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Hamas' Forever War Against Israel
(Times of Israel) Haviv Rettig Gur - Hamas has spent a decade building major new warfighting capabilities meant to challenge Israel on new and unexpected fronts. All proved ineffective or outright useless. It just spent 11 days watching as Israel systematically demolished much of its military infrastructure. Its crack naval commando force failed to produce a single significant attack. Its anti-tank missile crews were identified and destroyed so quickly that Hamas ordered them withdrawn from the battlefield. Strike drones were intercepted with efficiency. Israel also targeted a long list of mid-level commanders. In the mid-1990s, two IDF major generals, Meir Dagan and Yossi Ben Hanan, traveled together to Vietnam where they met Gen. Vo Nguyen Giap, who spent decades as his country's defense minister. He told them: "The Palestinians are always coming here and saying to me, 'You expelled the French and the Americans. How do we expel the Jews?' I told them that the French went back to France and the Americans to America. But the Jews have nowhere to go. You will not expel them." Israeli Jews do not see themselves as an artificial colonialist entity. They believe they are a people with nowhere to go and facing an unappeasable foe. Israeli Jews are unified and mobilized by Palestinian pressure and believe they are defending their home. Hamas is constantly clarifying to Israelis the dire consequences of their acquiescence to international demands.