Do you know why it was now? Do you think this is a symptom of global turmoil caused by recent geopolitical realignments/tensions and unusually rapid advancement in technologies relevant to security (e.g. information processing and information/cognitive warfare technology)?
I think the timing was a combination of ongoing repression and Hamas planning coming to fruition after years of planning and previous attempts—but that wasn’t the proximate cause. The proximate cause for ordering the operation, I strongly suspect, was the US/Israel/Saudi peace talks that threatened Iran (Hamas’s sponsor) with a regional coalition against them, and Netanyahu explicitly saying he was leaving the Palestinians out, and was hoping to neutralize the international support they had by making peace. The cause is particularly critical, in my view, because Israel’s reaction has been exactly what Hamas and Iran hoped for, and seems likely to derail attempts at a Saudi peace deal.
We’ll find out in the coming years what Egyptian intelligence knew, and likely find out how much the attack was directly orchestrated by Iran/Hezbollah via training, but one terrorism expert, Matt Levine of the Washington Institute, noted that the attack tactics were very clearly in line with Hezbollah’s typical approach, rather than being similar to what Hamas has done in the past.
I’m not so sure about that. Hamas don’t actually talk that much about the deal, and as long as Israel doesn’t do anything too terrible in the coming war I don’t think it’ll be affected that much. I also don’t think a deal with the Saudis will do nearly as much damage to the Hamas as will the current attack, which represents a clear existential threat to its regime.
This could be an Iranian plan for the same reasons, since they have less to lose and more to gain from sabotaging the deal, but then I would expect a similar attack from Hezbollah at the same time for maximum effect, which they did not do. I genrally don’t think they were coordinated until after the attack, and might still not be. So far they haven’t joined the war, and might not do so at all.
I think there’s a strong possibility Hamas tried to lead a smaller scale teerror attack, with <100 dead and some hostages, to use as a bargaining chip for prisoners, then succeeded way more than expected and brought war upon themselves.
I think this is a clear blunder by Hamas, so there’s some miscalculation behind it. I don’t know if we’ll ever know that.
I disagree with you about what Hamas’s ultimate goal is—you seem to envision this as a near-term self-promotion and self-preservation organization, whereas religious extremists are often happy to sacrifice themselves and others for their ideals. If Israel makes peace with the Saudis, it cements the status quo in place, makes it impossible to actually reasonably claim that the Muslim world would support the destruction of Israel, negating Hamas’s entire platform and reason to exist.
I strongly agree with you that this was intended to be smaller—I expect that they were anticipating a non-zero level of resistance at the border, and most of the attackers being turned back. But they were inviting reprisals in either case, and the reason they tend to do mount attacks is to manipulate internal Palestinian or Israeli politics in some way.
I don’t see how getting Hezbollah involved increases the impact on the Saudi deal, except by making Palestinians suffer worse casualties. Hezbollah has much less Saudi sympathy than the Palestinians. It is also a more valuable pawn to sacrifice, if your goal is just to get pictures of Israel killing arabs.
Do you know why it was now? Do you think this is a symptom of global turmoil caused by recent geopolitical realignments/tensions and unusually rapid advancement in technologies relevant to security (e.g. information processing and information/cognitive warfare technology)?
I think the timing was a combination of ongoing repression and Hamas planning coming to fruition after years of planning and previous attempts—but that wasn’t the proximate cause. The proximate cause for ordering the operation, I strongly suspect, was the US/Israel/Saudi peace talks that threatened Iran (Hamas’s sponsor) with a regional coalition against them, and Netanyahu explicitly saying he was leaving the Palestinians out, and was hoping to neutralize the international support they had by making peace. The cause is particularly critical, in my view, because Israel’s reaction has been exactly what Hamas and Iran hoped for, and seems likely to derail attempts at a Saudi peace deal.
We’ll find out in the coming years what Egyptian intelligence knew, and likely find out how much the attack was directly orchestrated by Iran/Hezbollah via training, but one terrorism expert, Matt Levine of the Washington Institute, noted that the attack tactics were very clearly in line with Hezbollah’s typical approach, rather than being similar to what Hamas has done in the past.
I’m not so sure about that. Hamas don’t actually talk that much about the deal, and as long as Israel doesn’t do anything too terrible in the coming war I don’t think it’ll be affected that much. I also don’t think a deal with the Saudis will do nearly as much damage to the Hamas as will the current attack, which represents a clear existential threat to its regime.
This could be an Iranian plan for the same reasons, since they have less to lose and more to gain from sabotaging the deal, but then I would expect a similar attack from Hezbollah at the same time for maximum effect, which they did not do. I genrally don’t think they were coordinated until after the attack, and might still not be. So far they haven’t joined the war, and might not do so at all.
I think there’s a strong possibility Hamas tried to lead a smaller scale teerror attack, with <100 dead and some hostages, to use as a bargaining chip for prisoners, then succeeded way more than expected and brought war upon themselves.
I think this is a clear blunder by Hamas, so there’s some miscalculation behind it. I don’t know if we’ll ever know that.
I disagree with you about what Hamas’s ultimate goal is—you seem to envision this as a near-term self-promotion and self-preservation organization, whereas religious extremists are often happy to sacrifice themselves and others for their ideals. If Israel makes peace with the Saudis, it cements the status quo in place, makes it impossible to actually reasonably claim that the Muslim world would support the destruction of Israel, negating Hamas’s entire platform and reason to exist.
I strongly agree with you that this was intended to be smaller—I expect that they were anticipating a non-zero level of resistance at the border, and most of the attackers being turned back. But they were inviting reprisals in either case, and the reason they tend to do mount attacks is to manipulate internal Palestinian or Israeli politics in some way.
I don’t see how getting Hezbollah involved increases the impact on the Saudi deal, except by making Palestinians suffer worse casualties. Hezbollah has much less Saudi sympathy than the Palestinians. It is also a more valuable pawn to sacrifice, if your goal is just to get pictures of Israel killing arabs.