What is Hamas’ theory for success? Because inflicting violence until your oppressor realises that the cycle of violence needs to stop with them, and that they should stop oppressing you, is not a strategy that is likely to work in Israel. Because the Israeli state will always be more powerful than Hamas (in contrast to say, South Africa, where the white South Africans feared they would eventually be overwhelmed militarily by their opposition)
Not saying the violence is unjustified, I just don’t understand how it succeeds here
my working theory is that the Hamas plan was essentially something like:
Break through the Gaza fence.
Spread out across the local region, taking hostages and killing settlers; bring the hostages back to Gaza.
Also try to reach places where Palestinians are being held in prisons in order to break them out and add fighters to the cause.
With this done, allow yourself to be pushed back into Gaza.
Israel puts Gaza under a siege that they might not be able to keep up if they have sent sufficient artillery ammunition to Ukraine; retaliate where possible against the siege.
Eventually, Israel is forced to move ground forces into Gaza, which is an incredibly difficult urban environment filled to the brim with people who not only hate you, but have nothing to lose by trying to kill you and destroy your vehicles; attrit enough Israelis to force a favourable peace. Additionally, Hezbollah and possibly Syria may distract Israeli forces in the north.
It's honestly not the worst plan in the world considering what they've been dealing with for the last couple decades. The bunker complexes are already built, and it doesn't seem like negotiations are making conditions any better, might as well try
I imagine success looks like the destruction of the state. But that’s very difficult. The world is caught off guard because of the toll and efficiency of the attack, but Israel is still very advanced and has the US as the main benefactor. We’ve seen scrappy guerrillas take down advanced countries before, but it’s likely to happen in this case. But I’m hoping for a miracle
The strategy so far seems to be to take prisoners and use them as leverage, while shattering the myth of Israeli military invincibility and jeopardizing the top-down campaign of Israeli normalization across the Arab world
What is Hamas’ theory for success? Because inflicting violence until your oppressor realises that the cycle of violence needs to stop with them, and that they should stop oppressing you, is not a strategy that is likely to work in Israel. Because the Israeli state will always be more powerful than Hamas (in contrast to say, South Africa, where the white South Africans feared they would eventually be overwhelmed militarily by their opposition)
Not saying the violence is unjustified, I just don’t understand how it succeeds here
Hamas’ theory of success is that if you kill your oppressors they can’t oppress you any more.
What else should they do? Sit around and beg for mercy from genocidal zealots?
Sure, of course they should fight back, I was just wondering what success for Hamas looks like.
my working theory is that the Hamas plan was essentially something like:
It's honestly not the worst plan in the world considering what they've been dealing with for the last couple decades. The bunker complexes are already built, and it doesn't seem like negotiations are making conditions any better, might as well try
It looks like not continuing to be genocided while the entire world nods in silent agreement.
It's not likely to be successful but the alternative is continuing to be slowly genocided.
I imagine success looks like the destruction of the state. But that’s very difficult. The world is caught off guard because of the toll and efficiency of the attack, but Israel is still very advanced and has the US as the main benefactor. We’ve seen scrappy guerrillas take down advanced countries before, but it’s likely to happen in this case. But I’m hoping for a miracle
The strategy so far seems to be to take prisoners and use them as leverage, while shattering the myth of Israeli military invincibility and jeopardizing the top-down campaign of Israeli normalization across the Arab world