by Dr. Reuven Berko
The Gaza
Strip disengagement and the subsequent rocket fire at Israel can be
allegorized by the tale of the patient who, after a minutes-long root
canal procedure, was surprised to hear the treatment was so expensive.
"You paid a lot because the procedure was quick, it could have taken two hours," the dentist explained.
Because Israelis in the
country's south are already suffering from Hamas rocket attacks, it's
appropriate to properly utilize their ongoing pain, the result of the
"root canal" (the disengagement), and inflict great pain on the other
side. As the Arab proverb goes: "A wet man doesn't fear the rain."
The solution is to
cause insufferable and disproportionate damage to Hamas' assets and
resources, while paying no heed to its conditions or messages. The idea
is Pavlovian in nature: When things are hellish for us, we will dispatch
many of yours up to "heaven."
Hamas has defined
Israelis as strategic targets to be killed. Its goal is to create an
Islamist state on Israel's ruins. The Jews are allowed to be discussed
in a singular context — their destruction or their retreat to "the west"
of here, to the sea. Any nuance or deviation from this religious belief
is simply heresy.
Hamas is conveniently
conducting a two-faced policy intended to deceive. On one hand, it is
trying to appear like a legitimate regime with governmental
responsibility for its population, while winking to the West (some parts
of which refuse to denounce it as a terrorist group) and presenting
itself as a humanitarian government authority in legitimate competition
with the Palestinian Authority.
At the same time, Hamas
is involved in running a club for terrorists, and it has many members.
It can't allow itself to lag behind the other Islamist terrorist
organizations — most of which are Hamas' subordinates — in their efforts
against Israel.
These subordinate
groups are fighting Israel as "frontline" units commanded by Hamas in
order to maintain the murderous organization's image of legitimacy. This
method allows it to compete for popularity among the Palestinians,
collect donations, garner flotillas of support, visits and diplomatic
aid (from the Qatari emir, for example), and improve its relations with
Egypt.
With that, when these
ephemeral terrorist groups join up to throw a large anti-Israel bash,
Hamas comes out of the woodwork to take a declared part in the rocket
fire. If it doesn't participate, it risks losing its appointment as
"terror club manger."
It's a familiar trick:
Hamas leaders remember how they used to make it possible for Yasser
Arafat to play dumb with the West and Israel, by functioning as his
"deputy contractors for terrorist operations." Hamas also remembers how
it ultimately rebelled against the PLO and how the "tail wagged the
dog." We must make use of Hamas' collective memory as a tool with which
to mold consciousness. How?
The Palestinian media
has on more than one occasion revealed that despite its "bloodthirsty
Islamic" image, Hamas is sensitive to preserving its resources. This
mainly pertains to the heads of its leaders and its infrastructure,
which projects normalcy and legitimacy. In actuality, Hamas is attentive
to the painful messages of losing this infrastructure, terrorist
operatives and other services it offers.
Israel must not fall
victim to the capriciousness of one Islamist group or another. It needs
to bomb the Gaza Strip and cause unprecedented damage to operatives and
infrastructure without exposing our troops on the ground. Gaza is a tale
of Sisyphean conflict to be decided by building a deterrence based on
causing substantial damage; it's a shame to lose even one soldier. The
alternative to Hamas' leadership in Gaza is already there; therefore we
must allow a small nucleus of its old guard to remain as "knowledge
sources" — to pass on the collective message of deterrence seared into
their consciousness.
Dr. Reuven Berko
Source: http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_opinion.php?id=2866
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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