

As a result of recent events in the Middle East, “the United States will find it very difficult to disengage” from the region when “important news” arrives from Washington after the mid-term elections to Congress, which gave the Democratic opposition victory to White House leader Donald Trump.

“ But it is absolutely necessary that the United States be in the Middle East, a moderate United States, which obviously, under the very unpredictable leadership of Donald Trump, is not the case,” he says.

Laws in Israel on 27 October set aside the Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, before the real possibility of being removed as the opposition seeks to constitute an alternative of power.

If Trump and Netanyahu came out of the equation, two “extremely important” personalities also disappear to the Middle East, as it is a region that works on the basis of “power” and even of personal dimensions.

“ This makes a huge difference because in the last two years we have had the most powerful President in the history of the United States, at least in a period of peace,” he says.

The U.S. midwayers held on Tuesday brought a new scenario, in which “democracy has again asserted itself”, and this will also be “a reason for encouragement for everyone in the Middle East, even if Trump continues “with his finger on the trigger”.

But in the long term and from the perspective of a historian, who does not look “in terms of exact events or minute by minute”, it was known that “American democracy was not as hurt as thought.”.

Back in the “Caldeirão”, Simon Sebag Montefiore sees “an expanding region, with many components and facets constantly changing”, and insists that they can either evolve into a “great danger” or “an excellent opportunity” to reconfigure the region.

“ Obviously, this involves some kind of process involving the Palestinians, it also means preventing Iran from becoming a nuclear power and stopping Iran’s neo-imperialist policy of promoting radical resistance throughout the region,” he said.

However, he warns that both situations “are extremely difficult, and it would be childish to believe that there can be an easy solution for either”.

But politics “has to do with what is possible, and the two processes could calm the situation in the Middle East,” he continues.

The author puts the solution of two states, with Israel and Palestine side by side, as a central theme and “only answer”, although he does not use that expression in his writings.

“Part of the problem lies in what a state is in the 21st century and what a solution is, and both concepts need to be re-examined to understand what they mean,” he warns.

In any event, he identifies himself as a “defender of self-determination for the Palestinians and self-determination for the Israelis” and an entity representing both peoples.