ThePrint | Iran and Israel don’t have free will to start a war. It’s contingent on geopolitics

Exchange of blows from a distance was the prime characteristic of the latest bout between Iran and Israel. Firepower expressed itself through drones and missiles launched from aerial or land-based platforms. The main difference this time was that both nations attempted to apply military force at targets directly inside the opponents’ territory. The immediate trigger was Israel’s attack on Iran’s consulate in Damascus on 1 April. Iran considered it a violation of its sovereignty according to international legal norms and agreements. Read the full article here.

Mint | Iran-Israel lesson: Effective missile defence is costly and could be risky too

The conflicts between Ukraine and Russia and between Israel and Iran over Palestine have demonstrated that missile defence has come of age. Even before Israel, with the help of the US and its allies, successfully intercepted nearly all of the 320 drones, cruise and ballistic missiles that Iran launched last week, the Ukrainians had reported that they had shot down all 80 of the drones that the Russians had dispatched against them on one New Year’s weekend. Read the full article here.

ThePrint | India-Pakistan can become Israel-Hamas. Lesson is not to fight terrorism by force alone

The Hamas-Israel war has entered its fifth week and deaths of innocent civilians remain the hub of its politico-strategic landscape. The cycle of violence initiated by Hamas on 7 October resulted in nearly 1,200 deaths and the kidnapping of over 200 hostages including children. This invited the Israeli invasion of northern Gaza, which continues to progressively enlarge the boundaries of humanitarian tragedy in Palestine. This article aims to explore the action-reaction cycle in the framework of ‘just war’ tradition, which categorises the moral criteria guiding two types of judgements under the captions of jus ad bellum (right to war) and jus in bello (right in war). It also touches upon the relevance of the issue in the context of India’s approach to Pakistan’s use of terrorism as a foreign policy tool. Read the full article here.

Mint | The world cannot escape repercussions of the ongoing war in West Asia

The externalities of Hamas’s perverse terrorism and Israel’s massive military retaliation will haunt the whole world for at least another generation. The conflict is still in progress, but its course over the past month has already given us three terrible assessments. First, Hamas demonstrated that terrorism can succeed in advancing political objectives. In this, it has reversed the post-9/11 strategic consensus that terrorism is not only ineffective as a political strategy but can delegitimize the political cause it seeks to advance. The world had forgotten the Palestinian cause. A month ago, Israel was close to a rapprochement with Arab powers, while Western powers were focused on Russia, China and Iran, and Palestine was off the global agenda. Even before Hamas invaders were beaten back, the ‘two-state solution’—meaning the creation of a viable Palestinian state—was back in circulation. Read the full article here.

Deccan Herald | Unambiguous on terror, principled on Palestine

Within hours of the Hamas terror attack on Israel, Prime Minister Narendra Modi tweeted, “Deeply shocked by the news of terrorist attacks in Israel. Our thoughts and prayers are with the innocent victims and their families. We stand in solidarity with Israel at this difficult hour.” This was even as Israel itself was coming to terms with the attack, and before it began its retaliation. However, this statement was construed as a shift in India’s policy towards Israel and Palestine. Read the full article here.

ThePrint | India joined the information warfare on Gaza. Now it must prepare for tougher times

Information has the power to create, shift, or sustain already held  beliefs. Beliefs, in turn, influence and determine individual and collective behaviours and are often shaped by the narratives at play. In the ongoing Hamas-Israel war, the battle of narratives could play a crucial role in determining the course of events, including the cessation or continuation of hostilities. Hamas, the initial instigator in this round of conflict, has ravaged Israel by killing, wounding, taking hostages, and destroying property. Its methods involved breaching the border fence and launching attacks, primarily against civilians and some military targets, often accompanied by rocket fire aimed at cities and towns, including capital Tel Aviv. In response, Israel hit back primarily with air power, triggering a major humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Read the full article here.

India is good in the Arab world now. But Delhi must quickly move to contain Turkey’s Erdogan

It came as a surprise but it is not surprising. When the United Arab Emirates and Israel announced that they would establish normal relations with each other, in a US-brokered agreement last week, they publicly accepted what has been obvious for several years now — that the national interests of the Emirates along with those of Saudi Arabia and many other Arab states were converging with those of Israel.

The triangular contest in the Middle East — with Iran, Turkey and Saudi Arabia vying for regional dominance — is a modern replay of older rivalries between the Persians, Ottomans and Arabs. With Israel perceiving an existential threat from Iran and being wary of once-friendly but increasingly threatening Turkey, realist logic would expect Tel Aviv to gravitate towards the Arab nations. The thorny Palestinian question long prevented an alliance between Israel and the Arab powers. Set that aside and Israel and the Arab nations become co-travellers on the road to prevent Iranian and Turkish hegemony over the Middle East.Read More.