Honest question: what was Hamas' long-game with respect to kidnapping Israelis? Did they think Israel would just negotiate rather than retaliate?
It just seems crazy to me given the power imbalance. A cynical part of me suspects that things are playing out exactly as some evil strategists hoped they would, which, given all the children dying, is super-depressing.
That’s sorta classic supervillain logic. Doing terrible things just so someone else will have to do them too and in doing so “reveal” that they are “equally” monstrous. Israel has had some super fucked up policy for a long time, and I’m not defending that, but the approach of provoking them by committing your own war crimes knowing that it will lead to this much civilian suffering on all sides is even more fucked up.
Hamas already knows how they're considered elsewhere. They know they're a terrorist group. A government that acts like terrorists is what they want the world to see
Wouldn’t it be the other way around ? Hostage means that you nced to open some negociation for their release. And that a military intervention would put them at risk.
Hostages are variables that Hamas controls and Israel must respect. They can be used as chips to barter with, shields to hide behind, and tools to shame the Israelis in the court of public opinion.
All fair points. They hardly needed to shame Israel in the court of public opinion, though. The hard-right faction who control their government have proven quite adept at shaming themselves with no outside help.
NB: I said Israel the country. Not Israelis the people.
Add comment