[Fuzz]

This is a must read, and provides excellent insight on why Israel is failing, and strategies they could employ to not fail. Unfortunately it is paywalled, but if you have Firefox you can use reader mode.


https://www.foreignaffairs.com/israe...amas-ends-gaza

Simply put, despite some tactical victories, the Israeli war in Gaza has been a strategic disaster. For Israel to defeat Hamas, it needs a better strategy, one informed by a deeper understanding of how terrorist groups generally end. Fortunately, history provides ample evidence on that subject. Over the course of decades of research, I have assembled a dataset of 457 terrorist campaigns and organizations, stretching back 100 years, and have identified six primary ways in which terrorist groups end.

Ultimately, Israel’s lack of success in Gaza so far should come as no surprise: counterterrorism that is purely military rarely works and is especially difficult for a democracy to pull off. For one thing, it requires suppressing media coverage to a degree that is difficult to achieve in today’s global digital media landscape (although the Committee to Protect Journalists reports that more than 100 journalists and media workers have been killed in Gaza since the war began). Also, compared with other governments that have relied on military repression in fighting terrorists, many of which are authoritarian, Israel is somewhat more hemmed in by its own laws and policies and because it relies heavily on a patron—the United States—that criticizes the use of excessive force, opposes the commission of war crimes, and at least putatively conditions its military aid on lawful conduct.

Most importantly, the solution! the writer feels would be the best angle to pursue.

But the far more likely way that Hamas could fail is through popular backlash. Hamas rules Gaza through oppression, using arrests and torture to suppress dissent. Gazans widely loathe its internal General Security Service, which surveils and keeps files on people, stamps out protests, intimidates journalists, and tracks people accused of “immoral acts.” Since October 7, many Palestinians have expressed anger at Hamas for having misjudged the consequences of the attack—a serious targeting error that has indirectly led to the deaths of tens of thousands of Gazans. And suffering Palestinians are well aware that Hamas built an elaborate tunnel system to protect its leaders and fighters but did nothing to protect civilians.


To help Hamas fail, Israel should be doing everything in its power to give Palestinians in Gaza a sense that there is an alternative to Hamas and that a more hopeful future is possible. Instead of restricting humanitarian aid to a trickle, Israel should be providing it in massive quantities. Instead of merely destroying infrastructure and homes, Israel should also be sharing plans for rebuilding the territory in a post-Hamas future. Instead of carrying out collective punishment and hoping that Palestinians will eventually blame Hamas, Israel should be conveying that it sees a distinction between Hamas fighters and the vast majority of Gazans, who have nothing to do with the group and are themselves victims of its thuggish rule and reckless violence.


After decades of struggling with Hamas and months of fighting a massive, brutal war against it, Israel still seems unlikely to defeat the group. But it can still win—by helping Hamas defeat itself.

This seems far more likely to succeed than creating future generations of Israel hating terrorists. Which is what they are doing superbly right now. Any thoughts from others on the 5 other strategies he discusses? I think his conclusions are correct on most of them in that they wouldn't succeed.