In 2014, a new state was formed in the heart of the Middle East. It had a capital, a government, an army and almost 12 million subjects — a larger population than Jordan or Israel. It also had a commitment to butchery, savagery and fanatical violence that quickly earned it the enmity of the entire civilized world.
That universal enmity made it hard to imagine how this state of many names — the Islamic State, ISIS, Daesh — could long survive. At the time I offered a speculative analogy to the Bolsheviks in Russia, another ruthless bunch of revolutionary terrorists who faced general opprobrium and foreign interventions, but survived to govern Russia for several generations.
But in the event the more plausible scenario unfolded. By refusing even a sheen of moderation, by shocking the conscience of the world while seeking direct confrontation with Western power, the Islamic State enjoyed a temporary recruitment boom followed by a crushing extirpation. Even a weakened American empire in a more multipolar world was able to draw a circle around its barbarism and drive it back into statelessness by force of arms.
That antecedent hangs over the current crisis in Israel and Palestine. The atrocities perpetrated by Hamas against innocent Israelis, the snuff films, mutilations and delight in simple cruelty, inspired immediate analogies to the Islamic State’s depredations. They also raised a question about Hamas’s strategy. Was this, as some averred, a desperate but calculated leap to barbarism, undertaken on the theory that only true grisliness would yield the kind of Israeli reaction required to scuttle peacemaking between Israel and its Arab neighbors?
We are confirming your access to this article, this will take just a moment. However, if you are using Reader mode please log in, subscribe, or exit Reader mode since we are unable to verify access in that state.
Confirming article access.
If you are a subscriber, please log in.