Like pretty much everyone else, I was taken by surprise at the sudden assault launched from Gaza by Hamas forces into Israel. The sheer scale of the attacks, coming from land, sea, and air, was shocking given that Gaza has been described as ‘the world’s largest open-air prison’, with Israel controlling pretty much every aspect of life there, including entrance and exit from the territory. And yet, there it was, and Hamas even managed to capture Israeli soldiers and tanks and civilians to hold as hostages.
While before Hamas was able to periodically launch small-scale attacks, the idea that they could do this on such a large scale and take Israel completely by surprise has caused consternation within Israeli political and military circles as to how there could have been such a failure of intelligence, given that it was believed that the highly-thought-of Israeli intelligence services had deeply infiltrated Hamas and Gaza society and thus should have had at least some inkling of these plans, since there were thousands of Hamas fighters involved.
Then there is the question of what Hamas hopes to gain by this attack. Their leaders must have known that they are no match for Israel’s military and that Israel would unleash massive retaliatory attacks that would seek out and destroy Hamas fighters, however many civilians may get in the way, and destroy whatever meagre infrastructure there is, making the lives of Gazan residents even more miserable than what it already is. So what was the point?
In trying to interpret surprising political events, one reaches for historical analogies and my first reaction when I heard this news on Saturday morning was to recall the Tet offensive that took place all over South Vietnam in January 1968. It was launched by the National Liberation Front where its cadres that had been embedded among the South Vietnamese population suddenly came out into the open and attacked US and South Vietnamese government forces and buildings, even in the heart of Saigon. The attack took place on a holiday in the country when defenses were not on alert, just like this one took place reportedly during a holiday in Israel..
The NLF and the North Vietnamese did not expect this one assault to expel the US forces and bring down their puppet South Vietnamese government. Indeed, militarily, the Tet offensive could be construed as a defeat since many of their secret cadres had been exposed and killed or captured. But that did not seem to be the main effect of the offensive. What it achieved was psychological, destroying the impression that the US government had been presenting that they were on the way to ‘winning’ the war (though what victory meant was never clearly defined) and the commander of US forces General Westmoreland kept saying that he only needed a few hundred thousand more troops to finish the job. After Tet, that view was no longer believed and the political classes in the US began to realize that the war was unwinnable by any standard and what was needed was to find a way out of the quagmire. It also led to Lyndon Johnson, deeply identified with the highly unpopular war, deciding to not run for re-election and to begin the process of withdrawing troops. So the Tet offensive achieved important political goals even if it did not achieve significant military ones.
So perhaps the goal of Hamas is similar, to inflict a psychological defeat on Israel, showing that the extent of their military dominance was much less than was thought and that the sense of security felt by Israelis was illusory. There have already been calls within Israel for explanations for what is being referred to to as one of the most colossal failures of intelligence.
All historical analogies have limits and so it is in this case. There is no chance that Hamas can wear Israel out, the way the NLF and the North Vietnamese army could hope to do with the US and expel them from the country. Another complication is the large number of hostages (estimated at around one hundred) that have been captured by Hamas. The typical Israeli response to any attack is to use disproportionate force but in this case that will risk the lives of the hostages so there is no telling what will happen.
What we can be sure of is that there is going to be a lot of death and destruction, at least in the near term.
Yes, I know nothing, but thought the same -- that Hamas knows Israel is unbeatable. And knows Israel will respond -- as always -- with terrifying retribution.
But the point is to show the oppressor they can never be safe. They will always live in fear. The oppressed will not just accept the status quo.
When you are powerless, it’s all you have.
Yeah.
I had always considered one of the defining national characteristics of Israel and Israelis is their overweening LACK of any apparent sense of security. Every single thing that anyone, anywhere, ever does -- even something like stating support for a boycott of Israeli products -- anything that doesn’t directly support their apartheid state and policy of genocide is held up as a vile example of anti-semitism and a morally disgusting pandering to terrorists. They’re the most violently insecure nation on earth, with the possible exception of their enablers in the USA, so the idea that they’ve had any sense of security in my lifetime seems at best comedic.
My worthless thoughts go out to all those stuck in the situation out there, i.e. those who have never had the opportunity to be anywhere else.
Eventually the Palestinians will cough up their own Ho Chi Minh. Then, it’s all over but the shouting -- and there will be a lot of shouting. Israel bears a tremendous similarity to South Vietnam, and I expect the denoument will be about the same.
@mjr, 3 -- can you expand on that, please? I don’t know enough of the history to know what you’re getting at.
There will of course be massive retaliation. Which will make things even worse in the Palestinian territories. They already have no hope of making things any better, and more of them will decide that if they’re going to all die, at least they can take some of their oppressors with them. So there will be even more attacks. As for “civilian” casualties, the Israeli government and military have never made a distinction between combatants and non-combatants, so it’s no surprise that Hamas doesn’t either.
Hamas may claim that their goal is to eradicate the state of Israel, but the Israeli government has been actually carrying out the slow but steady eradication of the Palestinian people; it may not be explicit policy, but their actions speak louder than words. This has been going on for a long time, perhaps starting with the establishment of the state of Israel, and would have continued whether or not this attack took place. What I fear is that with the escalation of the conflict and the gradual drift in Israel (like everywhere else) towards fascism, at some point, the Israeli government will simply decide to kill them all.
Unlikely. The US never tried to annex Vietnam (or South Vietnam), so the only thing they had to lose was their pride. (Of course, the US politicians considered and consider their pride to be more valuable than thousands of foreigners’ lives.) So giving up and going home was a viable option. It is obviously not for the Israelis.
Eventually the Palestinians will cough up their own Ho Chi Minh.
Yeah, just as soon as whoever’s supporting/manipulating their “liberation struggle” lets them…
Israel bears a tremendous similarity to South Vietnam…
Wow, that’s even dumber than all the lazy-ass Vietnam analogies I heard in the run-up to Gulf War II!
… the question of what Hamas hopes to gain by this attack.
The most immediate consequence has been the total empowerment of the previously precarious B. Netanyahu. At first, I speculated whether Likud agents had paid off some Hamas leaders to sacrifice their movement/troops to give “Bibi” his own 9/11-Pearl Harbor so he could sweep up all Israel behind him and make everyone forget his criminal charges and constitutional overthrow of the judiciary.
After seeing the scope of the attacks, I have doubts about that scenario, and don’t see any evidence to support the Russia/CIA/whoever stringpulling hypotheses necessary to prop it up. The ferocity and atrocities testify to the long-accumulated rage of oppressed Gazans, just as the thoroughness of the attacks reveals comprehensive planning, but the predictable results leave the question of “Who benefits?” with no clear answer.
They might not even have an easily articulable and attainable goal. I will slightly paraphrase Martin Luther King Jr.’s words on a nearby subject:
a riotviolence is the language of the unheard. It’s not an excuse for the violence, but I think it suffices as an explanation.I guess putting quotes around “liberation struggle” is one way of pretending that the Palestinian people aren’t being brutally oppressed and forced out of their homes. I suppose they’re just expected to take all that Israel dishes out and if they strike back they’re the bad guys. It worked for the indigenous people of the Americas and look how hunky dory everything’s ended up for them.
I guess putting quotes around “liberation struggle” is one way of pretending that the Palestinian people aren’t being brutally oppressed…
No, it’s more a way of hinting that maybe the people waging war in their name don’t really give a shit about all the oppression, and aren’t really in it to make anything better for anyone.
Also @Pierce_r._Butler: Netenyahoo didn’t have to pay Hamas; he just had to ignore warnings from Egypt (which, remember, is right next to Gaza) about an upcoming big attack. Which, according to the Times of Israel, he did:
https://www.timesofisrael.com/egypt-intelligence-official-says-israel-ignored-repeated-warnings-of-something-big/
Mounting questions over Israel’s massive intelligence failure to anticipate and prepare for a surprise Hamas assault were compounded Monday when an Egyptian intelligence official said that Jerusalem had ignored repeated warnings that the Gaza-based terror group was planning “something big” — which included an apparent direct notice from Cairo’s intelligence minister to the prime minister…
In one of the said warnings, Egypt’s Intelligence Minister General Abbas Kamel personally called Netanyahu only 10 days before the massive attack that Gazans were likely to do “something unusual, a terrible operation,” according to the Ynet news site.
Sadly, the Machiavellian/Sun Hsu thing to do would be to wipe Gaza flat, sort of like Sherman’s march, but more thorough. Take advantage of this to pull off a fast genocide instead of the previous slow-motion one.
Perhaps the Israelis will be to dumb to think of that. Most recent military strategists, especially American ones, haven’t seemed to be particularly bright.
I don’t remember either Machiavelli or Sun Tsu ever advocating genocide. I’m pretty sure both of them would have been more in favor of treating civilians more decently after conquering them, and being more responsible toward people over whom one has power.
Also, don’t compare Sherman’s one-time punitive march to Israel’s permanent isolation, immiseration and ghettoization of a civilian population. One doesn’t have to approve of either to see they’re not the same.
Holms: Your correction is incorrect, and King got it right: A RIOT — as in, spontaneous undisciplined violence by enraged ordinary people — is the language of the unheard. Other forms of violence are routinely practiced by people who are far from “unheard.”
Oh, and Hamas’s recent action isn’t a riot, it’s a military/terrorist attack.
Raging Bee @14, I’m afraid that you have misunderstood me. I don’t compare Sherman’s march to the long-time persistent apartheid that the Palestinians have endured. I compare Sherman’s march to the faster-moving genocide which Israel might now inflict on Palestine.
I said that what the Palestinians have long been subjected to amounts to slow-motion genocide, as you say.
sonofrojblake@#4:
@mjr, 3 — can you expand on that, please?
OK, so you have a bunch of national boundaries drawn post-war and arbitrarily to serve an imperial power. (Vietnam: WW2, France) (Palestine: WW1, Britain) The nation was divided and fortified (Vietnam: the De Lattre Line) (Palestine: Israel’s walls) -- the fortifications were expensive and bypassed during critical attacks (Vietnam: the Tet Offensive) (Palestine: this week). There is a strong local ideology of resistance (Vietnam: resisted the Japanese, then French, then Americans) (Palestine: resisted Britain, Egypt/Jordan, Israel) with the resistance able to rely on regional reservoirs for insurgency (Vietnam: Cambodia) (Palestine: Lebanon, Iran) and powerful extra-national assistance (Vietnam: China) (Palestine: Iran, Lebanon, Syria). What Palestine currently does not have is a visionary leader like Ho Chi Mihn, because Israel has a policy of killing anyone who looks like they may rise to leadership. Both had imperialist support for their colonies (Vietnam: France, then US) (Palestine: US/Israel) on the tail end of long supply lines. Both were dependent on technological/military assistance, but built local corrupt autocracies that were not able to maintain the situation (Vietnam: Diem regime) (Israel: Likud Party) lots of turmoil and strategic change at the leadership level, thought I’d argue that South Vietnam’s strategy was: survive and Israel’s is: conquer.
People who study insurgency, e.g., Rod Paschall, point out that one of the important elements in successful insurgency is a sense of deep grievance (check), a reservoir for insurgency where they can retire and regroup (check) and visionary leadership. (check/nocheck)
Ho Chi Minh was not out in the field, much, but the Vietcong trusted his leadership and his vision enough to accomplish completely crazy things like manually hauling 105mm howitzers and ammunition into the hills overlooking Dien Bien Phu (and later, Da Nang) in the mud and rain. This recent set of Hamas attacks has some of that flavor though I don’t think it was set up by a political visionary: Hamas went straight after civilians, and now they are experiencing a worldwide anti-Hamas backlash.
At a meta level, I suppose I’m saying that insurgencies are all self-similar, and attempts to defeat them are, too. If that’s true, though, Israel will eventually lose to the insurgents because a population that mounts an insurgency is really, really hard to beat. The timeline gets compressed when there is visionary leadership on the insurgent side.
Raging Bee@#4:
Wow, that’s even dumber than all the lazy-ass Vietnam analogies I heard in the run-up to Gulf War II!
Wow, your comment is even dumber than mine.
I don’t remember either Machiavelli or Sun Tsu ever advocating genocide
Chin Shi Huang didn’t bother advocating for it, he just did it.
Machiavelli was advocating the establishment of a Roman-style military, which would have been “genocide, implied.” Rome, if you recall, would “create a desert and call it ‘peace.'”
…with the resistance able to rely on regional reservoirs for insurgency (Vietnam: Cambodia) (Palestine: Lebanon, Iran) and powerful extra-national assistance (Vietnam: China) (Palestine: Iran, Lebanon, Syria).
Aside from all the piddling technical differences such as terrain, logistics, history, technology, economics and stuff, another important difference between Vietnam and Palestine is that Ho’s allies (China and USSR) had goals pretty much in accord with those of his own movement, while none of Palestine’s so-called allies (and your quick list is far from complete) ever showed any sign of consistently giving a shit what Palestinians really needed or wanted, and simply used them as cannon-fodder in stupidly-waged battles that never did them any good. That might be partly down to lack of a credible or consistent leader, but it’s also down to about a zillion other factors such as (summing up lots of complex factors here) relative poverty and lack of access to any resources of their own.
And we can’t just blame Israel’s policy of assassination either. They let Arafat live, and he didn’t exactly shine as a leader. There are enormous historical/cultural differences between Palestinians and Vietnamese, which affect their respective abilities to find good leaders and organize themselves.
Um, interesting attempt at framing. No. No more than the USA let Castro live.
“Unsuccessful Israeli assassination attempts
The Israeli government tried for decades to assassinate Arafat, including attempting to intercept and shoot down private aircraft and commercial airliners on which he was believed to be traveling.[150] The assassination was initially assigned to Caesarea, the Mossad unit in charge of Israel’s numerous targeted killings. Shooting down a commercial airliner in international airspace over very deep water was thought to be preferable to make recovery of the wreckage, and hence investigation, more difficult.[150] Following Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, Israeli Minister of Defense Ariel Sharon created a special task force code named “Salt Fish” headed by special ops experts Meir Dagan and Rafi Eitan to track Arafat’s movements in Lebanon to kill him because Sharon saw Arafat as a “Jew murderer” and an important symbol, symbols being as important as body counts in a war against a terrorist organization. The Salt Fish task force orchestrated the bombing of buildings where Arafat and senior PLO leaders were believed to be staying. Later renamed “Operation Goldfish”, Israeli operatives followed Israeli journalist Uri Avnery to a meeting with Arafat in an additional unsuccessful attempt to kill him. In 2001, Sharon as prime minister is believed to have made a commitment to cease attempts to assassinate Arafat. However, following Israel’s successful assassination in March 2004 of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, a founder of the Hamas movement, Sharon stated in April 2004 that “this commitment of mine no longer exists.”[150] ”
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yasser_Arafat#Illness_and_death)
They let Arafat live, and he didn’t exactly shine as a leader.
That’s why they let him live. And Abbas was obviously their patsy. And they let him live.
I’m not saying it’s an exact match, you fucking dipshit. There are relative similarities and that’s how I, in my opinion, think it will end. It may take another 50 years, but I don’t think most technological states are generally successful in the long run. My other observation is that successful counterinsurgency is usually genocidal. Anyhow, I probably won’t live to see the end of it, so I’ll forgo the long-term pleasure of “I told you so”
I’ll also note that this attack showed several innovations that worked (though squandered on civilian targets) the Israelis will note that too when they recover from their rage -- I give a 20% chance they will depopulate Gaza (Egypt will not be happy) but maybe they’ll sit back and wait for the next big one.
#15 RB
I called it a paraphrase, not a correction.
Again -- can you expand on that, please? How will it end? The USA could (and eventually did) just say “fuck it” and get out of Saigon (and Baghdad. And Kabul. I wonder if they’ve learned yet?) . I can’t see Israel giving an inch -- every single movement they’ve made for my entire lifetime has been outwards. The only way I can see it “ending” is every single Palestinian displaced to a neighbouring country, and the Hamas/IJ/whoever militants having to make cross-border incursions from other countries to continue ensuring that Israelis have to sleep in bunkers… which is what they (the Israelis) seem to want. /shrug/