The Trojan Horse
Storming Israel may have been a provocation to a more complex scheme.
15 October 2023
The ruthless and spectacular attack on southern Israel last Saturday was many things: an act of barbarity; a display of militant ingenuity; and a demonstration to the world of the weakness of Israeli intelligence and defenses. While Israel and the Palestinians have a long history of brutality against each other, the Hamas killing spree may have been the single most brutal act by either side in the 100-year-old conflict. Thousands are dead; ten thousand are wounded; and nearly a half million have been displaced as Gaza evacuates ahead of an Israeli ground invasion.
Hamas’s leaders and their Iranian backers have a conscious strategy. On 13 October 2023, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) stated that ground forces had conducted raids within the Gaza Strip with the intent to attack Hamas militants and locate abducted Israeli hostages. Prior to the invasion, Israel had called for the more than one million people living in the north half of the Gaza Strip to evacuate during a 24-hour window, while Hamas had instructed those residents to stay put. The IDF had urged around 1.1 million civilians to leave North Gaza within 24 hours to reduce the time for Hamas to conduct military preparation in the area. However, aid groups stated that the time window was too short to evacuate the one million people, and lack of electricity in Gaza hampered the ability of electronic communications regarding the evacuation to reach Gazans. Israel had dropped leaflets in Gaza City containing the evacuation order, in addition to electronic communications.
Like almost all other acts of spectacularly bloodthirsty terrorism, Hamas’s assault on southern Israel was designed to provoke an emotional and equally or even more outrageous response by the targeted society. Hamas and Iran are attempting to goad the Israelis into Gaza for a prolonged confrontation—which is to say that the intended effect is precisely the ground assault Israel is now preparing in order to root out and destroy Hamas as an organization, kill its cadres and leadership, and destroy as much of its infrastructure and equipment as possible.
Hamas surely would not have meticulously planned its audacious assault without also extensively planning a response to the hoped-for Israeli counterattack on the ground. The Israeli military will likely encounter a determined insurgency in Gaza. After all, Israel has control of the land strip from the outside, but not on the inside. Israeli dominion over Gaza’s coastal waters, airspace, electromagnetic spectrum, and all but one of its crossings, including the only one capable of handling goods, has made Gaza a virtual open-air prison—run by particularly vicious inmates but surrounded and contained on all sides by the guards.
Hamas has decided to challenge the status quo. By seizing control from its secular Fatah rivals, they’ll take control of the Palestine Liberation Organization to become the official representative of the Palestinian people to the world. By taking the battle directly into Israel, claiming to be defending Muslim holy places in Jerusalem by branding the attack the “Al-Aqsa Deluge,” they effectively declared a Holy War.
Moreover, Saudi Arabia is putting U.S.-backed plans to normalize ties with Israel on ice and pivoting to engage with Iran. Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman took his first phone call from Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi as Riyadh tries to prevent a broader surge in violence across the region.
Hamas and its Iranian patrons want to block the American influence on the Arabian Peninsula. U.S. partners Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan and UAE already control the Suez Canal, Bab el-Mandab Strait, and Strait of Hormuz. Saudi-Israeli normalization would largely block Iran’s regional aspirations in the short run and Chinese ambitions in the more distant future.
Iran and Hamas are goading Israel to attack Gaza with such ferocity that the international sympathy toward Israel is replaced by humanitarian outrage, and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has vowed retaliation that will “reverberate for generations” among Israel’s adversaries. The Israeli general Ghassan Aliyan warned, “You wanted hell—you will get hell.” Defense Minister Yoav Gallant declared, “We are fighting human animals, and we act accordingly.”
As Israel triples down on the dehumanization and collective punishment of human animals, Hamas and Iran hope that Israel will refuse to return to the status quo ante and will instead institute a prolonged ground occupation of Gaza, declaring that Hamas can no longer be allowed to pose such a threat. Gaza, they trust, will become a slaughterhouse for Israeli soldiers, both during the immediate incursion and over time as the anticipated insurgency gains its footing.
Israel’s apparent eagerness to fall into this trap is predictable; outrageous overreach by terrorists typically aims to provoke overreach. We’ll forgive George W. Bush for wandering into Iraq and triggering the longest and most costly military failure in U.S. history. However, Biden’s Washington and others now seized with sympathy will caution Israel not to make this blunder. For if Israel exercises restraint, it can thwart the goals of Hamas and its Iranian sponsors. Restraint will ensure Saudi Arabia’s normalization talks with Israel continue; deal a major blow to Iran; and supplant a “might makes right” approach with a rules based order.
Hamas cannot be eradicated by force, and all acts of terrorism rely upon predictable response. Israel and friends would be wise to look this gift horse in the mouth before letting another woman or child sail away.