Friday, January 16, 2009
Iran, Hamas, and deterrence
The other day I spotted the TH Daughter wearing a t-shirt with a Star of David that said "Don't worry America, Israel has your back." A party favor from a recent bat mitzvah, apparently, and not at all the sort of thing you expect to see in Princeton.
There is somewhat related news from Israel this morning:
The so-called "Iranian Unit" of Hamas has been destroyed, according to Gaza sources cited Thursday by the Haaretz daily. The sources said most of the unit's 100 members were killed in fighting in the Zeytun neighborhood of Gaza City.
The terrorists had been trained in infantry tactics, the use of anti-tank missiles and the detonation of explosives, among other skills, by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard at Hizbullah camps in Lebanon's Beka'a Valley, as well as sites in Iran.
Not only is our enemy Iran actively waging proxy war against Israel, but its Shiite radicals are, apparently, more than willing to do it through Sunni stooges. So much for that sectarian divide, which is supposed to preclude Iranian coooperation with Sunnis in armed struggle (see "myth" #7 in this Juan Cole post). Israel is our front line against those bastards, and anybody who thinks that they will suddenly go all peaceful once they have driven Israel into the sea is smoking something stronger than weed.
The real news in this article is that Hamas did not expect Israel's counterattack:
Two captured terrorists interviewed by Maariv/NRG say that Hamas was not expecting Israel's response to the escalation in missile attacks on Israeli targets that preceded Operation Cast Lead. One of them, a 52-year-old victim of a premature detonation who had already done time in an Israeli jail, said, "Hamas took a gamble. We thought, at worst Israel will come and do something from the air - something superficial. They'll come in and go out. We never thought that we would reach the point where fear will swallow the heart and the feet will want to flee. You [Israel] are fighting like you fought in '48. What got into you all of a sudden?"
This gets to the heart of Israel's geopolitical rationale, and its metric for "victory" in this context: Hamas was obviously not deterred before -- otherwise, it would have expected this overwhelming response to its rocket attacks. Hamas launched those rockets because it did not believe Israel's implicit or explicit threat to retaliate. Israel's objective is to reestablish that belief. Israel will have "won," therefore, not when it wipes out Hamas for all time (which probably is not possible), but when Hamas finally does expect massive retaliation for its aggression.
7 Comments:
By 
, at
Fri Jan 16, 12:37:00 PM:
"What got into you all of a sudden?"
While I'm glad to hear about the demise of the "Iranian Unit", my first reaction to this quote was "that doesn't sound like something a Hamas guy would say". Made up quote or very loose translation?
By 
Firehand, at
Fri Jan 16, 01:12:00 PM:
Pretty much sums it up: "We thought you were so crippled by appeasing politicians and international opinion that you wouldn't actually fight to win."
By , at
Fri Jan 16, 01:52:00 PM:
The original interview is here in Ma'Ariv online: It has pictures of the interviewees. I agree that the "1948" comment sounds odd, but less so in context. The interview looks authentic and the translation is correct.
By , at
Fri Jan 16, 03:00:00 PM:
I am also suspicious of the quote. It sounds too perfect.
By Dawnfire82, at
Fri Jan 16, 04:05:00 PM:
Some translators like to translate idioms or phrases from one language into similar idioms or phrases into the other language.
I'm sure the guy didn't say it that way; rather, he said something of approximate meaning in Arabic and the try to get the most of the translation the translator used a common phrase rather than a literal translation.
For example, when Arabs talk about being ashamed, they often use a phrase about having 'a blackened face.' Well that doesn't make any sense to an American, so some translators (writing for the general public) will say 'ashamed' or 'he brought shame to his family' or something like that.
By Assistant Village Idiot, at
Sat Jan 17, 12:38:00 AM:
Simple-minded folk like me are pleased when terrorists are captured or killed anywhere: Gaza, Lebanon, Iraq, Afghanistan...
You can make an argument that our military interventions in the area have not given us as much bang for the buck as we might have got from other action, but I can't otherwise see a reasonable objection.
By Consul-At-Arms, at
Mon Jan 19, 07:58:00 AM:
I've quoted you and linked to you here: http://consul-at-arms2.blogspot.com/2009/01/re-iran-hamas-and-deterrence.html
