Blogging Never Changes Part Three - How is That Supposed to Work?

None of it ever makes sense. None of it.

How does one "destroy Hamas"? What does this even mean? 

Let's think about what Hamas is. It's a terror organization - motivated by antisemitism and a desire to wipe Israel off the map. Also it is the administrative body of what used to be Gaza - but let's put that part aside for the moment. That's not the problematic part of it - the problematic part is the terrorists. And how does the terror part work? 

There's the leadership - the people who plan and co-ordinate terror attacks, who craft the hateful recruiting messages and misinformation to sustain the manpower they need. Those people, for the large part, aren't in Gaza. They are in Qatar and Lebanon  and elsewhere in the region. Some of them may well be in Western nations even,  the leadership of the Qassam Brigades is kept secret. Bombing Gaza will not impact them. Even if it did, there is likely no shortage of people ready to step in to replace any of these guys.

There's the money. The powers that be say it's coming from Iran. Undoubtedly a lot of money does come from Iran. But also, some of this money comes from various people all around the world - even though it is literally illegal to support Hamas in many nations. Invading Gaza does nothing to hinder this aspect of Hamas. In fact, one might suggest that the invasion of Gaza will engender more sympathy for Hamas which may in turn translate to more funding.

Then there are the footsoldiers. These guys certainly will be impacted by the ground invasion. Israel certainly ought to be able to kill a very large fraction of these guys. But what isn't being acknowledged is that this does not lower the number of Hamas fighters. The notion that this is going to work is kind of like that last line of You'll Be Back from Hamilton - "I will kill your friends and family to remind you of my love." 

At this point, even if - magically - Israel were to kill every single Hamas fighter that participated in the October 7th attacks and no one else - there would still be a much larger number of Hamas fighters then there were on October 6th. Half of the homes in Gaza are destroyed. Thousands of people have been killed - a great many of them children. There are people who will have very extreme grievances that they will want to act upon. And what's to stop them? Moreover, what do they have to lose? Their membership in a deeply oppressed territory that has rightly been called an open-air prison? They have nothing to lose, and more and more reasons to act every hour that passes.

The plan is broken on a fundamental level. Neither Hamas leadership nor Hamas funding is being effectively targeted - and the civilian death toll is already unimaginable after just three weeks, with the full scale offensive only getting rolling now. This is supposed to "destroy Hamas"? It's beyond stupid and doomed to failure.

On the plus side, failing to destroy Hamas is actually the better outcome. That grievance the Gazans rightfully feel? It's not going to just go away. Israel isn't going to be able to declare victory and then suddenly there's "no hard feelings". And without Hamas - where does that anger and resentment go? At least with Hamas, the guys running the show have a sense of self-preservation. They want to keep their positions of power. But into the power vacuum left among a people swirling with rage and an understandable sense of injustice levied on them?

The "destruction" of Al Qaeda is what gave rise to ISIS. The hate is already there - eliminating the self-interested schemers running the show allows for the truly extremist nutjobs to grab power. That's what "destroying Hamas" means - rolling the dice and betting that half a century of apartheid followed by the most brutal assault on civilians seen in a generation or more - that this will somehow result in the sieged public feeling all warm and rosy towards their oppressor. It is fucking insane.