Ben's Blog

October 16

If the ceasefire holds, Hamas will have won this war, without hardly firing a shot since October 7. Surely this will go down as the most humiliating defeat since…well since the Romans took over Jerusalem!

It begs the question, why was the I.D.F. incapable of defeating Hamas?

Maybe because they steadfastly refused to engage in hand-to-hand combat. Why did they go to such extraordinary lengths to avoid engagement, preferring to use bombs and drones? Because they are gutless wonders, that’s why!

The I.D.F. will go down in history as the most cowardly army of the modern age. Their strategy was to bomb the shit out of the civilian population, and leave Hamas in their tunnels, playing cards and perfecting their Hebrew with Israeli captives.

One of Hamas’s most significant achievements would have to be showing the entire world just what depravity the Zionist regime is capable of. Whether this was Hamas’s intention we don’t know, they don’t waist much time on PR. I think their main strategy was to goad the I.D.F. into hand-to-hand combat in the narrow alley ways of their densely populated urban environment. It was their gravest mistake to believe the Israelis would fall for that ruse.

A grave mistake that the people of Gaza have paid for in blood.

One gets the distinct impression that Hamas had no idea that the Zionists had more sinister plans for Gaza. It looks like it was actually the cunning Netanyahu that goaded Hamas into making the first fatal move in this never ending game. For two long agonizing years Netanyahu has talked about nothing else but eradicating Hamas, when in actual fact the I.D.F. has studiously avoided engaging with Hamas, out of fears their precious soldiers might get hurt. So much safer to shoot children collecting water and queuing for food. The I.D.F. ran a coward’s war, pressing buttons from their command centre safe inside Israel. Meanwhile Hamas has emerged from their tunnels almost completely unscathed, looking fresh and healthy. But until the Commander in Chief, Donald Trump, called a halt to the carnage, Netanyahu was well on the way to achieving his stated goal of making Gaza unliveable.

Another success for Hamas is that for the first time in 80 years, the world is focusing on the unjust situation in Palestine. We are paying attention in class. We are learning a lot. It takes a lot of time and concentration to unlearn 80 years of propaganda. Again, I am not sure Hamas made this history lesson a priority on their agenda, but it is an absolutely necessary precondition to resolving the never ending tragedy.

Another achievement of their despicable act on October 7, is dragging the Gulf states, kicking and screaming, into this conflict. Something they have avoided like the plague. Qatar, Israel’s closet ally in the Middle East, is now playing an instrumental role in designing the post-war scenario. The crucial point Qatar has stipulated is the establishment of a peace keeping force to separate Hamas and the I.D.F. I cannot recall this ever happening in Palestine before.

One reason Hamas started this war was to stymie the growing acceptance by the Gulf states of the status quo. They decided to blow this complacency out of the water. They have certainly achieved that. But the cost of their barbaric action has been enormous. Who among us would deliberately provoke such suffering for our own people. This is the battle of the psychopaths.

We all hope that the people of Gaza have not suffered in vane, that they will, one fine day, live to reside in a Palestinian state with equal rights for everyone, but will they think it was worth the trouble?

We will have to ask them when that day arrives.