When thinking about the Middle East, the conflict between Israel and Iran should be top of mind. The story is much more than the war in Gaza or Lebanon. While Isael fights for their life, the rest of the world is double-crossing them at every turn. Even the United States’ “ironclad support” for Israel is pliable—not exactly hardened steel. Pulling back to see the bigger picture, the West itself is not prepared to block the source of Arab aggression: the Iranian regime. Therefore, for the last twelve months, the policy du jour has been a futile appeasement.

The United Nations, as a proxy for the wider West, is full of bluster, accusations, and proclamations condemning Israel for defending their country and rooting out the imminent threats that are a daily reality. The UN would much rather Israel put down their weapons and surrender. Then, there’s the International Court of Justice. They indicted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his defense minister, General Yoav Gallant, for war crimes. Did they stop to consider Hamas’s mastermind, Yahya Sinwar? No. His brutal calculations not only included Israeli civilians on 10/7, but the death of Gazan civilians at the hand of an Israeli counterattack. The irony of Sinwar’s plan is that it fueled Western anti-Israeli sentiment and only helped Hamas’s cause. In other words, he’s okay with his own people’s demise to achieve his goal. And by extension, so are protesters on college campuses. Add to these factors the global media apparatus that is tainted by its own biased indoctrination, which favors Iran’s proxies, and you have a situation full of confusing decisions and conflicting information, which lead to missteps.

Caught in the middle is Israel, who is most certainly dancing with wolves.

This six-part series of articles will use this theme to explore six points. I’ll describe recent events in this region, give a brief history that over time led to this war, and share expectations for how circumstances may unfold as we move into early autumn. Then I’ll identify the lessons learned since October 7 a year ago, explain what Israel is likely going to do and what they should do, and, finally, share the implications for the markets. Let’s start with the events.

Israel—a free and proud country—has been dancing with wolves of all types for millennia. But this dance is not the frolic between a green cowpoke and some lone prairie dog. (Think Kevin Costner who directed and played the lead role in the epic film Dances with Wolves.) In this case, Iran and their proxies are wolves that surround a lone sheep, which is Israel. These wolves are the following groups:

• Hezbollah to the north, just across the border with Lebanon (30,000-50,000 strong),
• Various Iranian militia groups in Syria and Iraq (100,000) to the northeast and further east,
• The Palestine Islamic Jihad immediately to the east in Israeli territory, known as the West Bank (5000),
• Hamas located in Gaza on Israel’s southern coast, along the Egyptian border (20,000-35,000),
• The Houthi rebels located south of Saudi Arabia in the country of Yemen (20,000), and
• Last but not least, there’s Iran itself—the Wolf of wolves.

On October 7, 2023, the wolves of Hamas cut in on the harmony that was Israeli life. These Islamist invaders raped, pillaged, and burned several peaceful villages. They attacked young people attending the Nova Festival, slaughtering many of them in cold blood. Throughout the countryside, numerous wanton acts of beheadings, slayings, and shootings at point-blank range were the order of the day, all designed to produce a terror like no other. Yet, it was also intended to be an opening salvo in a mission to annihilate Israel. Meanwhile, they took 240 Israelis and at least eleven wrong-place, wrong-time Americans as prisoners of war.

The early morning that day started with missile and rocket attacks from Gaza (Hamas) to “soften” the targets. The surprise attack was coordinated, sudden, and devastating. The next morning, Hezbollah followed suit from the north by firing a barrage of rockets and missiles into northern Israel, and these daily assaults have been continuous since then—for almost a year.

Israel mobilized immediately. Literally, the whole country dropped their laptops and jobs and jumped into action. Whatever they were doing before this moment was rendered irrelevant. The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and reserve units were activated immediately. Even two retired IDF generals grabbed their handguns and thrust themselves into the action without hesitation or combat gear. (Gotta love guys like that!) Multitudes of other families quickly kissed each other and said their goodbyes. Soldiers sped toward trouble—without orders. There was no time for instructions, no time for the formalities of command. They had to act to stem the tide of death and destruction. And they knew it. In the aftermath, the surprise attack left more Jewish dead than at any other time since the Holocaust. Truly, 10/7 was Israel’s 9/11.

Israeli government intentions were clear from the beginning: eradicate Hamas from the face of the earth. They lost all appetite for endless, futile negotiations with an organization with no design for or intention of living next to them peacefully. Israel was no longer going to dance with a terrorist organization hell-bent on destroying them.

This is nothing new.

With that last sentence, I am not diminishing the horror of October 7, or the pain and strife on both sides since then.[i] I’m simply saying that for millennia this has been the way between Jews and Arabs in particular, and broadly speaking for Jews and Muslims, whether they be Arab or Persian. The way of war never loses its devastating, frightening, sudden, and ugly expression. And for what?

Usually, war breaks out over some international affront, violation of territory, or to force a change upon some other country. Sometimes an unaccountable leader causes war by unilaterally attacking another country but assuming he won’t answer for it. Many times, wars are caused by an idea in conflict with another, when trust is lost, or when fear about another country’s motives creeps in.

Brad Pitt addressed the cause and results of war extemporaneously while the movie Fury was being filmed. He played an American army sergeant, nicknamed “Wardaddy,” who commanded a tank platoon in the European theater during World War II. After taking a town, he found a roomful of Nazi suicides in one of the buildings. These Nazis knew the end was near and that the Americans were coming, so they took their own lives. Wardaddy brought one of his soldiers to this room to give him a lesson on how brutal war really is. The young private asked him why he was showing him this gruesome scene. To make the lesson plain, Pitt paused and then responded with these words:

“Ideals are peaceful. History is violent.”

Then he walked out.

Wardaddy was simply saying that ideals are just ideas, peaceful in and of themselves. One can talk about them all day long and no one gets hurt. But when these ideals are acted on, they have consequences that often culminate in and add to a history of violence. In Wardaddy’s case, Nazism as an ideal sounds peaceful when merely uttering its tenets. But in application, it put power in the hands of a few and unleashed massive violence on both the innocent and guilty.

Even though Pitt’s lines were neither in the script nor rehearsed, the director kept them. They make us think, don’t they? Power in Gaza has been taken by a few with some ideals, a decision to attack Israel was made, Israel reacts, and both guilty and innocent lose their lives. Western leaders, international courts, and media, influenced by woke ideologies, all combine to twist this truth. International hypocrisy and duplicity are astounding.

And the victim?… It’s Israel.

So, from where does this history of violence in historic Israel originate? The answer to that question will be addressed in Part II.

[i] Most people don’t realize that Gazan pain is a consequence of their own leadership and their decision to attack Israel. War is unfortunate. As soon as someone can show me a country that wouldn’t have responded as Israel has, and not produced “collateral” damage, then I’ll stop my support for Israel in this case. Hint: you won’t find an instance. War is truly hell. Innocent life is always lost in a war zone. Unfortunately, the ignorant don’t know, understand, or acknowledge this. The difference between innocent suffering during WWII, for example, and now is the camera phone in everyone’s pocket. History is recorded instantly, and it shows the brutality. Then, various media outlets show one side of the story, implying the victim (in this case, Israel) is guilty and the original aggressor (Hamas) is innocent.