October 17, 2023
Israel: Don’t Repeat the Mistakes of the Past
By Albert R. Veldhuyzen
Playing with fire by underestimating Hamas has been Israel’s pastime for a few years now. The eminently preventable tragedy unfolding before our eyes requires a serious rethinking of Israeli and Western strategy.
Speculation has focused on the lack of rapid response, notification, security, and intelligence gaps, and these are worthy of exploration, but focusing on these alone misses the forest from the trees. The bigger issue is, why did Israel acquiesce to an uneasy coexistence with Hamas after Hamas forcefully grabbed the Gaza Strip in 2007, especially given that Hamas’s charter clearly laid out its goal of destroying Israel (preamble), that Israeli land is a holy Islamic possession (art. 11), and that armed jihad is the only solution and peace talks useless (art. 13)? The short answer is that as the violent equilibrium between Hamas and Israel was somewhat controlled, it actually benefited both parties.
First, there was the Netanyahu Doctrine, which intentionally kept Hamas alive as a counterweight to the Palestinian Authority, for the purpose of keeping Palestinians divided. Netanyahu famously said, “The Palestinian Authority is a burden, and Hamas is an asset” — a political strategy now obviously revealed as too clever by half.
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https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/10/israel_dont_repeat_the_mistakes_of_the_past.html
