"In the days and even years to come millions of pages will be written to explain, justify, condemn or celebrate the total surprise achieved by Hamas.
Pundits, historians and investigators will focus as usual on the failure of this or that intelligence gadget, the certainty that the underground barrier would prove invincible, the supposed trade-off of money and worker permits for quiet, or perhaps the human failures of young intelligence officers who failed to read the signs."
- writes Yitzhak Sokolof in 'Times of Israel'
However the failure goes much deeper, and it reflects both how we view the enemy and how we view ourselves. The first is a function of the second.
(The handshake on the White House lawn, between Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin and PLO leader Yasser Arafat, as part of the Oslo accords, overseen by US president Bill Clinton, September 13, 1993. -- Wikipedia)
In May 1948 David Ben Gurion received a message from George Marshall, Secretary of State and the former commander of the American armies that had defeated both Germany and Japan.
Speaking through Moshe Shertok, the director of foreign affairs of the Jewish Agency, former General Marshall told former Corporal Ben Gurion that declaring an independent Jewish state would unleash a new Holocaust on the Jewish people; that seven Arab armies would immediately invade and that the United States would not rescue the Jews unless they gave up their dream of Jewish statehood.
Corporal Ben Gurion stood up to General Marshall, convinced his colleagues, and on May 15, 1948, the State of Israel was born. Ben Gurion knew very well that the price of independence by the Jews of Israel would be unspeakable, and in fact over the course of the war more than 6,000 Jews were killed, one percent of the population. But Ben Gurion knew that the people of Israel were willing to pay any price necessary to achieve the dream of statehood, and the price of victory was steep indeed
Ever since the Labor government of 1992, Israeli leaders have misread their people. With the help of the mass media, they have convinced themselves that Israelis have become spoiled, self-centered and unwilling to make the sacrifices necessary to survive as an independent Jewish state in the Middle East. This process began with Yitzhak Rabin, who traced his motivations to negotiate with arch-terrorist Yasser Arafat to the trauma of multiple visits to comfort families of soldiers (while Arafat never stopped calling for more Palestinians to martyr themselves).
It continued in 2005 when Ehud Olmert, who offered to withdraw from 98% of the West Bank and to divide Jerusalem, attributed his abandonment of the doctrines of secure borders and Jewish historical claims to national exhaustion:
“We are tired of fighting, we are tired of being courageous, we are tired of winning, we are tired of defeating our enemies. We want to be able to live in an entirely different environment of relations with our enemies.” -- Yitzhak Sokolof
The assumption has been that the Israeli public is no longer willing to pay the price required to ensure Israel’s future viability. The result of this assumption has been a two-pronged policy: In times of conflict to set the military objective as “exacting a price” or “reestablishing deterrence” and in times of relative quiet to bribe the Hamas with suitcases of Qatari cash and workers permits.
This policy is the result of confirmation bias: because the Israeli public is not seen as being willing to pay the price of defeating the Hamas, policy makers have determined that the Hamas, an ideological movement totally dedicated to the destruction of Israel, can be placated by cash payments and workers salaries.
This assumption is and always has been fallacious; Hamas is made up of dedicated, intelligent, creative and courageous leaders and fighters who have never retreated one iota from their goal of destroying Israel, who have no concept of military ethics, and who have are willing to pay any price in the blood of their own people.
In a joint statement, the United States, France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom pledged to remain united and coordinated to support Israel. President Biden’s Twitter account shared the joint statement with the caption, “The United States, France, Germany, Italy, and the United Kingdom will remain united and coordinated – together as allies and as common friends to Israel – to ensure Israel can defend itself.”
Sushant Sareen... in 'India Today'
"Frankly, no right-thinking person will grudge Israel the revenge it will exact. There will, of course, be the usual calls for ‘restraint’ and proportionate response: what is the proportionate response to cold-blooded massacres, mutilation and defiling of dead bodies and parading them on the streets, and of gleefully announcing that captured Israeli women will be sold as sex slaves? Maybe the virtue-signalling Secretary-General of the United Nations can educate us."
Iran helped Hamas plan Israel attack, gave go-ahead in a meeting : Wall Street Journal
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Officers of Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the country's most powerful military, had been working with Hamas since August to devise their multi-prong attack on Israel by land, air and sea, they said.
Israel's attack was discussed during several meetings in Beirut that were attended by IRGC officers and representatives of four Iran-backed terror groups, including Hamas and Hezbollah. Hamas control the Gaza Strip while Hezbollah is a Shiite terror group and political faction in Lebanon, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian had attended at least two of the meetings since August, according to Hamas and Hezbollah members. The attack on Israel was intended while the country appeared distracted by political bickering over Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. The strike was also aimed at disrupting US-brokered talks to normalise Saudi Arabia-Israel relations, which Iran saw as threatening, they told the publication.
The powerful Iranian military's broader plan was to create a multi-front threat "strangling" Israel from all sides -- Hezbollah and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine in the north and Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hamas in Gaza and the West Bank, said senior Hamas and Hezbollah members and an Iranian official. Notably, Iran is setting aside other regional conflicts, including its open feud with Saudi Arabia in Yemen and focusing on IRGC's foreign resources toward financing and arming terror groups, including Hamas and Hezbollah, to attack Israel.
However, when Mahmoud Mirdawi, a senior Hamas official, was asked about the meetings with Iran in Beirut, he claimed it was a "Palestinian and Hamas decision". A spokesperson for Iran’s mission to the United Nations said his country backed the actions by Hamas in Gaza, but asserted that Tehran did not direct them, the Wall Street Journal reported.
"The decisions made by the Palestinian resistance are fiercely autonomous and unwaveringly aligned with the legitimate interests of the Palestinian people," the spokesperson was quoted by Wall Street Journal as saying, on the condition of anonymity. "We are not involved in Palestine’s response, as it is taken solely by Palestine itself," he claimed.
US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said there was no evidence Iran was behind the latest attacks on Israel but he said there are long-standing ties between Tehran and Hamas.
Israel launched a strong counteroffensive to wipe out Hamas's hideouts in the Gaza Strip, after the group launched 5,000 rockets into Israel and its members infiltrated the country by land, air and sea.
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