Defeating Hamas.

The View from Here

Subject: Defeating Hamas.

There is a military theory that to bring an enemy to surrender you have to degrade his forces by at least 25%.
This theory has been proven in previous wars. Enemies retain the spirit of battle until consistent onslaught and the depletion of its fighting force cause it to collapse. The mathematic equation has shown that the enemy needs to lose at least a quarter of its manpower before this state of collapse leads to its defeat.

The Israeli Government has repeatedly stated that it was never its intention to defeat Hamas, merely to stop the rocket attacks on its citizens, and to prevent further rearming of Hamas.

The media and diplomats, impervious to decades of Palestinian terrorism and suicide bombers and eight years and six thousand Hamas rockets on Israeli civilians, have now found their voice. The Gaza death toll has moved them to protest the conflict and demand an immediate ceasefire, despite the fact that the vast majority of Palestinian dead are Islamic terrorists.

In certain circles Israel has been accused of operating a ruthless war. They ignore the fact that the IDF dropped thousands of leaflets and made one hundred thousand phone calls warning people to move out of the intended areas of operation in order to prevent damage to the civilians population. This was done despite the fact that it warned the enemy of Israel's military intent, putting its soldiers at greater risk.

Throughout the conflict Israel has sent into Gaza hundreds of trucks with humanitarian aid in order to reduce the suffering of the civilian population. Yet the media conducted a fictitious campaign of a humanitarian crisis. This was mainly intending to show Israel in a bad light. They were assisted in this effort by statements of UN aid officials claiming that Israel had killed one of their drivers. One particularly obnoxious individual almost accused Israel of a war crime. It turned out that this driver was not killed by an Israeli tank shell, but by a bullet from a Hamas sniper. Facts have never stopped the media and pro Hamas politicians from stopping their attacks against Israel.

We shall soon see the upcoming law suits against Israel and its officers accusing them of all sorts of war crimes. These legal eagles will not stop to bring Hamas to book for its human rights offences, such as using civilians as human shields, abuses of children in their terror campaign against Israel, deliberately targeting the
civilian population of Israel for decades, killing and violence against their own population, such as political rivals, Christians, Muslims who do abide by their strict Islamic laws.

It can be argued that Israel should have, as a result of its early success in the battle against Hamas, gone all the way and claimed victory over this Islamic terror regime.
Hamas has up to twenty thousand armed men. Using the military analogy Israel would have to kill or capture five thousand Hamas fighter. The fact that under one thousand people have been killed clearly shows that Israel has been using surgical strikes and operating with utmost caution, although even this method of warfare results in civilian casualties. Yes, there will be scenes of destruction to buildings and infrastructure, but the death toll is small for the amount of tonnage dropped on the area.

The defeat of Hamas, despite the objection of the international community, would have heralded a new chance for peace in the region. The removal of Hamas from power in Gaza could have enabled the Fatah faction of the Palestinian Authority to take charge of the area, as they began to do after the last Palestinian elections. They could have strengthened their control over this lawless territory with an international military assistance allowing Israel to withdraw. This would have the dual benefits of reuniting the Palestinian community and opened the door to renewed and more hopeful peace negotiations with Israel.
Should Hamas retain control of the Gaza Strip peace negotiations will be set back for a prolonged period until the Palestinians themselves remove Hamas from office.

It will be up to the Palestinians themselves to defeat Hamas if they truly want to live in peace alongside Israel.

Barry Shaw
The View from Here
Israel
netre@matav.net.il

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