The Earthquakes in Gaza and Israel

Moisés Naím / El Pais

Earthquakes are geological surprises and human tragedies. They produce enormous suffering and massive damage. But they also reveal hidden truths about the deepest recesses of the planet. For scientists, an earthquake opens up a window into what’s happening under the earth’s crust.

On October 7th of last year, a savage human earthquake shook Israel. In addition to causing immense pain, it revealed many truths about what many think rather than say. We now know, for example, that anti-Semitism is much more common and widespread than it seemed. It has always been around, but after the Second World War and the vast international condemnation of the Holocaust, a great deal of that anti-Semitic behavior has been suppressed, hidden or disguised. Not anymore.

Shortly after the October 7th massacre, the streets of many cities around the world were filled with people protesting against Israel and, surprisingly, supporting the Hamas killers.

And so the government of Israel, instead of having the support of world opinion, faced massive repudiation from countries, organizations and groups that hate it. To a large extent, this condemnation already existed, but the earthquake brought it to the surface. The earthquake also highlighted Israel's military and intelligence failures. This is another surprise, since Israeli soldiers and spies have long been considered by allies and rivals as the best in the world.

Not anymore. The October 7th attacks took them by surprise. They had trouble mounting a response to protect their citizens and regain control of the territory invaded by Hamas. And they are still struggling to rescue the hostages taken that day. Meanwhile, the bombing of Gaza, with its immense human and material losses, contributes further to the deterioration of the Israeli government’s international reputation.

Weaker aftershocks usually occur in the days after an earthquake, and they are also revealing. For example, the massacre unraveled the inner workings of some of the world’s most prestigious universities. When questioned by Congress, the presidents of Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania did their best not to answer whether students and professors within their institutions were allowed to advocate for the extermination of a given group of people. Both refused to answer the question. And both leaders had to resign due to the public outcry that followed. It should be noted that the departure of Harvard president Claudine Gay was also due to her political enemies discovering academic texts in which she appears as an author and that include paragraphs copied and used without crediting the initial author. 

But the earthquake not only unearthed new information about the mediocre process that elite American universities follow to elect their leaders. Indeed, much more serious than the embarrassment of a handful of university authorities has been the catastrophic performance of 'Bibi' Netanyahu.

Through his long political career, the Israeli prime minister has meticulously crafted for himself the image of champion of Israel's security: the most hawkish of the hawks. The earthquake of October 7th revealed the emptiness of that pose. In reality, while Hamas was busy stealing every dollar or euro that came to it from the United Nations, the European Union and Qatar and diverting them to arm itself and train its terrorists, 'Bibi' Netanyahu was focused on something else: the consolidation of his power and the weakening of the institutional checks and balances that could limit it. While Hamas was building an impressive network of hundreds of kilometers of tunnels under Gaza to house its militants and store their supplies, 'Bibi' Netanyahu dedicated his energies to expanding settlements in the West Bank, hand in hand with the most extreme and chauvinist voices in his coalition.

The most hawkish of the hawks turned a blind eye to the warnings of his security services. They alerted him that Hamas was up to something and conducting unusual training exercises. Netanyahu's indifference to this call was fueled by his desire to keep Gaza and the West Bank separate, each under a different authority. To achieve this, he needed Gaza to remain under Hamas rule. His role as a political accomplice to the October 7th attacks is no longer in doubt.

The old covert anti-Semitism is, thus, strengthened by Hamas’s terrorism and by the errors of an Israeli government that has lost its democratic rudder. And this, ultimately, is the deepest of the truths revealed by the earthquake of October 7th: that by placing itself under a government that undermines institutions, Israel puts at risk not only its democracy, but its security as well.