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The news out of Israel is simply horrendous. The attack by Hamas on Israeli citizens was unquestionably a war crime and deserves the world’s condemnation. Rage is an appropriate human response to these atrocities and I have no patience for those who argue that the actions of the Israeli government justify the actions of Hamas. I have plenty of problems with the current Israeli government, but the slaughter of civilians can never be justified.

But rage is an inappropriate mindset for the pursuit of a better world. We should have learned that lesson after 11 September 2001 (I am deeply troubled by those who refer to the actions of Hamas as “Israel’s 9/11). The US allowed the justifiable outrage of American (and global) citizenry to influence its foreign policy to an inordinate degree and that lack of discipline led to the US invasion of Iraq which I regard as the greatest foreign policy mistake of the US in the post-1945 period. If Israel decides to conduct a massive invasion of the Gaza Strip, I would be concerned of an error of similar magnitude.

The language used by some of the members of the Israeli Cabinet are inflammatory. To call the Palestinians who conducted the attack “animals” is dehumanizing and that identification of the enemy will inevitably lead to inhuman actions. Consider the words of Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant:

“There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed,” he was reported as telling commanders at the Israel Defense Forces’ Southern Command. 

“‘We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly,’ he added, per the paper’s translation of his remarks.

“Gallant’s remarks were followed by an order from Israel’s Energy Minister Israel Katz to cut off water to Gaza, per the Times of Israel. Electricity and fuel were halted two days ago, he is reported to have added. 

“The announcement comes a day after the Israeli government formally declared war on Hamas, the militant Palestinian group that launched a devastating wave of surprise attacks on Saturday.”

The idea that Israel can eradicate Hamas is superficial, roughly comparable to the foolish policy of the US to conduct a “war” on terror. It also underestimates the intelligence of those Palestinians who either support Hamas or who have no choice but to live under the rule of Hamas.

The attack on Israel was a carefully planned and choreographed operation, one which exploited the weaknesses of the Israeli intelligence services. Daniel Byman, writing for Lawfare is blunt:

“Israel’s legendary intelligence services failed to warn of and stop the Hamas attack. ‘This is a major failure,’ lamented Yaakov Amidror, a former national security adviser to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. And in the days and weeks to come, more and more fingers will be pointed at the leaders of Israel’s intelligence services.

“But intelligence failures come in many forms. We are still (very) early in the conflict, but there are five potential forms of intelligence failure to consider: poor assessments by the Israeli government about Hamas’s capabilities; poor assessments about Hamas’s intentions; misunderstanding the impact of Israel’s own policies; overestimating the effectiveness of Israel’s security services; and the possible unwillingness of senior Israeli policymakers to heed intelligence warnings. Some of these problems may stem from poor or incomplete collection of intelligence, while others may be due to cognitive biases or other analytic challenges. 

“Israeli leaders appear to have wrongly assumed that Hamas, while hostile to Israel, could not launch a major attack. Part of this comes from Hamas’s track record, which is usually a good way to judge an organization’s goals and capabilities. Hamas has repeatedly used rockets and missiles to attack Israel, but the salvos have been more modest in size. Hamas has never done a mass infiltration of Israel from Gaza: this time it sent in hundreds of fighters or more. In addition, although Hamas has long sought to attack Israel from Gaza, some of the means used—such as the ‘kite war’ in 2018—suggested limited capabilities, at best. Israeli defensive systems like Iron Dome seemed highly effective, while the “smart fence” protected Israel from infiltration.”

The sophistication of the attack on Israel raises a very troubling question. Given that Hamas had figured out where the Israelis were weak, why would anyone attribute the slaughter of innocents to simple mindless barbarism? Kidnapping people suggests another level of planning and decapitating babies serves no useful purpose but is guaranteed to provoke spastic anger. In the struggles to liberate the European colonies after World War II, one tactic used by guerilla groups was to induce disproportionate acts of violence by the colonial powers. The assumption was that one could highlight the violence of colonialism by forcing the colonists to display graphically the violence used by the powerful against the weak.

If you want to see the logic of this tactic unfold, just watch The Battle of Algiers which was directed by Gillo Pontecorvo and released in 1966. It masterfully shows the logic of the National Liberation Front in Algeria against French rule. Or read the preface to The Wretched of the Earth by Frantz Fanon written by Jean-Paul Sartre as he discusses the violence of the Algerian war of liberation:

“This fat, pale continent ends by falling into what Fanon rightly calls narcissism. Cocteau became irritated with Paris — ‘that city which talks about itself the whole time’. Is Europe any different? And that super-European monstrosity, North America? Chatter, chatter: liberty, equality, fraternity, love, honour, patriotism and what have you. All this did not prevent us from making anti-racial speeches about dirty niggers, dirty Jews and dirty Arabs. High-minded people, liberal or just soft-hearted, protest that they were shocked by such inconsistency; but they were either mistaken or dishonest, for with us there is nothing more consistent than a racist humanism since the European has only been able to become a man through creating slaves and monsters. While there was a native population somewhere this imposture was not shown up; in the notion of the human race we found an abstract assumption of universality which served as cover for the most realistic practices. On the other side of the ocean there was a race of less-than-humans who, thanks to us, might reach our status a thousand years hence, perhaps; in short, we mistook the elite for the genus. Today, the native populations reveal their true nature, and at the same time our exclusive ‘club’ reveals its weakness — that it’s neither more nor less than a minority. Worse than that: since the others become men in name against us, it seems that we are the enemies of mankind; the élite shows itself in its true colours — it is nothing more than a gang. Our precious sets of values begin to moult; on closer scrutiny you won’t see one that isn’t stained with blood. If you are looking for an example, remember these fine words: ‘How generous France is!’ Us, generous? What about Sétif, then? And those eight years of ferocious war which have cost the lives of over a million Algerians? And the tortures?”

If the Israelis consider the Palestinians to be “animals”, their fight against Hamas cannot be won. The Israeli government must protect its people but it can only do so by patiently and systematically disarming Hamas supporters. If it chooses to starve the people of the Gaza Strip, or to cut off their water or electricity, then it will only increase the number of Hamas supporters in the future. Worse–the Israelis will lose their humanity.