Hamas terror attack plunges Israel into war

This is Iain Martin’s weekly newsletter, exclusively for Reaction subscribers.

Fifty years ago this month the Israeli state was caught out by its enemies in an attack which had enormous ramifications. In the Yom Kippur war, Egyptian and Syrian forces ended a ceasefire suddenly and attacked across the Sinai Peninsula and in the Golan Heights. Israel fought back, but was shaken. The Israeli and US intelligence failure to anticipate the threat was chastening.

Now, on the fiftieth anniversary, something similar has happened again. Overnight on Friday and early on Saturday morning, the terrorist organisation Hamas launched an attack, unleashing 5000 rockets from the Gaza Strip, with terrorists breaking through the perimeter fence and capturing villages.

There are reports of hostages being taken back into Gaza, with pictures and video on Hamas social media of the Palestinians rounding up Israeli soldiers and civilians. At the time of writing, Israel says at least 22 Israelis have been killed. Hundreds more are reported to be in hospital.

Incidentally, the BBC is still in its headlines calling Hamas “militants” rather than terrorists.

In their statements, Rishi Sunak, Britain’s PM, and President Macron of France rightly condemned it as terrorism.

The Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised a retaliatory war against a murderous attack. “We are in a war and we will win it,” he said.

We can expect that retaliation and bloodshed to involve a major offensive in the Gaza Strip, with air strikes and targeted assassinations, though it will take place with the complication of hostages being held. It is unclear whether Hezbollah in the north, with an arsenal supplied by Iran, will now join in. If it does, Israel will once again find itself attacked from several angles.

The role of Iran is critical.

Hamas has long been funded and armed by the autocrats in Iran. Hamas rockets are built to Iranian designs. It had been reported in December last year that Iran had cut or reduced funding to the terrorist group, prompting a financial crisis in the affairs of Hamas. Was that a bluff? Has aid to the terrorists intensified again? It looks like it. In the hours after the attack, the Iranian regime congratulated Hamas and said it was proud of its allies.

Israel, a democracy, has certainly been distracted, with the country split in recent months over controversial judicial reforms. Warnings have been ignored.

The Israeli and US intelligence agencies having failed to anticipate this incursion will be pressed now, in febrile circumstances, to come up with explanations.

We are also seeing another ripple from the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the disintegration of what used to be termed the rules-based international order, with terrorists and autocrats tempted and emboldened to try to get what they want.

This terrorist attack on Israel and the coming war in Gaza is potentially disastrous for the Biden administration. Recent attempts to thaw relations with Tehran involved the White House agreeing to unfreeze Iranian assets in return for a prisoner swap. There was even naive talk this “progress” would lead to a fresh nuclear deal.

And this is the result.

Critics of the administration, including the Republican frontrunner Donald Trump, will say that attempts to appease Iran have only been interpreted as weakness and encouraged aggression against a democracy that is today under attack.

Earthquake Labour win boosts Starmer, the Union and European security

One of the most delicious aspects of the SNP’s humiliation in the Rutherglen and Hamilton West by-election on Thursday has been the way in which it has revealed that leading Nationalists are struggling to process the enormity of what has just happened to them and their cause.

On broadcast media coverage several senior nationalists put on performances of such insousience and arrogance that any watching Unionist could only think as follows: this is terrific for us, as well as being hilarious. When the Nats should be reflecting with humility they are making it even worse by failing to respond to the message being sent by the Scottish voters. Such knuckleheadness after a landmark defeat is a sure sign that a ruling regime is in the advanced stages of decay, and likely in a worse position than it has yet realised.

It should be obvious how bad it is. Former first minister Nicola Sturgeon waits to find out whether or not she will be charged after a police investigation into SNP finances. Meanwhile, the Nationalist record on education, health and the economy is widely accepted to be dire.

Yet the SNP has lived so long now with the idea it is dominant in Scotland that it has grown complacent and vain.

There should be no doubt the result on Thursday was a repudiation of all their self-regard. This was a crushing defeat, a proper electoral earthquake.

Labour secured a majority of more than 9,000 on a swing of more than 20%. If Labour replicated a swing anything like that across Scotland in next year’s general election then the party would win perhaps as many as 40 seats north of the border, making it much easier for Sir Keir Starmer to win an overall majority in the UK. The SNP, the party that wants to leave the UK, would be reduced to a rump at Westminster, even if it remained in charge, for now, of the devolved Scottish parliament in Edinburgh.

Even a swing short of that, bringing him twenty or so seats north of the border at the general election, will help Starmer, a lot. At Tory conference this week I heard it said, sometimes by myself, that Starmer has not yet established a robust connection with the voters. While it is true there is limited enthusiasm for what he offers, Rutherglen is evidence that the electorate is perfectly comfortable with the idea of using him as the vehicle to run over the Conservative party.

In this way, Starmer goes into Labour conference – taking place in Liverpool – with his status and reputation as a winner enhanced.

For the Union, this is a fantastic result that has cheered those who want the UK to survive, across the Unionist parties. Ever since devolution handed the SNP a chance to take over governance in Scotland and use it as a battering ram against the UK, it has been a common refrain of commentators (many in London) talking almost gleefully about the break up of the country as though it is inevitable.

Now, Britain is safe from the possibility of break up for at least a decade and quite possibly more than that if SNP disintegration continues.

There is – as they say – no room for complacency. Even when one asks voters about Scottish independence and poses the question properly a major part of Scottish opinion still wants to break up. Ask if Scotland should be independent and the Union lead is narrow. That was the question – yes or no – used in the 2014 referendum.

Posing it as leave or remain and the gap widens. This is what Unionists should keep hammering. Independence is vague. Who doesn’t value independence? 

Do you want to leave the UK? That is a much better and more accurate way to frame it. Leaving the UK, the British Army, the UK single market, the UK banking union, is obviously a terrible idea, especially during a time of such international upheaval.

Even so, when the pollster Survation earlier this year used the better question – leave or remain – came up with 41% wanting to leave, against 59% wanting to Remain. That’s still two in five Scots wanting to leave the UK, even when it is clearly a dud notion.

Among young Scots in particular, Unionists have a lot of work to do to persuade them long-term they should want to stay. If there is a Labour government coming, one of its most sombre responsibilities will be to embed the idea that the UK is a valuable concept, showing Westminster and Holyrood can cooperate and work together rather than be bogged down in SNP-style grievance politics.

A trail has been blazed in this regard by the Tory Scottish Secretary Allister Jack. He has not only been tough in taking on the SNP, he has stressed the partnership benefits of the UK.

There is also a geopolitical dimension to this victory for the Union. That might sound like a ludicrous way to speak about a by-election which was a local street fight where defence and security did not figure.

A separatist anti-nuclear Scotland would be a major security challenge, weakening NATO’s northern flank in the Atlantic and distracting what would be left of the rest of the UK just when northern European states such as the UK, Sweden, Finland and Poland are trying to concentrate on building up capacity and cooperation. Scotland would have to build its own forces and intelligence capability, while disengaging from the rump rest of the UK and kicking the nuclear deterrent off Scottish soil. A breakaway Scotland might or might not have joined NATO. The chaos would be welcomed by the Kremlin.

Instead, the breakup of Britain has been seen off, for now and for quite some time to come. It’s good news.

Autumn in Paris

To Paris this week on a trip with colleagues, where we took part in a seminar for a couple of days. The programme involved a journey by boat down the Seine, a surprisingly pleasant way to see the French capital from an unusual angle. And we had lunch on the way.

On the riverbank on each side rises mile after mile of architectural perfection cast in Paris stone, the Lutetian limestone which is such a feature of the centre of the city. From the mid-19th century Paris was remade to a plan designed by Haussmann. The buildings are proportioned perfectly for city living.

And then the traveller taking the boat gets further up river. The elegant buildings thin out and the skyline changes on passing into the design universe of the mid to late 20th century. 

What a contrast it is. The beauty of Haussmann’s Paris fades away into  modernist and then post-modernist architecture that at its worst looks like hell cast in concrete. 

Perhaps the ugliest of the newer buildings you see from this section of the river is a concrete monstrosity with lorry access visible and lime green plastic casing added. It is, and how delicious the irony, the Paris Fashion and Design Centre. But of course.

The boat turned around and back we headed to the beautiful centre, where we visited the French army museum and Napoleon’s tomb. At the tomb they have spoiled the entrance by adding a desk at the front selling tat, including a Napoleon cuddly toy. The Emperor was not cuddly.

What I’m reading

Nothing this week other than the newspapers, with so much news going on. 

I gave up on Isabel Colegate’s The Blackmailer last weekend. I usually like her novels but couldn’t get this one to work for me. Set in a publishing house in the 1950s, it reminded me of an early imperfect, jumpy attempt at replicating the work of the great Simon Raven. And then I realised like a fool that Colegate’s first novel in 1958 preceded Raven by at a least a year.

Colegate worked in partnership in the 1950s with the publisher Anthony Blond. They set up a publishing house together and were pioneers, part of an exciting crowd. The novels that resulted always strike me as a much better guide to what the 1950s in London were really like than some of the more nostalgic takes. The country was broke and there were a lot of people on the make.

It seems likely Raven drew as much inspiration from Colegate as the other way round.

Still couldn’t get on with that novel though.

What I’m watching

Lloyd Cole, one of my favourite songwriters, on tour. On Friday he played Newcastle with two former members of the Commotions, the band he had success with in the 1980s. We were there with old friends.

Then it’s all about the rugby. Scotland play Ireland in the world cup on Saturday evening, and I’ll admit I’m not looking forward to it. To progress and not be knocked out we Scots need to score a lot of tries against perhaps the best side in the world. Oh ye of little faith, I hear some of the Scots among you say. Others, familiar thanks to decades of experience of being a Scotland fan, will share my scepticism. Come on Scotland, prove me wrong.

Have a good weekend.

Iain Martin,
Publisher and CEO,
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