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The Strategy of Atrocity in the Gaza War

(Gatestone Institute) Michael Hochberg and Leonard Hochberg - Hamas is perhaps the first regime in recorded history to fight a war designed to maximize casualties among their own population. The Hamas terrorists killed by Israel in the Gaza war are all considered "martyrs" whose families are eligible to receive stipends from the Palestinian Authority. Failing to swiftly destroy Hamas and directly punish Hamas' backers in Iran and Qatar will teach sympathizers in other parts of the Muslim world that strategies of atrocity should be added to the playbook of regimes challenging U.S. allies around the world. Even worse would be for Hamas to actually achieve a strategic victory and gain Palestinian statehood; such an outcome would ensure that atrocity becomes a standard and widely used strategy for at least a generation to come. The laws of war - primarily a Western innovation - are being weaponized by the enemies of the West, who do not subscribe to Western culture or to the laws of war. If the type of warfare that we have seen from Hamas is allowed to succeed, and is not met with utter defeat, it will become the standard approach for those challenging Western dominance. If, however, we want to live in a world where the laws of war mean something, then the penalties for deliberately flouting them need to be terrible. Otherwise, more regimes will be tempted to gain advantage through strategies of atrocity. The popular accusation of disproportionality is aimed to prevent Western-aligned nations from achieving decisive victories. Even when the allies of the U.S. have the military capacity to break the will of the enemy, thereby imposing peace on the defeated, they will be forced to resort to fighting forever wars. Michael Hochberg is currently a visiting scholar at the Centre for Geopolitics at Cambridge University. Leonard Hochberg is a Fellow at the Hoover Institution and co-founded Strategic Forecasting, Inc. (STRATFOR).
2024-03-19 00:00:00
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