Israel Hamas – The Failure
To again go back to the beginning and my blog on the issue – The invincible Mossad failed to anticipate this, as also the entire western intel community (including that Famous Five Eyes – reminds me of the Enid Blyton books) is today a proven fact. That the Hamas built more than 500 kms of tunnels fortified in various ways, all of which required massive logistic support including funding, and takes significant time to build, and the Mossad and the western intel did not ask questions is deeply troubling. To blame one man just because one hates him is stupidity of the highest order.
Not one person globally flagged this issue means that nobody cared, or everybody winked at it as if kids were building castles in the sand. Forget the Intel agencies, what were the NGO’s who obviously routed some part of the funding doing? Let’s stop kidding ourselves and face the truth – the Hamas and the team behind this were so brilliant that they fooled hundreds of folks globally. The final act of terror was just the proverbial last straw on the camel’s back which the world had helped load like blind idiots. But to say that one man alone is to blame is dangerous.
The younger generation of
Israel, who if reports are to be believed, had turned woke and lost the mojo of
the past where paranoia ruled their existence. That made Isarel a easier target
to attack. The overall decline in vigil across the spectrum globally cannot be forgotten.
If everybody hoists the petard on one man, but none of the others realise their
own mistakes, they will only attract one more catastrophe after hanging
Netanyahu. A careful reading of the above will show the lapses over time by
all.
The world realises their stupidity – make no mistake. That is why for the first time you see a push back, however slight, globally and nations taking more strident positions including India. The public can take out all the protest marches they want in support of the civilians suffering in Gaza, but you still have governments behaving politically incorrectly not because they don’t care, but because each one of these governments globally have allowed similar innocent activities in their own backyards. Only we the public don’t know it yet. The Governments have far more information than we do, and they now will be seeing the patterns in the dots they see. They cannot afford to have an incident in their backyards. They are scared and working behind the scenes. The decisive action in Pakistan against the Afghan refugees could well be connected even if the timelines indicate otherwise.
Israel Hamas – The Endgame
There is a popular dialogue in a Hindi film that when translated goes – “You started the game, and I will finish it”. This is exactly the dialogue that Netanyahu and his Israel Govt has said after the horrifying attack by the Hamas terrorists on 7th Oct. More than a month has passed and while the casualties, apparently all civilian, on the Gaza strip is said to have crossed 10,000 we still don’t see any light at the end of the tunnel (pun intended). Can we ever see it?
To think that the Hamas terrorist leaders are still sitting there waiting to be killed is again height of stupidity. The main leaders have fled long back to safe houses in different countries. For all you know, with a fake passport they can be sitting on the beach in Florida or Goa and plotting their next steps. At best the minions and middle level leaders can get killed only because you need someone on the ground.
There are over 200 hostages. Can one imagine the logistics needed to manage them? They would likely have been distributed across different locations to make it easier to control them, psychologically and physically. Families separated, guarded by some low-level minions high on Amphetamines.
So, what exactly will Israel achieve? They will destroy the tunnels which were built over years under their very noses. But then these tunnels would be ending in buildings, have blind spots and rigged with explosives in “innocent” areas. It may have many of the hostages located in different points. When you consider that in World War 2, American and British armies sometimes took a week to cross one kilometre on the open ground and days to even cross a beach rigged with mines, the time and effort required to enter and investigate 500 kms of tunnels is a impossible task. Does the Mossad/ IDF have a map of the tunnels? Maybe. But what lurks where, do they know. Unlikely.
If the tunnels are to be summarily destroyed, two things would have to be assumed. The collapsing tunnels could well drag down many a building and parts of the Gaza area causing even more casualties to the civilian population, and the hostages can also get killed. Even if Israel has had a no negotiation policy, this decision would be unlikely. Even if some parts of the tunnels are destroyed, more for machoistic jingoism, one achieves little unless the entire labyrinth is destroyed. Israel will be under global pressure to negotiate and pull back. While the actual terror attack was not seen by anyone globally and was over in a few hours, the counterattack has been happening till now over 35 days/ 840 hrs and many scenes beamed live globally. Simple maths – the counterattack will attract more criticism than the terror attack which is already forgotten by most.
There are no easy answers, but countries who are sympathetic to Palestine while opposing terrorism and even USA have supported the 2-state theory. However, even within the communities involved, the support for this option has reduced. Let’s look at the map of the area. Even with a separate state, Palestine would be landlocked and isolated unless Jordan and maybe Syria to an extent can give them free passage to the sea. While their call of River to Sea is conveyed as an annihilation of Israel, fact is that for any nation to be viable in the long run, they need water and access to the sea.
With the West bank, Gaza and Golan heights in control of Palestine any two-state theory will be the most hare-brained option given the fact that the areas are in 3 sections. To make something like this work, it would need humungous levels of statesmanship, give and take, accommodation, acceptance and trust. Right now, this is most unlikely. At best as I see it, Israel can take over the Gaza strip, displace millions to shift to the West bank and even if Israel gives up control in the Golan heights, that solution will also be fraught with huge risks. Remember, the Arabs aren’t very excited about Palestine either.
The only endgame as I see it would be that Isarel will do a lot of bloodletting, feel calmer after the rage and then claim administrative control over the Gaza strip with a Palestinian population living in siege since they will never accept being part of Israel. Will again be business as unusual as before.
Israel and western intel post this will likely be more vigilant. The famous five eyes will hopefully stop being like the kids in Enid Blyton books and get into serious work. The woke Israeli younger generation hopefully will wake up. Globally, governments will slowly but surely start tightening their loose ends even while allowing the Palestinian supporters protest. War and violence are never an option. We cannot afford a World War 3 which seems to be the calling card of many.
As the old hindi saying goes – the picture is still unfolding. We are not even close to the interval let alone the climax.
The earlier blog on the subject is here.
Ruminating on Israel Hamas War
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