As one ponders the intent behind Hamas’s unconstrained violence of the last five days true strategic understanding is difficult to achieve.  They jihadists have always acted in extremely passionate ways.  However, this time they seem to have exceeded their own bloody norm. Why?

Figuring out the beheadings and random killing of women and children is not easy.  The Palestine apologists all claim that every citizen of Israel is a colonist on their land.  Therefore, they must all be killed. The Palestinians / Hamas have been heavily armed by Iran and Afghanistan, among others, but they do not have the wherewithal to destroy Israel.  Attacking now may even set back their ability to attack again for years if not a decade.  At the rate of destruction that is occurring in Palestine there may only be rubble left in the Gaza strip.  A poverty ridden population which has seen much of the aid money poured into the country go for weapons of war, not for improving the lives of the people will again seek to kill the colonizer—Israelis.   Following this latest “war” the plight of the people most likely will be worse.  They have ignited a passion among the Israelis which had been becoming dormant. The reduction in fear led to the disarming of much of the population—that has been reversed. This Israeli passion will cause great destruction to Gaza which will take many years to rebuild.  Given the eventual embargoes that will most likely be imposed importing materials and goods and services will be more difficult.

It is in this passion—on both sides—that a possible understanding of what Hamas seeks to achieve emerges. Hamas and Iran see the US as weak and unwilling to or unable to respond resolutely.  The demonstrations and pronouncements from Liberals from Harvard undergraduates to Black Lives Matter may be fueling the Palestinian passion.  It is obvious that it is stirring Jewish sentiment in the western world.  Even President Biden, whose administration has been currying the Jewish vote while supporting the Palestinians has felt forced to speak out against the invasion.  However, once the conflict has ended you can expect millions of dollars to be poured back into Gaza because “it is the right thing to do.”

Hamas may have also seen a loss of passion in Gaza that was brought on by too much peace and even a gradual improvement in the standard of living.  To reignite the local population’s ardor in fighting the Israeli “colonists” it may have needed to return the situation to one of total deprivation.  I can remember Yassar Arafat saying that he did not want to get the Palestinians out of the camps because in the camps they were controlled and it was easy to ignite their passion.  We may be seeing this whole scenario playing out again. 

So how does this end?  Israel has absorbed significant damage, but nothing to compare to what has / will happened in Gaza.  Israeli unity of purpose will be the norm with political diversity set to the side for some time.  Gaza will be devastated and bleeding hearts will try to rebuild it and rearm Hamas, but it will take time for the images of decapitated babies to disappear.

The most optimistic outcome is that the Palestinians will decide that they have had enough of the agony brought on by fighting Israel and will opt for a more accommodating approach.  And of course, this will be the argument to open our borders and increase the national debt.  However, the Biden handling of the southern border may have so upset the American people that such an approach will not be possible.  The Israeli disarming will most likely set back liberal attempts to limit the applicability of the Second Amendment.

It is also interesting to note that some Wall Street firms are now refusing to hire Harvard graduates that support Hamas.  What does this say for the whole Diversity, Equity and Inclusion theology?  At this very early in the analysis process the one thing that we can conclude is that actions have consequences and sometimes (often?) the severity of the consequences are not very well thought out.