Some observers have compared the shock of the October 7 Hamas attack on Israel with the trauma America experienced on 9/11. The assault was a colossal surprise to Israeli leaders, which is hard to explain given the presumed capabilities of Israeli intelligence and the violent ideology of groups like Hamas.
It will take some time to sort out how such a catastrophe could occur and what Israel should do about it. The taking of hostages might result in a prolonged political crisis, and the repercussions for relations between the U.S. and other regional powers such as Saudi Arabia and Iran might be profound.
Relatively little has been heard thus far about what implications Israel’s trauma might have for how the U.S. approaches its own domestic security. The geopolitical circumstances of the two countries could hardly be more different, but they share similar political systems, cultural features, and levels of economic development.
They also share some of the same enemies.
So, let’s consider what the contours of the current crisis might imply for America’s domestic security.
Destructive partisanship. Israel has been awash in mass protests and partisan warfare since Benjamin Netanyahu began his sixth term as prime minister late last year. The frictions focus on Netanyahu’s efforts to alter the role of the Supreme Court, but at base, they reflect a deep split over what the character of the Jewish state’s government should be. The controversy has been a continuous distraction from other business—including, perhaps, the country’s security needs.
David Ignatius of the Washington Post wrote on the same day the Hamas attack began, “The country was more divided than I have seen it in more than 40 years of reporting there.” A similar assessment could be made of where America’s political culture stands today.
Partisan controversy is common in democracies, but when differences grow too great, they can impair the functioning of government.
For instance, Senator Tommy Tuberville’s hold on confirmation of senior military officers is preventing over 300 officers from assuming their next assignments—including several top jobs in the Middle East region.
Tuberville’s blockade of promotions springs from a domestic political issue unrelated to security, but it has obvious security implications.
When a political system is so divided that it can’t pass a budget and spends much of its time absorbed in issues like whether the chief executive should be impeached, it is dysfunctional. That’s where America stands today, and it resembles where Israel was on the eve of the Hamas attack.
We may never know how the disarray in Israel’s government influenced the thinking of terrorists, but it’s clear that such distractions do not convey an image of strength or unity.
Rampant misinformation. A sage observer once commented that when war comes, the first casualty is truth. He was referring to the effort of governments to monopolize war information and suppress unfavorable details.
However, the digital era’s democratization of public discourse via social media has made truth an elusive commodity even in peacetime. Misinformation is widespread, and Israel’s war with Hamas is no exception. Within days after the war broke out, critics were assailing Elon Musk’s X for directing users to unreliable sources for news about the conflict.
X under Musk is emblematic of a social-media ecosystem that often values immediacy over reflection, sensation over nuance. 100 hours into the Hamas incursion, the internet was full of tendentious reporting, unfounded rumors and misleading images.
There are still plenty of outlets that try to get the story right—in fact, probably more than ever before—but they must compete with less responsible sources whose failings often are not easy for users to discern.
That makes it difficult for Washington or Tel Aviv to build a credible narrative about the war that can sustain popular support. This is not just a challenge in the current conflict, it will be a recurrent dynamic in future threats to U.S. domestic security, stoked in large measure by today’s extreme partisanship.
Unsecured borders. Israel’s border with Gaza was thought to have a fairly sophisticated security system, complete with high barriers and diverse sensors for detecting attempted incursions. But it proved relatively easy for Hamas fighters to penetrate, resulting in hundreds of civilian deaths and the occupation of multiple villages.
The U.S. southern border, although much longer, has many of the same security features in places where incursions are common, including barriers and cameras on towers. But to say the border is unsecured is an understatement.
The current volume of crossers is the highest ever recorded. On average, 5,700 undocumented immigrants were intercepted every day in August, and many others eluded apprehension. The border patrol is overwhelmed. The potential for violent extremists to enter the U.S. is obvious. They already may have.
Israel learned to its detriment on October 7 that when a nation fails to secure its borders, its security is at risk. The U.S. has yet to heed that lesson. No matter what position the government ultimately adopts on immigration, it is just common sense that a nation needs to know who is entering its territory and how to stop those who may have evil intent.
Civil unpreparedness. The chaos that prevailed among Israeli civilians near the border when Hamas invaded suggests a lack of preparedness for well-documented dangers. Vigilant members of kibbutzim on the West Bank may always have a gun nearby, but in many parts of Israel, guns are not permitted—including the music festival where 260 civilians were murdered.
That’s not necessarily an argument for arming Americans—conditions are different in the two countries—but it does underscore the need for citizens to have some sense of what to do in an emergency. If the U.S. government has a coherent plan for bolstering civilian preparedness, the plan is a well-kept secret.
That’s unsettling because the day may well arrive when the network isn’t available, when the electricity grid goes down, when the water supply is undrinkable. The usual response is to seek assistance from outsiders, but that might not be practical in a national crisis.
The U.S. government doesn’t collect statistics concerning civil preparedness outside a few areas like cybersecurity, but chances are most civilians have only the vaguest idea what to do in a true crisis. The most basic security lesson to learn from Israel this week is that people need a plan to survive when danger arises.
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