Why Hamas needs to be defeated - militarily.
Israel has lost the war. Not the war on the kinetic battlefield in Gaza but the global information war, or in other words, the international popularity contest.
Thankfully, it‘s the war on the ground that matters while the defeat in the information space is both a function of an inadequate operational strategy in Gaza and an almost deterministically growing disapproval of Israel whenever it‘s fighting any given war.
The most important conclusion for the Israeli political and military leadership to draw from this bifurcated reality is to judiciously avoid being ensnared by the simple logic of the preeminent anti-war narrative.
It‘s the hypothesis that the war in Gaza cannot be won by the IDF or that it‘s not even worth winning or both.
This is the single-most dangerous and treacherous folly that could not only hamper but derail the entire war effort which would ineluctably create a self-fulfilling prophecy and eventually invite strategic defeat.
So why is it that Israel needs to fight this war, and more importantly, to win this war? Some people view war as a pointless, wasteful, brutal and performative chest thumping exercise conducted solely by corrupt, self-serving, power-hungry and unscrupulous governments to demonstrate the martial skills of their country and to release pent up anger or hatred.
It‘s both a cynical and deceptive interpretation of war because so much of it is true even if this cartoonish conceptualization can clearly err in the most crucial and fundamental ways.
This war has to be fought and won because Hamas, on October 7th 2023, supported by other terrorist entities and in part by former civilians who turned into combatants on that day, revealed that they are not just an adversarial force that can be contained, deterred and kept at arms length to protect the State of Israel. They turned out to be capable enough and sufficiently determined to stage an unprecedented and surprising terror raid into Israeli territory and to shoot around 10.000 projectiles out of their pre-war arsenal of 20.000 rockets at Israel.
Moreover, they‘ve demonstrated that they‘re one of the most tenacious enemies for any conventional military - like the IDF - to take on, which some abuse as an argument for why Israel ought to give up but it‘s this very tenacity that makes Hamas such an enduring and mortal threat, one that mustn‘t be appeased at all cost. If this tenacity isn’t broken, if their hold over the people, territory and resources of Gaza isn’t fully severed, the same tenacity is going to be the greatest source for their force regeneration and complete reconstitution as an armed organization. It’s going to be their lifeblood.
Never before has the sole purpose of a regime been to weaponize the civilian population - which they both control and suppress - not merely as human shields but as human sacrifices in service of their political goals. Strategic bombing of population centers in WWII or in Ukraine by Russia today aims to do the exact opposite, namely to kill your enemy‘s population to force the states to surrender. The inverse is true in Gaza, where Hamas wants to report and publicize and ultimately cause the highest possible casualty numbers to win the war without winning any battle.
When the allies bombed Nazi Germany or Japan, neither Hitler nor Tojo were enthused by or strategically invested in the mass death of Japanese or German civilians due to allied bombardment. Hamas, meanwhile, has nothing else to keep itself in power than its human sacrifice strategy and its tunnel system.
What the tunnel system underneath Gaza demonstrates is that the sole purpose of the Hamas regime, for over 20 years since it took over in a bloody coup d‘état, was to turn the entire enclave, and in particular its dense population centers, into the modern-day equivalent of Roman or medieval castles. Hence, the military is not actually located near a population area, instead, the people live within a vast military complex designed to serve both defensive and offensive purposes.
That‘s what Gaza is. And until you take the entire castle, secure the population, sequester them from the enemy combatants, tear down its walls, seal or destroy all the hideouts and fill in the castle‘s moat, there can‘t be any semblance of strategic victory.
400 miles of 40 feet deep tunnels could house the entire population of Gaza, at that depth the tunnels are virtually impenetrable to all but the most advanced US bunker buster bombs. The effort that the construction of the tunnels took illustrates to what lengths Hamas is prepared to go in the service of their fanatical and eliminationist agenda.
The fundamental strategic question is, if left intact and in power after the fighting ends, will they use the massive amounts of desperately needed humanitarian aid and reconstruction assistance to exclusively maximize the welfare of the civilians in Gaza or will they opt to misallocate all these resources pouring into Gaza yet again, as they‘ve done before, not on one single occasion but over the span of two decades?
Everything that 2 million people need to live decent lives, the fuel, the medical equipment, the machinery, the generators, the steel and concrete to build housing units or the chemical and biological substances that are needed for everyday life are dual use goods that can be turned into unrefined but nevertheless deadly weapons of war or used for other military purposes.
That‘s not to say that the immediate humanitarian relief aid or the long-term reconstruction aid should be denied to the people of Gaza. It can’t be and it mustn’t be denied to them. But it’s impossible to provide them without defeating Hamas unless you‘re willing to aid in and countenance their military and administrative remobilization.
It‘s easy for people in Europe or in North America or even for many Israelis to prioritize an immediate unilateral ceasefire, a unilateral troop withdrawal, and the return of the hostages. They‘re not the ones who‘ll be governed by Hamas and they‘re not threatened by the persistence of Hamas at all (in the case of the Europeans or Americans) or in the near-term in the case of the Israelis who‘re protesting the war.
But the State of Israel has to take into account its medium and long-term security needs which dictate a dissolution of Hamas and a comprehensive as well as verifiable and permanent demilitarization and pacification of the entire Gaza strip.
This will mean urban warfare and counter-insurgency operations combined with a temporary and complete Israeli military and civilian administration of Gaza.
That‘s what lies ahead and not too soon after almost two years of half measures.
Thankfully, it‘s the war on the ground that matters while the defeat in the information space is both a function of an inadequate operational strategy in Gaza and an almost deterministically growing disapproval of Israel whenever it‘s fighting any given war.
The most important conclusion for the Israeli political and military leadership to draw from this bifurcated reality is to judiciously avoid being ensnared by the simple logic of the preeminent anti-war narrative.
It‘s the hypothesis that the war in Gaza cannot be won by the IDF or that it‘s not even worth winning or both.
This is the single-most dangerous and treacherous folly that could not only hamper but derail the entire war effort which would ineluctably create a self-fulfilling prophecy and eventually invite strategic defeat.
So why is it that Israel needs to fight this war, and more importantly, to win this war? Some people view war as a pointless, wasteful, brutal and performative chest thumping exercise conducted solely by corrupt, self-serving, power-hungry and unscrupulous governments to demonstrate the martial skills of their country and to release pent up anger or hatred.
It‘s both a cynical and deceptive interpretation of war because so much of it is true even if this cartoonish conceptualization can clearly err in the most crucial and fundamental ways.
This war has to be fought and won because Hamas, on October 7th 2023, supported by other terrorist entities and in part by former civilians who turned into combatants on that day, revealed that they are not just an adversarial force that can be contained, deterred and kept at arms length to protect the State of Israel. They turned out to be capable enough and sufficiently determined to stage an unprecedented and surprising terror raid into Israeli territory and to shoot around 10.000 projectiles out of their pre-war arsenal of 20.000 rockets at Israel.
Moreover, they‘ve demonstrated that they‘re one of the most tenacious enemies for any conventional military - like the IDF - to take on, which some abuse as an argument for why Israel ought to give up but it‘s this very tenacity that makes Hamas such an enduring and mortal threat, one that mustn‘t be appeased at all cost. If this tenacity isn’t broken, if their hold over the people, territory and resources of Gaza isn’t fully severed, the same tenacity is going to be the greatest source for their force regeneration and complete reconstitution as an armed organization. It’s going to be their lifeblood.
Never before has the sole purpose of a regime been to weaponize the civilian population - which they both control and suppress - not merely as human shields but as human sacrifices in service of their political goals. Strategic bombing of population centers in WWII or in Ukraine by Russia today aims to do the exact opposite, namely to kill your enemy‘s population to force the states to surrender. The inverse is true in Gaza, where Hamas wants to report and publicize and ultimately cause the highest possible casualty numbers to win the war without winning any battle.
When the allies bombed Nazi Germany or Japan, neither Hitler nor Tojo were enthused by or strategically invested in the mass death of Japanese or German civilians due to allied bombardment. Hamas, meanwhile, has nothing else to keep itself in power than its human sacrifice strategy and its tunnel system.
What the tunnel system underneath Gaza demonstrates is that the sole purpose of the Hamas regime, for over 20 years since it took over in a bloody coup d‘état, was to turn the entire enclave, and in particular its dense population centers, into the modern-day equivalent of Roman or medieval castles. Hence, the military is not actually located near a population area, instead, the people live within a vast military complex designed to serve both defensive and offensive purposes.
That‘s what Gaza is. And until you take the entire castle, secure the population, sequester them from the enemy combatants, tear down its walls, seal or destroy all the hideouts and fill in the castle‘s moat, there can‘t be any semblance of strategic victory.
400 miles of 40 feet deep tunnels could house the entire population of Gaza, at that depth the tunnels are virtually impenetrable to all but the most advanced US bunker buster bombs. The effort that the construction of the tunnels took illustrates to what lengths Hamas is prepared to go in the service of their fanatical and eliminationist agenda.
The fundamental strategic question is, if left intact and in power after the fighting ends, will they use the massive amounts of desperately needed humanitarian aid and reconstruction assistance to exclusively maximize the welfare of the civilians in Gaza or will they opt to misallocate all these resources pouring into Gaza yet again, as they‘ve done before, not on one single occasion but over the span of two decades?
Everything that 2 million people need to live decent lives, the fuel, the medical equipment, the machinery, the generators, the steel and concrete to build housing units or the chemical and biological substances that are needed for everyday life are dual use goods that can be turned into unrefined but nevertheless deadly weapons of war or used for other military purposes.
That‘s not to say that the immediate humanitarian relief aid or the long-term reconstruction aid should be denied to the people of Gaza. It can’t be and it mustn’t be denied to them. But it’s impossible to provide them without defeating Hamas unless you‘re willing to aid in and countenance their military and administrative remobilization.
It‘s easy for people in Europe or in North America or even for many Israelis to prioritize an immediate unilateral ceasefire, a unilateral troop withdrawal, and the return of the hostages. They‘re not the ones who‘ll be governed by Hamas and they‘re not threatened by the persistence of Hamas at all (in the case of the Europeans or Americans) or in the near-term in the case of the Israelis who‘re protesting the war.
But the State of Israel has to take into account its medium and long-term security needs which dictate a dissolution of Hamas and a comprehensive as well as verifiable and permanent demilitarization and pacification of the entire Gaza strip.
This will mean urban warfare and counter-insurgency operations combined with a temporary and complete Israeli military and civilian administration of Gaza.
That‘s what lies ahead and not too soon after almost two years of half measures.
