The Hamas strategy
Alexander Rose:
"For those among us not wholly unsympathetic to Palestinian aspirations, the death of Sheikh Yassin was a terrible thing. This is not because his execution was an allegedly 'criminal act' by the Israelis, but because the Palestinian reaction to it demonstrates the poverty, folly, and futility of Hamas's grand strategy. The wild-eyed bellowing in the streets, the leadership's ferocious threats, its ungovernable rage, the panting adulation of a death-drunk cripple: Hamas is proving itself to be no Hezbollah, no IRA, no LTTE (the "Tamil Tigers" of Sri Lanka) ? all three fairly successful terrorist outfits.
"The most striking difference between them and Hamas is that the latter has displayed no obvious ability to think things through, to proceed to formulate a set of limited goals, and to then methodically achieve them by using a combination of violence, opportunism, and rational calculation. Clausewitz shrewdly dubbed this dynamic, shifting triangle a wunderliche dreifaltigheit, or wonderful trinity.
"There has to be some sort of balance between these elements for maximum effect: The untrammelled urge to kill must be tempered with a dose of cold reason even as the play of chance allows commanders to exploit unanticipated opportunities that can suddenly transform the strategic picture (such as Yassin's fatal habit of returning home from prayers along overly predictable routes). The essential principle here is that fighting must be a tool of policy, whereas for Hamas, the mere act of fighting is policy. Hamas can neither control its passions nor seize chance openings; all it can do is annihilate.
...
"One reason why Hamas has nurtured such a cult of blood, masochism, and sadism, is because it lacks a realizable agenda. Its objectives, being mostly concerned with exterminating every Jew in Israel and destroying their state, are self-evidently insatiable."
Alexander Rose:
"For those among us not wholly unsympathetic to Palestinian aspirations, the death of Sheikh Yassin was a terrible thing. This is not because his execution was an allegedly 'criminal act' by the Israelis, but because the Palestinian reaction to it demonstrates the poverty, folly, and futility of Hamas's grand strategy. The wild-eyed bellowing in the streets, the leadership's ferocious threats, its ungovernable rage, the panting adulation of a death-drunk cripple: Hamas is proving itself to be no Hezbollah, no IRA, no LTTE (the "Tamil Tigers" of Sri Lanka) ? all three fairly successful terrorist outfits.
"The most striking difference between them and Hamas is that the latter has displayed no obvious ability to think things through, to proceed to formulate a set of limited goals, and to then methodically achieve them by using a combination of violence, opportunism, and rational calculation. Clausewitz shrewdly dubbed this dynamic, shifting triangle a wunderliche dreifaltigheit, or wonderful trinity.
"There has to be some sort of balance between these elements for maximum effect: The untrammelled urge to kill must be tempered with a dose of cold reason even as the play of chance allows commanders to exploit unanticipated opportunities that can suddenly transform the strategic picture (such as Yassin's fatal habit of returning home from prayers along overly predictable routes). The essential principle here is that fighting must be a tool of policy, whereas for Hamas, the mere act of fighting is policy. Hamas can neither control its passions nor seize chance openings; all it can do is annihilate.
...
"One reason why Hamas has nurtured such a cult of blood, masochism, and sadism, is because it lacks a realizable agenda. Its objectives, being mostly concerned with exterminating every Jew in Israel and destroying their state, are self-evidently insatiable."
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