I wrote a couple of blogs over the past year, with the following hypothesis:
Hamas staged its massacre of Israelis in order to goad Israel into destroying Gaza. This would outrage the international community into finally wiping out the Zionists. To add to this strategy, Hamas stationed its troops in schools and hospitals, forcing Israel to bomb those hospitals and create humanitarian disasters. This would further enrage the international community.
For a while, the strategy worked, albeit with tremendous loss of tens of thousands of innocent Palestinian lives. Iran sent missiles against Israel, but they were intercepted. The Houthis bombed a lot of ships, but recently they have been subdued. Lebanon and the West Bank looked as though they might join the all-out fray against Israel, but Israel shut them down.
Just a few months ago, it looked to me as though Hamas had lost, especially when Israel assassinated their top leaders.
However, I note a resurgence of anti-Israeli sentiment. Indeed, the anti-semitism has spread to violent shootings and murder of Jews outside the Middle East, notably in America. This is happening just as Israel has recently assassinated another Hamas leader, (n.b. based in a hospital in Khan Younis). There is now the usual outrage that Israel bombed a hospital, killing innocent women and children. But even that outrage grows stale and boring. The world has become inured to such daily violence. The media used to publish daily numbers of civilians killed, but that reporting seems to have stopped. Too boring?
Further, the original massacre of Israelis has faded from memory, as Israel continues to destroy Palestine. There is renewed talk of ‘disproportionate response’. Yes, the destruction of Palestine truly dwarfs the number of Israelis massacred by Hamas. However, I often ask Americans, “If Cuba sent just one missile into downtown Miami, what would the US do?” Clearly that would result in the total destruction of Cuba.
At this point, Hamas’ main goal is survival. The longer they survive, the longer they can present to the world the image of brave freedom-fighters standing up against the evil Zionists.
The media are not giving us the straight story (Surprise! Surprise!). I’m not hearing, for example, whether there is any electricity or water supply in Gaza. Is there any semblance of government? Is there transportation? Are there shops open for business?
The key element is the tunnel system. Has Israel dismantled most of it? Bombing a building doesn’t destroy a tunnel. The tunnels permit Hamas to wage ‘whack-a-mole war’.
I don’t see any real solution, but I can venture a prediction at the short-term outcome. Israel can never accept a cease-fire, because that would enable Hamas to restore the tunnel system and return the war to square one.