Israel – I Was Wrong

I moved to Israel for a 2-year exchange assignment in the summer of 2000. Just weeks later, the Second Intifada began, lasting years. Months later, I “sheltered in place” in Haifa at the direction of our Embassy during 9/11. I moved to Israel again in June 2006 for a 4-year stint at the U.S. Embassy. Just weeks after arriving, the “Second Lebanon War” between Israel and Hizballah began, lasting 34 days. I sheltered in a stairwell with a colleague at the Bahai Gardens as Hizballah rockets raked Haifa in the north. I moved to Amman, Jordan in summer 2014 for a second assignment at an Embassy. In that first week of arrival, ISIS swept through Iraq, threatened to overtake Baghdad and beyond, in a conflict which lasted years and still remains in Iraq, Syria, and elsewhere. I helped the transition of the Royal Jordanian Air Force (RJAF) to a combat air force, and served center-stage in the December 24th, 2014 downing of RJAF F-16 pilot Lt Moath al Kasasbeh, his subsequent immolation, and the carefully planned Jordanian response.

I’m not unique. Anyone with time in Israel or Jordan has seen their share of conflicts over the years and decades. I shared my experiences with my last boss, U.S. Central Command Commander General Michael “Erik” Kurilla. I told him I didn’t believe you would see a Third Intifada, not with the latest Israeli infrastructure and intelligence, capabilities and contacts, developed from years of conflict in Gaza and the West Bank. But then I saw violence escalate, and I realized the conditions that led to the Second Intifada were evident again. Kindling stacked on kindling, waiting for a spark. This in addition to a fractured Israeli populace – old guard politicians cobbling questionable coalitions, activist settlers setting literal fires, troubled reservists refusing service, and energized dissidents hijacking highways. Chaos at home, and hazards all around. I amended my assessment to the CENTCOM Commander – today’s youth weren’t around during the Second Intifada. They don’t know the price paid, by all peoples. These new Palestinian rock throwers don’t recall the subsequent suffering, and these Israeli conscripts can’t understand the dangers of riding a bus. I started to anticipate a fight.

But I can’t lie – I expected patterns of the immediate past. An incident, a response, an escalation, a tipping over into a sustained conflict. A spark among the kindling, growing to a brush fire. That’s always the pattern, right? I stood on one of those bombed out observation towers not long ago. I looked down while Hamas looked up. I saw the full array of Israeli encirclement, of Palestinian workers crossing through Erez and pocketing larger profits, and I believed the incentives and disincentives equated to semi-stability. An occasional skirmish, but nothing more. The pattern of the last two decades.

I was wrong. Israel was wrong. Like 9/11, on 10/7 most of us were wrong in anticipating the severity of an attack. Kindling wasn’t sparked – it was dumped on with gasoline and a flame thrower taken to it. Hundreds upon hundreds of Israelis died as a result. And hundreds upon hundreds of Palestinians are about to die in response.

The pattern did repeat. It just took 50 years to repeat, in intensity, in scale. I expected 2000, but we got 1973. A war among the holidays.

I’m sorry, Israel. My experience is short, and I was wrong in my assessment.

Now in the present, it’s back to the past.