Does Hamas have a strategy?
Commenter “Art Deco” observes:
I don’t think Hamas ever had what you’d call a ‘strategy’, unless there were co-ordinate campaigns planned which Iran and Hezbollah never implemented. It’s what Martin Peretz described 40 years ago in a review of a play, “A crazed Arab to be sure, but crazed in the particular ways of his culture. He is intoxicated by language, cannot discern fantasy from reality, and assuages himself with a momentarily satisfying but ultimately ineffectual act of bloodlust”.
I also wonder whether there was a larger plan to simultaneously include Hezbollah and Iran, and perhaps the West Bank as well. In a surprise attack this multi-pronged approach might have been even more devastating to Israel. But either it was considered too much and likely to turn the world against the Palestinians and their ally Iran, or the attackers got their signals crossed, or it was never planned that way in the first place.
But I disagree that there was no strategy in the October 7 attack. There was plenty of strategy. The Palestinians have known for many many decades that it is to their advantage to provoke retaliation from Israel though terrorism and then emphasize their own suffering – with numbers – in order to turn world opinion even further from support of Israel. There are so many propaganda advantages, and this is above all else a propaganda war.
Back in November, even the Wapo was acknowledging this [emphasis mine]:
The evidence, described by more than a dozen current and former intelligence and security officials from four Western and Middle Eastern countries, reveals an intention by Hamas planners to strike a blow of historic proportions, in the expectation that the group’s actions would compel an overwhelming Israeli response. … After breaching the Israeli border in some 30 places, Hamas militants staged a mass slaughter of soldiers and civilians in at least 22 Israeli villages, towns and military outposts and then drew Israeli defenders into gun battles that continued for more than a day.
… Some militants carried enough food, ammunition and equipment to last several days, officials said, and bore instructions to continue deeper into Israel if the first wave of attacks succeeded, potentially striking larger Israeli cities.
The assault teams managed to penetrate as far as Ofakim, an Israeli town about 15 miles from the Gaza Strip and about half the distance between the enclave and the West Bank. One unit carried reconnaissance information and maps suggesting an intention to continue the assault up to the border of the West Bank, according to two senior Middle Eastern intelligence officials and one former U.S. official with detailed knowledge of the evidence. Hamas had been increasing its outreach to West Bank militants in recent months, although the group says it did not notify its West Bank allies of its Oct. 7 plans in advance. …
Hamas meticulously planned and prepared for a massacre of Israeli civilians on a scale that was highly likely to provoke Israel’s government into sending troops into Gaza, analysts said. Indeed, Hamas leaders have publicly expressed a willingness to accept heavy losses — potentially including the deaths of many Gazan civilians living under Hamas rule.
“Will we have to pay a price? Yes, and we are ready to pay it,” Ghazi Hamad, a member of the Hamas politburo, told Beirut’s LCBI television in an interview aired on Oct. 24. “We are called a nation of martyrs, and we are proud to sacrifice martyrs.”
And to even exaggerate the numbers and publicize them to the Western MSM, which will spread the propaganda around to great effect.
“They were very clear-eyed as to what would happen to Gaza on the day after,” said a senior Israeli military official with access to sensitive intelligence, including interrogations with Hamas fighters and intercepted communications. “They wanted to buy their place in history — a place in the history of jihad — at the expense of the lives of many people in Gaza.” …
…“They planned a second phase, including in major Israeli cities and military bases,” said a senior Israeli official who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss classified intelligence. …
“Hamas knew Israel would strike back hard. That was the point,” Katz said. “To Hamas, Palestinian suffering is a critical component in bringing about the instability and global outrage it seeks to exploit.”
Even if its current leadership is effectively destroyed, she said, Hamas and its followers will continue to regard Oct. 7 as a victory. That’s partly because the group unquestionably succeeded in focusing the world’s attention on the Palestinian conflict, she said.
“It’s the first time I can remember that Hamas has become so prominent on a global scale,” Katz said. “So many people have already forgotten Oct. 7 because Hamas immediately changed the discussion. It put the focus on Israel, not themselves. And that’s exactly what they wanted.”
It wouldn’t have mattered that Hamas “changed the discussion” if so many in the West didn’t cooperate in that endeavor. But all of that was not an accident; it was Hamas’ strategy all along. The only question is whether Israel will give up in the face of all of the opprobrium. I don’t think they will, for the simple reason that their survival is at stake and now just about everyone in Israel knows it.
None of this is new, and none of it is specific to Hamas only. It was the strategy of the North Vietnamese during the Vietnam War (written by John McCain in 2013):
Giap was a master of logistics, but his reputation rests on more than that. His victories were achieved by a patient strategy that he and Ho Chi Minh were convinced would succeed—an unwavering resolve to suffer immense casualties and the near total destruction of their country to defeat any adversary, no matter how powerful. “You will kill 10 of us, we will kill one of you,” Ho told the French, “but in the end, you will tire of it first.”
Giap executed that strategy with an unbending will.
Plus this from Bui Tin, who had been a colonel on the general staff of the North Vietnamese army:
[The American antiwar movement] was essential to our strategy. Support for the war from our rear was completely secure while the American rear was vulnerable. Every day our leadership would listen to world news over the radio at 9 a.m. to follow the growth of the American antiwar movement. …
The conscience of America was part of its war-making capability, and we were turning that power in our favor. America lost because of its democracy; through dissent and protest it lost the ability to mobilize a will to win.
It wasn’t just American opinion, either. Much of the West turned against that war, and the MSM certainly did so as well.
Related (repost):
“Hamas Just Made a Major Announcement…And the Media Is Nowhere to be Found”—
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2024/04/12/media-is-silent-as-hamas-admits-palestinian-death-toll-screw-up-n2637708
Key phrase:
“…Hamas has openly admitted they inflated the death toll in Gaza, and the media is AWOL…”
Seems like the author of this piece has unrealistically high expectations of the media…
The start of WW3? Iran attacks Israel with drones. I don’t trust Obama/Biden to do anything to help the situation.
The Arab/Muslim culture is a shame-honor one and that is very different from our own post enlightenment one. They will kill their own children to get revenge for an insult to their honor.
This strategy, of emphasizing Palestinian suffering to discredit Israel globally, has been tried for 50 years (since the 1973 war), and it hasn’t worked, if by “worked” we mean produced concrete benefits for the Palestinians. So I’m not sure it counts as a strategy.
The North Vietnamese strategy was very different: they didn’t succeed by rousing world opinion–which has almost zero effect on American public discourse–but by producing American war weariness, so that the Americans gave up and went home. That won’t work for the Palestinians, because the Israelis have no place to go.
y81:
The Hamas strategy has been highly successful in achieving Hama’ goal, which is not to help the Palestinian people but rather to turn the world against Israel and for Hamas to get plenty of money and stay in power.
If the world was on Israel’s side, Hamas would have been finished many years ago.
The emphasis of the North Vietnamese was somewhat different but quite similar, actually. They didn’t mind a very high death count on their side, which they knew would gain them sympathy both in the US – leading to war weariness and quitting – and around the world. Americans did indeed care about world opinion, which became increasingly anti American.
Years before al queda hamas used suicide bombers on civilian targets starting with dizengoff square in tel aviv.
This was the scenario depicted in the siege three years before september 11th
The NVA strategy was to take over the RVN through a fake insurgency. That strategy ended with Tet. They then retooled into a Soviet style tank army. The US used the reduced insurgency as evidence that Vietnamzation was working and drew down US ground forces. Then the NVA launched a conventional Soviet style tank army invasion that capture half the country and was stopped by US air power. After Nixon and Kissinger made a “peace” deal that let the North keep half the South, the NVA in violation of the deal built up their invasion force and then invaded. That is when we quit.
I believe it was the House and Senate Democrats who reneged their commitment to support the RVN with weapons and cash, thus creating a mass scramble of the South Vietnamese to save themselves, often as “boat people”, from the North Vietnamese butchers. You do not want the US as a sometimes supportive entity ever since; can’t count on us. The scene of Vietnamese desperately hanging onto a US Army helo lifting off our embassy is burned into my memory. They had all worked for the USA, and this was our thanks-leave them to the brutal North.
After the massacre of October 7th, I assumed that Hezbollah and other Iranian proxies would also attack. I also assumed that the October 7th slaughter was directed by Iran, as part of a larger strategy. Despite today’s wave of drone attacks against Israel, it now looks as if I was wrong.
I now think that there’s a good chance that the IDF will thoroughly defeat Hamas, but will be left with the seemingly insoluble problem of the so-called Palestinian population, which survives on UN-funded tribal bloodlust disguised as religion. In the long run, I’m still pessimistic about Israel’s future, but I console myself with my poor record of prediction. In the Middle East, we have not just the fog of war, but also the fog of peace. When so much is hidden, conspiracy theories flourish, and rational analyses become an illusion.
Also in several episodes on 24
The Hamas strategy has been highly successful in achieving Hama’ goal, which is not to help the Palestinian people but rather to turn the world against Israel and for Hamas to get plenty of money and stay in power.
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Only if the goal of the Hamas boss was to see his family wiped out.
That’s a suboptimal assessment even by what I expect.
I’m with neo on this one. Hamas doesn’t have everything figured from now to the river to the sea, but they aren’t going off half-crazed and half-cocked either.
They are paying a high price, they might even lose. It is a bold move, but it is paying off in a lot of ways. They are exploiting it well, and if one takes the long view, as a follower of Mohammed does, it’s worth trying.
Keep in mind the larger context that Israel was getting cozy with the Saudis. Younger Arabs aren’t so much onboard with the Palestinian blood feud against Israel.
Something needed to be done and Hamas did it.
I see the Vietnam War Tet analogy which y81 and Chases Eagles mention.
Chases Eagles:
Nixon was elected in 1968 on a pledge of “Vietnamization” of the war and slow but steady US withdrawal. The reason the NVA violated the “peace” deal and invaded was that they knew the US was just about out of there and without more help the South Vietnamese could no longer hold out. I wrote about the funds cutoff here as well as here.
Hamas has a strategy. When possible take control and subjugate the non-Muslims. It’s a simple strategy but Muslims been using it for fourteen hundred years. You’d think we’d have caught on by now but western concepts of “nice” have made us stupid. The strategy Hamas has? Who lived in the Muslim world before Islam. Only the PR campaign changes. You’d think we’d wup by now
Erdogan wants Greece back. Al Qaeda and other groups want Spain
They plead about minority rights until. They’re in the ruling majority then there aren’t any. No I don’t hate Muslims. Look what ISIS did to Iraqis who just wanted a beer or watch a soccer game. Look how they pick their targets like the soccer stadium and the Bataclan nightclub in Paris a few years ago. I know why they do and when they doi it. But listen to the FBI if want to keep losing nicely
Hamas may not have a strategy – but Iran does…
I love and respect you all on this blog – but I am EXTREMELY WARY of click-bait-sound-bite-ADHD Westerners assuring themselves that the Arabs do not have a long-term plan…
In fact the Muslim ummah has been working methodically to further their goal of Jihad on all fronts – while Israelis and other Westerners willfully, naively misinterpreted Muslim actions and repeatedly stated intentions.
The Arabs (like the Soviets and Chinese) have repeatedly demonstrated their ability to play a longer game than the West. In some sense this can be seen as a shortcoming of the democratic system.
The West has been saved from these plans by its own virtues – and by other shortcomings of those cultures – and sometimes by dumb luck (AKA Divine Providence).
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No amount of money was going to save the RVN. They needed the B-52. During the North’s Spring offensive, US air power including the B-52 poured back in theater (the first reinforcements arrived from Korea the day after the invasion started) and eventually bombed the North into a ceasefire. Without that, the RVN probably would have fallen in spring of 1972 as the North intended.
Along as we were willing to unleash the B-52, the North could not prevail.
probably hence negropontes jibe to kissinger, that sent him thessalonica, for pointing out the flaw in the peace treaty,
test
“A palm from the Tigris that will not surrender to any wind”: This is how I will remember Sami Michael
Hamas may not have a strategy – but Iran does…?
For decades, Iran’s slogan of the ‘death to America’ only war in the air.
We witnessed the Iranian drone and saw photos that depict the same scenes as those shown by China Doron on social media. Iran did the same but looks no enormous explosions, no smokes and no fires……. just compare that with 1991 Baghdad
https://www.gainesville.com/gcdn/authoring/2003/03/22/NTGS/ghows-LK-f308ed32-3aa0-4f85-9733-2810ab493537-cf973ffe.jpeg?width=512&height=328&fit=crop&format=pjpg&auto=webp
or in 20 March 2003
https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/12384/production/_90282647_f727b42f-3562-4c72-b9f1-e32b401c8501.jpg.webp
But 36 years after the Islamic revolution, “Death to America!” has lost much of its potency inside the country, reduced to a rote phrase of state propaganda which few Iranians take seriously.
Iran’s Ayatollah clarifies that ‘death to America’ slogan refers to policies
https://twitter.com/redsteeze/status/1779663804495712488
They kicked the wrong person out of congress
https://twitter.com/MarinaMedvin/status/1779662498360078668
Sam has the sads because Iranian Shaheed ( aka shitty) drones work best and only against targets that have no organized defenses not even eye ball guided machine guns. So they cheifly serve as explosive pinatas. The cruise missiles and balistic missiles are much more of a threat but again not against a prepared adversary.
Sammy, your Persian pals need a taste of a competent attack. Like their on their embassy only bigger. Start whining.
The Arabs (like the Soviets and Chinese) have repeatedly demonstrated their ability to play a longer game than the West. In some sense this can be seen as a shortcoming of the democratic system.
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How’s that working out for them?
Yep, tribal identity based culture is the route to great civilzation. (sarc x 11)
Yep, they are patient, patiently falling further and further behind every other culture.
“Haaretz” is Israel’s most prominent left-wing newspaper. Ten days ago, they published a long article on Hamas’s strategy to conquer and occupy Israel. Hamas’s plans included the execution of Israelis at a grand scale, the enslavement of those who could provide useful technical skills, and the expulsion of innocents like children. Despite this, the article is very sympathetic to Gazans. Such is the Left, even in Israel.
For anyone interested in learning of Hamas’s strategy, I strongly recommend the article. It’s behind a paywall, so you’ll need to use one of the sites that lets you look behind a subscription barrier. Those who take a strict view of copyright protection will need to restrain themselves.
Here’s a link to the article:
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-04-05/ty-article-magazine/.highlight/hamas-actually-believed-it-would-conquer-israel-and-divided-it-into-cantons/0000018e-ab4a-dc42-a3de-abfad6fe0000
Fantasy goals are not strategy.
Despite this, the article is very sympathetic to Gazans. Such is the Left, even in Israel.
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You can only be sympathetic if you do not attribute any agency to your pets.
om on April 14, 2024 at 10:46 pm said:
against targets that have no organized defenses??
https://youtu.be/vLyI3264_tA