In a season when the triumph of good over evil is celebrated throughout India, it is worth sparing a thought to similar endeavours in a not-too-distant part of the world.

The first anniversary of the unprovoked attack on Israeli civilians across the Gaza Strip by the soldiers of Hamas was observed in different ways by the victims and the perpetrators. For those Jews, whether in Israel or in the diaspora, who either lost their loved ones in the attack or who were taken hostage and either subsequently killed or bundled into deep tunnels, it was a moment of deep reflection. The assault on Israel on a public holiday when young men and women were letting their hair down is understood to have been the most sustained attack on Jews since the Holocaust. It reminded the Jewish community that the anti-Semitism that was deemed to have been banished into the dark world is not only alive but also being celebrated.

This was evident when the events of October 7, 2023, triggered massive demonstrations and campus protests across the Western world in support of the perpetrators of the killings and the kidnappings. The young protestors wearing keffiyeh as a fashion statement and waving the flag of Palestine weren’t merely celebrating the military success of an underdog, they were simultaneously taunting the Jews. In a pro-Hamas demonstration in New York’s Columbia University where, presumably, the best and the brightest find place, Jews were openly mocked and told to go back to Poland — a country that witnessed some of the worst massacres of Jews during the Holocaust. The all-pervasive chant in demonstrations from New York to Sydney was similar: “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” Translated into plain language, it meant that from the River Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea, there is no space for Israel. The two-state solution that occasionally appears during polite conversations doesn’t feature when the faithful show their clout on the streets of Western democracies.

It has been a profound change from the late 1970s and the 1980s when Yasser Arafat was seeking respectability for his Palestine Liberation Organization. At that time, the chant was for a ‘democratic Palestine’ and a ‘secular Palestine’. Now, his politically helpless successor, Mahmoud Abbas, does not even feature in anyone’s consciousness. The Palestinian leadership has been captured by those whose hot-headed extremism will ensure the demise of the semblance of the State that nominally exists in the West Bank.

The Hamas assault on Israel a year ago may in hindsight appear as an act of adventurism for which thousands of innocent Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, not to mention civilians in Lebanon, have had to pay a very heavy price. However, when the Hamas leadership undertook its audacious plan, it was based on certain calculations. First, it was understood that decades of war and low-intensity conflict had undermined the resolve of young Israelis. The prevailing wisdom was that a new generation, softened by a prosperity that wasn’t there for the pioneers of the Jewish State, was constantly in search of soft options. Secondly, the political turbulence around the continuance in office of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu may have convinced many Israel-watchers that the country was at its most vulnerable and would be unable to respond with characteristic determination in the event of a crisis. Finally, the presence of a weak administration in Washington — buffeted between conflicting pressures — was thought to argue against the full-fledged support that Israel and its supporters had taken for granted. The kid gloves with which the Joe Biden administration had approached negotiations with Iran and even its rag-tag proxy in Yemen may have even convinced the Palestinian strategists that a blitzkrieg operation across the Gaza Strip followed by appeals for cease-fire and negotiations aimed at securing the release of hostages would allow Hamas to gain the initiative. The pro-Hamas demonstrations that happened in the West in the aftermath of October 7 were aimed at weakening the Israeli resolve.

It is conceivable that in another season, these assumptions would have been spot on. Israel may indeed have been forced on the back foot and pressured into negotiating from a position of weakness. However, what the sustained Israeli response spread over a year, and with no end in sight, demonstrated was that confronted with issues of its very survival and integrity, there is nothing to distinguish its present political leadership from those in the past that ensured Israel’s famous victories in 1948 and in 1967.

There is not a shred of doubt that the Hamas raid on the morning of October 7 took Israel by total surprise. It was a complete failure of intelligence and even the military response was inadequate. However, this prompted the erroneous conclusion that the likes of Mossad were well past their prime and that Israel suffered from the same human frailties as its neighbours. Events have not only proved the Israel-sceptics wrong but the Jewish State has also hit back with such targeted devastation that there is now real speculation over the future of the Islamic regime in Tehran.

Of course, a regime change in Tehran that the small handful of pro-monarchists have hoped for since 1980 may still be a distant dream. However, the way in which Israel has decimated the Hamas and the Hezbollah leaderships right under the eyes of their Iranian controllers has given the Jewish State a booster dose of respect. Add to this the tested efficacy of the Iron Dome that has protected Israel from sustained missile attacks originating from Lebanon and Iran and it will be possible to gauge the way the political future of West Asia has been redrawn by Israel in the past year. It is also important to note that the destruction of the leadership and the military capacity of the Hezbollah, not to mention the defanging of Tehran, has secured the silent approval of the Sunni leadership of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Jordan and Egypt. There are sections in Lebanon that too are hoping for a demilitarised future for the country.

Finally, the apparently beleaguered Netanyahu has shown that the present US administration no longer has the capacity to shape the course of events in another corner of the world. It may have been different had Biden not been a lame-duck occupant of the White House but it is only after the votes have been tabulated on November 5 that we will be able to firmly assess the extent to which Israel has really reshaped West Asia.