In the West, discussion of Operation Guardian of the Walls—Jerusalem’s official term for the latest round of fighting—has centered on the morality and legality of the IDF’s use of force. Since Israel struck over 1,000 targets, killing 160 Hamas fighters and fewer than 50 civilians—proportions unprecedented in the history of modern warfare—this question need not be particularly fraught. Israelis, by contrast, must ask themselves more complex and vital questions about the operation’s efficacy. Here, Akiva Bigman offers a useful comparison to 2014’s Operation Protective Edge:

During the 2014 military campaign, the IDF rarely bombed targets deep in the coastal enclave, focusing mainly on neighborhoods near the border. . . . The Israeli air force had to provide cover for ground forces destroying Hamas’s grid of terror tunnels, but Hamas’s home front—the towers housing its offices and the lavish homes in which top operatives live—was mostly untouched.

It was only as the conflict was waning, 50 days into the fighting and as a truce deal was being formulated, that several high-rises in Gaza were leveled.

Fast-forward seven years and Operation Guardian of the Walls was completely different. Almost immediately once hostilities erupted on May 10, massive airstrikes targeted significant Hamas assets: towers fell, luxury estates were demolished, vacation homes and hideouts were reduced to rubble and, most dramatically, Hamas’s flagship project—the strategic tunnel grid—was destroyed.

Here at Mosaic, we’ve published quite a lot about many Arab states, but one that’s barely received mention is Oman, located at the southeastern corner of the Arabian Peninsula. The sultanate has stayed out of the recent conflicts of the Midde East, and is known to have sub-rosa relations with Israel; high-ranking Israeli officials have visited the country clandestinely, or at least with little fanfare. For precisely this reason, Oman has held itself out as an intermediary and host for negotiations. The then-secret talks that proceeded the Obama administration’s fateful nuclear negotiations with Iran took place in Oman. Ari Heistein explains the similar, and troubling, role Muscat is playing with regard to the Houthis in neighboring Yemen:

For more than three decades, Oman has served in the role of mediator for the resolution of disputes in Yemen. . . . Oman allows for a Houthi office in the capital, Muscat, reportedly numbering around 100 personnel, to operate from its territory for the purported function of diplomatic engagement. It is worth asking why the Houthis require such a large delegation for such limited engagement and whether there is any real value to engaging with the Houthis.

Thus far, efforts to negotiate with the Houthis have yielded very limited outcomes, primarily resulting in concessions from the Saudi-led coalition and partial de-escalation when it has served the terror group’s interests. Rarely, if ever, have the Houthis fully abided by their commitments after signing off on international agreements. Presumably, such meager results could have been achieved through other constellations that are less beneficial to the recently redesignated foreign terrorist organization.

In contrast, the malign and destabilizing Houthi activities in Oman are significant. They include: shipment of Iranian and Chinese weapons components [and] military-grade communications equipment via Oman to the Houthis; the smuggling of senior officials in and out of Houthi-controlled areas via Oman; and financial activities conducted by Houthi shell corporations to consolidate the regime’s control over Yemen’s economy and subsidize the regime.

With this in mind, there is good reason to suspect that the Houthi presence in Oman does more harm than good.