It is hardly shocking that Hamas enjoys engaging in terrorism. An organisation dedicated to the worst aspects of Islamist philosophy will use force whenever and wherever it sees fit. What’s shocking is how unprepared Israel was when Hamas launched their terror campaign by land, air, and sea. It appears that Israel, in addition to believing in its own invincibility, has managed to persuade itself that stopping Hamas from committing violent crimes would be a good thing.
In that sense, Israel is the most recent casualty of the global awakening. a phenomena that prompts people to investigate the “root cause” of every event that occurs on the planet. Sadly, the search for the illusive core cause never extends beyond practical considerations.
Therefore, Israel was led to believe that once the living conditions in Gaza were improved, once they were “mainstreamed,” and once the underprivileged Palestinians were given equal, non-partisan access to Israeli resources, the country’s jihadi problem would largely be resolved. This belief may have stemmed from Israel’s war fatigue, or it may have been because the top leadership genuinely believed Hamas’s terror DNA could be changed by enacting “progressive” policies on the ground.
This was a fantasy, as the attack on Israel on Saturday shows: Hamas continues to be a fanatical Islamist group willing to engage in the worst kind of terrorism and might challenge ISIS and Al Qaeda for supremacy.
Therefore, Israel was led to believe that once the living conditions in Gaza were improved, once they were “mainstreamed,” and once the underprivileged Palestinians were given equal, non-partisan access to Israeli resources, the country’s jihadi problem would largely be resolved. This belief may have stemmed from Israel’s war fatigue, or it may have been because the top leadership genuinely believed Hamas’s terror DNA could be changed by enacting “progressive” policies on the ground.
This was a fantasy, as the attack on Israel on Saturday shows: Hamas continues to be a fanatical Islamist group willing to engage in the worst kind of terrorism and might challenge ISIS and Al Qaeda for supremacy.
Hamas’s and its covert overlords’ use of violence was further stoked by the region’s evolving geopolitical landscape. It wouldn’t have been so difficult to predict such an attack on Israel if one had carefully read the Abraham Accords, which the United States sponsored and aimed to draw Israel and the Saudi-led Arab world closer together. Both the US and Saudi Arabia are put in a difficult position in the region by the attack on Israel. Iran and China are anticipated to benefit the most from it as of right now.
Aside from the fact that most democratic countries in the world suffer from the problem of wokeness, which has prevented Israel from predicting a Hamas attack, there is another factor that makes a total victory over terrorism, especially of the Islamist sort, virtually impossible. It’s the phenomenon of “neo war,” as Italian author Umberto Eco refers to contemporary conflict in his book Turning Back the Clock, a book about wars and media populism. Neo war lacks a front and has no logical conclusion.
In today’s environment, the enemy exists both inside and outside the gate. It is challenging to win the war because the “barbarians” are within the nation’s borders. Because the current conflict is fluid, it differs from previous conflicts where the attack was frontal, there were defined territorial stakes, and the opponents found themselves in two distinct boxes. In the past, it was more or less clear who the enemy was; today, it is much less clear.
It is further complicated by the fact that combat itself has evolved, particularly since the Gulf War of 1991. “The Gulf War established two principles: One, no one of our men should die,” writes Eco in Turning Back the Clock. Additionally, killing adversaries should be minimised. The majority of military campaigns today are unsuccessful due to this change in the nature of warfare and the complexity brought on by globalization’s advanced stage. Because it is impossible to battle effectively against a secret opponent, who can only be met with a temperate, fleeting, and contrite answer.
Just consider the character of the conflict between Israel and Hamas in the upcoming days: The majority of the globe today supports Israel. But the participants in the neo-war are already in place: The media has arrived in the conflict area. Although there are few direct, ongoing videos of Hamas atrocities—such as the heartbreaking one showing a tattoo artist dancing joyfully at an Israeli music festival before being stripped naked and paraded by Islamist terrorists—the Israeli response is duly documented and displayed every day: photographs of burned victims being removed from bombed buildings, up-close shots of sobbing moms, little children’s eyes and cheeks weeping, and startled Palestinian men gazing at the debris where once stood their houses.
Soon enough, Israel’s sources of sympathy would start to dwindle one by one. Then a truce request would be made. Israel would persist in defying international opinion for some time. Several Hamas leaders would be put to death. There would be a new sanction placed on Iran. Except for the odd blow hot/blow cold responses from the West, China won’t even have to deal with that. However, sooner rather than later, wokeism would resurface, urging the Israeli government to investigate the “root cause” of terrorism. Israel and the rest of the world would then be back where they started.
Perspective is frequently provided by an objective examination of history. Why, for instance, did Germany respond in two quite different ways after the two World Wars, the second of which saw the birth of a thriving democracy and the first of which saw the rise of the Nazis? Perhaps because in the second situation, the retaliation was so severe as to completely shock the entire system, whereas in the first instance Berlin was given an unfair break with no collateral harm to the guilty Germans. The United States’ ally in World War II, Japan, followed the same fatal course of self-correction.
Nobody is arguing that people should be targeted or that human rights should be disregarded. War is undesirable in and of itself. It shouldn’t be used until all other choices have been tried. But once it became imminent, there shouldn’t have been any hesitation in engaging in combat. Similar unified focus is necessary in the fight against terrorism, specifically the conflict with Hamas. Sadly, this doesn’t seem to be the case in the neo-war era. We have already heard comparisons between Israel’s response and the terrorist act committed by Hamas. It is disgusting.
However, this is the main reason why modern wars never really finish. The time of deadlocks is now. And it will remain.
