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Why Is It So Difficult for Israel to Decipher Hamas?

(Jerusalem Strategic Tribune) Dr. Michael Milshtein - The West is stricken by distortions in its perceptions of the Middle East, where key players are driven by ideological fervor, largely religious in nature. Westerners adhere to theories of realpolitik which center on the belief that realities and the very essence of being can be shaped by material means. Israel's 36-year confrontation with Hamas constitutes a unique test case of the difficulty in reading another culture, generally, and modern Islamism, specifically. It is an experience that exemplifies the projection of one's own logic on "the other." Contrary to the common myth, Israel did not set up Hamas as a counterweight to Fatah and the PLO in the 1980s. For decades prior to that, the Muslim Brotherhood movement had been active in Gaza and the West Bank and gave birth to Hamas. Israeli thinking at the time assumed that the Brotherhood was less dangerous than other Palestinian groups, since it was focused on faith and social activism. Hamas has been engaged in a constant dynamic of building up its political and public base. Its domestic goals are taking over the Palestinian system and posing an alternative to the PLO and its secular nationalist creed. This was to be the way station to the destruction of Israel and the establishment of Shariah-based religious governance in all of historic Palestine. Israelis falsely assumed that after its takeover in Gaza in 2007, with its coming to power Hamas would find itself facing constraints that would force it to moderate its stances. But, as modern history has taught us, extremist ideological elements who take power usually move in the opposite direction: they gain more resources which enable them to set in motion more violent action than ever, aimed at realizing their vision. Nazi Germany, the Islamic Republic of Iran, and ISIS all followed this path. Since the round of fighting between Israel and Hamas in May 2021, Israel conducted a strategic experiment in Gaza. At its core was an attempt to improve the conditions of life there, mainly through the promotion of civilian projects, allowing for the flow of money into Gaza and more Gazans to work in Israel. All this was driven by the basic assumption that these were means to prevent escalation and create for Hamas a disincentive for war. The steady rise in the quality of life would over time lead to the transformation of Gaza's rulers. In hindsight, this was a fundamentally false conceptual framework. While Israeli decision-makers focused on promoting civilian advancement for Gaza, Hamas leaders were busy at the very same time planning the most painful attack ever launched by the Palestinians against Israel. Analysts and pundits still fail to understand that for Hamas, the duty of Jihad is paramount. Hamas' purpose is to undermine the foundations of Israeli existence, paving the way for its utter elimination. This attack was Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar's life's mission, not a step taken to derail Israeli-Saudi normalization. The accusation of being cut off from reality applies to those who studied Sinwar, yet could not figure out his intentions. Instead of cracking open the enemy's logic, and carefully reading its value system which reflects a different model of rationality, many of the analysts and pundits were projecting their own logic upon Sinwar, effectively playing chess with themselves. The writer heads the Forum for Palestinian Studies at the Dayan Center of Tel Aviv University and is a senior researcher at the Institute for Policy and Strategy of Reichman University.
2023-12-05 00:00:00
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