War on Gaza: How Hamas lured Israel into a lethal trap
JVL Introduction
David Hearst revisits the question as to what Hamas thought it was doing on October 7th.
Having originally believed it was a limited operation that spiralled out of control because of Israel’s total lack of preparedness, Hearst has now changed his view.
By November any hopes Hamas might have had of inspiring a regional war seemed to be foundering. Hezbollah refused to get deeply involved, Iran stood aside, the Houthis were on the margins.
Now their wildest hopes appear to be coming to fruition, courtesy of Netanyahu’s blind desire to stay in power at all costs and Israeli arrogance and overreach in general. Israel has done what Hamas could not accomplish on its own – united a range of forces in the region against Israel and its loyal US backer.
Arab public opinion is overwhelmingly anti-American, the sectarian Shia-Sunni divide has been partly overcome, the armed resistance on the West Bank is growing, Hezbollah is preparing for a war, the stature of Iran in the Arab world generally is growing rapidly, and Israel is isolated internationally as never before.
“The real irony,” says Hearst, “is that Israel walked willingly into a trap of Hamas’ making.”
Israel could have accepted a tactical defeat and bowed to pressure to end the war in Gaza without “dismantling Hamas”.
Sinwar, argues Hearst, calculated that Israel would not and the continuation of the war would achieve what Israel feared most.
And so, says Hearst, it has come to pass and Israel has now got a real war on its hands, and on all fronts.
RK
This article was originally published by Middle East Eye on Thu 4 Jul 2024. Read the original here.
War on Gaza: How Hamas lured Israel into a lethal trap
Hamas’ strategy has been more effective than was deemed possible nine months ago. Israel now has a real war on its hands, and on all fronts. It cannot easily be stopped
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Pieces like this share something in common with ‘conspiracy theories’ in that they take a given set of facts and then squeeze them into a narrative which fits the preconceived notions of the writer. I think we should remember that for any given set of facts there is an infinitely large number of possible explanations.
the words “kill”, “killed” and “killing(s)” appeared 8 times in the piece
and the word “peace” not at all
If hamas intended the consequences as stated, it was not an intelligent or coherent intention since it failed to prepare a response to the unification of zionist and anti zionists committed to the elimination of Iranian theocratic state power.
I’m surprised the writer of this article – a distinguished expert in the area – has such little confidence in the overwhelming technical military and economic power of the USA, but perhaps that’s because all I have is old evidence of investments and assets in these forces. As this attack on Iran now looks to be an inevitable consequence of the polarisation and undoubtable military capacities of the US – NATO – ISRAEL coalition, the finger of intelligent strategy points most strongly at parties with avowed religious (chiliastic) doctrine using provocation tactics, and parties with knowledge of superior military force – and no doctrine but plausible deniability: that makes the anxious hand wringing in the state department seem deafeningly theatrical. No doubt the preferred path would have been smooth containment of the axis of evil in a benign extermination of bad actors, without so much resemblance to culling of surplus / infected livestock in a colonial war for access to regional resources.