Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses the 79th United Nations General Assembly at U.N. headquarters in New York, U.S., September 27, 2024.

A week may be a long time in politics but, in war and diplomacy, a year is a lifetime.

It is now exactly a year since Hamas terrorists entered Israel, murdered 1195 Israeli men, women, and children, and took 250 Israelis hostage.

They had not anticipated that Israel would respond with a full scale invasion of Gaza. That war continues. Only 117 hostages have returned alive to Israel.

Gaza remains occupied; a high proportion of Hamas’s military capability has been destroyed. Ismael Haniyeh, their co-leader, has been assassinated, as have many of their commanders. Around 40,000 Gazans are said to have lost their lives. While Hamas has won support in the court of international public opinion, that has been of negligible benefit to the terrorists cowering in their tunnels.

However, it is not just Hamas who did not anticipate what Gaza would be like a year later.

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While the Israeli Army had warned that the destruction of Hamas and its tunnels would take at least several months, they had not anticipated that, even now, Netanyahu would have made no progress with identifying a new Palestinian civil administration to replace Hamas.

Other aspects of this war have not turned out as expected. Few would have predicted that Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan, and Bahrain, would restrain from withdrawing their recognition of Israel and breaking off relations, despite their deep criticism of her actions in Gaza and the hostility of their own citizens.

The explanation is simple. These Arab states loathe Hamas as much as does Israel. Islamist terrorist organisations like Hamas, ISIS and al Qaeda are the sworn enemies of the Arab Governments and wish to destroy them.

Furthermore, with Israel they share an enemy: Iran. Their enemy’s enemy has become their friend.

Hezbollah has been gravely weakened in recent weeks because of their support for Hamas.

They did not expect the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah and other senior commanders;  nor the remote destruction of their pagers and radios. There was no apparent awareness of Mossad’s high level of penetration into their operation.

Nor was it predicted that Iran would have seen the virtual collapse of its proxy strategy of using others to do its dirty work. Hamas is weaker than ever. Hezbollah may be unable to recover, while the Houthis remain minor players.

Most of all, few had expected Benjamin Netanyahu to be able to recover much of the political strength he had lost in the aftermath of the security and intelligence failure of October 7.  He is now ahead in the polls and his government is stronger than it has been for some time.

What do these developments mean for the immediate future?

The US has influence on the Israelis but cannot impose a veto on their actions. In previous crises, it has often been the case that Israel has deemed its vital national interests to be at stake and declined to follow US advice.

However, American opposition to any attack on Iran’s nuclear assets may be an exception. The Israelis are unlikely to have the military capability alone to destroy the numerous nuclear sites. Most are either underground or otherwise protected. Significant damage could not be inflicted in a single attack. Estimates have suggested a good prospect of destroying Iran’s nuclear weapons potential would take several days of sustained assault, even with US support.

Israel’s conflict with Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Iranians is certain to be continuing after next month’s American Presidential elections are over. If Harris wins, the US might begin to be tougher with the Israelis. But if Trump wins, support for Israel will, if anything, be even more unqualified.

It is too early to judge whether the wish of Iran’s new President to improve relations with the West will collapse in the aftermath of Israel’s likely retaliation for their missile strike. At present, the hardliners have the support of the Supreme Leader.

Netanyahu has not only seen a restoration of some of the popular support that he lost in the aftermath of  October 7^th. The stability of his government has now been enhanced by a deal struck with Gideon Sa’ar’s opposition party to join his government, which has significantly increased his Knesset majority.

That has one welcome benefit. It means that Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich, two Right-wing extremists, can no longer threaten to destroy Netanyahu’s majority by resigning from his government. He would still have a majority without them.

But Netanyahu will never succeed by military means alone. Israel must commit itself to a political dialogue with the Palestinians to explore every possibility. That includes a two state solution that would enable the two peoples to live side by side in harmony.

It is not impossible. Few predicted that the Cold War, apartheid in South Africa, and IRA terrorism would end with peaceful reconciliation within a few years of each other, rather than further killing.

Some might say that that would require a miracle. But “In the Holy Land miracles take longer” as Shimon Peres, the former Israeli statesman, once said to me. It is undeniable that they have happened in the past. Why not again?

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