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Hamas: Reports of its death are greatly exaggerated05/14/2004
From time to time, experts assure us that Israel has dealt a critical blow to the Hamas or other terror organizations, and they are greatly weakened. A dreary monotony has set in about such declarations. They cause great joy for a brief period. They are conveniently forgotten when, as inevitably happens, they are followed by a horrendous terror attack or other operation that proves once again that there are no simple solutions. A case in point is last week's article in the World Tribune, cited in Israpundit which quotes NRP MK and settler supporter Zvi Hendel as saying:
and goes on to gloat:
Of course, once Hendel revealed this great news for purposes of cynical political gain, any Israeli agents in the Hamas could kiss their behinds goodbye, but why should Hendel care? Israpundit placed all this gloating under the headline Who says there's no military solution?. The ink was just drying on the World Tribune story when the Hamas struck an Israeli APC in Gaza, killing six soldiers, and followed up their success with a similar attack about 36 hours later. Apparently, Israeli intelligence hadn't gotten wind of those operations. This was not the first time Israpundit has used that headline. In fact, as blogger Ted Belman wrote, it is an article of faith of his Israel advocacy strategy:
But what happens when the myths turn out to be facts? What happens to this strategy of advocacy when it turns out that there really isn't a pure military solution? Ami Isseroff
Original text copyright by the author and MidEastWeb for Coexistence, RA. Posted at MidEastWeb Middle East Web Log at http://www.mideastweb.org/log/archives/00000257.htm where your intelligent and constructive comments are welcome. Distributed by MEW Newslist. Subscribe by e-mail to mew-subscribe@yahoogroups.com. Please forward by email with this notice and link to and cite this article. Other uses by permission. |
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Replies: 4 comments I doubt it comes as a surprise to anyone in Hamas that they've been penetrated by Israeli intelligence. Indeed, this boasting about intelligence coups may well be exaggerated, in the hopes of accentuating the paranoia and dysfunction that probably prevails within Hamas already. Posted by Analyst @ 05/14/2004 08:39 PM CST "Of course, once Hendel revealed this great news for purposes of cynical political gain, any Israeli agents in the Hamas could kiss their behinds goodbye, but why should Hendel care?" That is, of course, a ridiculous assertion. If Israeli intelligence agents have truly infilitrated Hamas, for example, the fact that Israel claims to have infiltrated Hamas does nothing to undermine their agents' cover. Indeed, the very nature of being "under cover" necessitates that the people can not distinguish between the one who is under cover and one of their own. Posted by Patrick Markham @ 05/16/2004 08:36 AM CST "Of course, once Hendel revealed this great news for purposes of cynical political gain, any Israeli agents in the Hamas could kiss their behinds goodbye, but why should Hendel care?" That is, of course, a ridiculous assertion. If Israeli intelligence agents have truly infilitrated Hamas, for example, the fact that Israel claims to have infiltrated Hamas does nothing to undermine their agents' cover. Indeed, the very nature of being "under cover" necessitates that the people can not distinguish between the one who is under cover and one of their own. Posted by Patrick Markham @ 05/16/2004 08:37 AM CST 1) Sorry for posting twice. It was accidental. 2) I failed to mention in the post, as I had intended, that I don't find Israel's claim to have infiltrated Hamas, for example, entirely believable. While claiming to have infiltrated Hamas does nothing to undermine her agents' cover, as i said, it does put Hamas on red alert, so to speak, which, as it turns out, doesn't put the agents in too terrific a situation. Furthermore, I'm not even sure I believe Israeli agents could infiltrate Hamas, much less in less than three years. Anyway, the final reason I'm inclined not to believe it is that the alternative (ie, making it up) is entirely reasonable; it increases Hamas' anxiety level. And that, of course, serves two purposes: (1) It might cause Hamas to decrease the number of attacks or, at least, the sophistication of attacks (not that sending a child into a public place to blow himself up is all that sophisticated), and (2) the simple fact is that people, those affiliated with Hamas included, make mistakes as their anxiety increases.
Sincerely,
Posted by Patrick Markham @ 05/16/2004 08:50 AM CST Please do not leave notes for MidEastWeb editors here. Hyperlinks are not displayed. We may delete or abridge comments that are longer than 250 words, or consist entirely of material copied from other sources, and we shall delete comments with obscene or racist content or commercial advertisements. Comments should adhere to Mideastweb Guidelines . IPs of offenders will be banned. |
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