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Why Hamas Attacked Israel Now (Updated with Some Numbers) [1]

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Date: 2023-10-07  

I see four reasons why Hamas has launched its latest attack on Israel. Two are generic, and two are specifically timed to this moment.

1. Hamas wants to show its strength. (Generic)

Hamas controls Gaza with an iron fist, and is opposed to the Palestinian Authority that runs the West Bank. Plus, Gazans are in miserable shape. A lot of that is due to the Israeli and Egyptian heavy restrictions on goods and movement in and out of Gaza, but it is also due to Hamas mismanagement. There’s nothing like a little war to focus people’s attention elsewhere.

2. Hamas wants hostages. (Generic)

Hamas is making a special effort now to capture Israelis, especially civilians, for use as hostages. There are reports of gunmen going door to door in towns in Israel looking for and hauling away anyone they find, including children. Israel has a history of paying a high price to get its citizens back, sometimes giving up hundreds of prisoners to get one body returned.

3. Hamas wants to disrupt Israeli-Saudi Arabia negotiations. (Specific)

These negotiations have been going on, quietly, since at least March. (Probably before that, but this is the earliest date I’ve found right now.) Any normalization of relations between any Arab state and Israel acts to Hamas’s detriment. It is very possible that these negotiations, which were delicate to begin with, could be derailed by the current violence. It is astonishing that Israel could have been so naive or careless as not to realize Hamas — and Iran, and Hezbollah — would see this as a threat.)

4. Hamas wants to mark the Yom Kippur War 50 years ago. (Specific)

Although I’m not aware that Hamas has made any announcement yet about this, the timing is so obvious as to almost not need mentioning. The Yom Kippur War began on Oct 6, 1973, exactly 50 years ago, and was the severest crisis to date that Israel faced since the War of Independence. Anniversaries matter; they are symbols to rally people. The timing of this attack is no accident at all.

The timing is also further evidence of a systemic failure of Israeli intelligence and military planning. This weekend is not just the 50th anniversary of the Yom Kippur War; it is the last day of the fall holiday season in the Jewish calendar: Simchat Torah. Israel’s enemies have a long history of planning attacks on religious holidays, going back to the Maccabeean War.

There’s a phrase used in Israel: “Quiet, please. We’re shooting.” (I forget the Hebrew.) It means: we’re under attack right now, so let’s not argue politics for the moment. A shooting war is about the only time Israelis don’t argue politics (and other things), so there will probably not be any recriminations for the moment. (I say “probably” because, in Israel as elsewhere in the world these days, people no longer care for the civilities of argument.) But there will definitely be a reckoning within Israel once the shooting stops.

Update at 4:15 Pacific Time Sunday:

Ha’aretz reports that Hamas claims to be holding over 100 hostages, and Islamic Jihad claims to hold another 30. That was one of their main goals: Capture Israelis (soldiers or civilians, old or young, makes no difference) to trade, or to torture, or to just slaughter.

The Washington Post reports that one of Hamas’s targets was a music festival being held in the desert not far from the border. Over 260 dead bodies, all civilians, have so far been recovered from a site that was in no way a military facility. The report also describes how Hamas blocked roads and ambushed fleeing cars looking for people — again, civilians — to kidnap.

This deliberate targeting of civilians is an act of planned terror by Hamas that is earning them worldwide condemnation; even some Arabs (sorry, behind a paywall, so I can only see the headline) have said Hamas went too far.

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