US Scholar Who Predicted Ukraine Conflict Says Oct 7 Hamas Attack 'Not Terribly Surprising'

The October 7 Hamas attack on Israel was “not terribly surprising,” according to prominent US political scientist John Mearsheimer. The 75-year-old American international relations scholar at the University of Chicago claimed that in the build-up to the war, both Hamas and the Israeli government were not committed to a two-state solution.

Mearsheimer made these remarks during last week’s chat with the famous US podcaster Lex Fridman. When asked about the reason for the Hamas attack that led to the latest Middle East conflict, he said, “Well, I think the main reason was that you had this suffocating occupation. I think as long as the occupation persists, the Palestinians are going to resist.”

‘First Intifada, Second Intifada, Now October 7’

“As you well know, this is not the first time there has been a Palestinian uprising. There was the First Intifada, there was the Second Intifada, now there’s October 7th, and their uprisings besides those three, so this is not terribly surprising,” the US scholar said. Mearsheimer, who was said to have foreseen the Russia-Ukraine war, said that he doesn’t believe that growing closeness between Israelis, Saudis, and Americans, was the main factor behind the attack.

“A lot of people hypothesised that this attack was due to the fact that the Israelis, the Saudis, and the Americans were working together to foster another Abraham Accord and that the Palestinians would in effect be sold down the river. I think given the fact that this was in the planning stages for probably about two years, and the Abraham Accords with regard to Saudi Arabia are a relatively new phenomenon, I don’t think that’s the main driving force here,” he added.

‘Main driving force’

The October 7 Hamas attack killed about 1,200 people in Israel. In response, the Israeli military campaign has killed more than 11,500 Palestinians in Gaza, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry. Mearsheimer argued that the main driving force for the attack was that, “Palestinians feel oppressed as they should and that this was a resistance move. They were resisting the Israeli occupation.”

When asked about the is the long-term effect on the prospect of peace due to massive civilian causality, he said, “I mean, I think it’s disastrous.” “I mean, the only way you’re gonna get peace here is if you have a two-state solution where the Palestinians have a sovereign state of their own and there is a sovereign Jewish state.”

He said many American Jews and many Israelis have pushed for a two-state solution because they think that that is the only way you’re going to get peace between the two sides. “But what’s happened here is that in recent years, the Israelis have lost all interest in a two-state solution. And it’s in large part because the political center of gravity in Israel has steadily moved to the right,” he added.

On Ground Invasion

When asked about the Ground invasion in Gaza, Mearsheimer said there are all sorts of reports in the media, including in the Israeli media, that they’re not gonna be allowed by the US to continue this offensive for much more than a few weeks. “The Israelis have been saying it would, it’s gonna take in the best of all possible worlds, a number of months if not a year to finish off Hamas. Well, it doesn’t look like they’re gonna have enough time to do that. I doubt whether they can finish off Hamas, even if they’re given the time,” he said.

“I think they’re gonna run into fierce resistance. And when they run into fierce resistance and large numbers of Israelis gonna start to die, they’ll lose their appetite for this. And they, the Israelis surely know at this point in time that even if they finish off Hamas, even if I’m wrong and they’re able to finish off Hamas, another group is gonna rise up to resist the occupation,” he further said while adding the only viable political solution for the current conflict is a two-state solution.