The Tactics of Mistake
In a last ditch effort, Hamas constructed the perfect trap for Israel. Here's how they built it and why Israel willingly walked into it.
On January 11, 2024, South Africa will start to make its case that Israel has breached the 1948 Genocide Convention at the International Court of Justice (of which Israel is a signatory). The vote on provisional measures to provide protection and aid to Palestinians in Gaza (and potentially the West Bank) could take as little as a week. Regardless of the outcome, this is a disaster for Israel. This isn’t all; this war’s length, brutality, and complexity have led to an ever-increasing amount of damage to Israel. Here are a few examples;
The tunnel network and the bombing campaign (rubble) have combined to turn Gaza into an unforgiving battlefield that is a cross between two of the most deadly battlefields of WW2: Iwo Jima (tunnels) and Stalingrad. As a result, hundreds of IDF soldiers have been killed and thousands critically wounded (long-term care), damaging IDF morale and discipline.
Extensive tunneling has made it impossible for Israel to effectively ID Hamas targets, which has led to a very messy bombing campaign, resulting in tens of thousands of civilian deaths. These deaths have fueled the growth of anti-Israel networked tribalism across the world (a generational time bomb for Israel within the US) and prepared the ground for South Africa’s action.
The complexities of this prolonged war have led to an increasing number of self-inflicted incidents that have damaged Israel both internally and externally. For example, in a complete breakdown in discipline, the IDF killed three shirtless Israeli hostages waving a white flag.
The reason things have gone so badly for Israel is that this war was a trap. A trap laid in a last-ditch move (just before the normalization of relations between Israel and much of the Arab world) by a weak adversary with few other options. A perfect trap that Israel was compelled to walk into.
Here’s how they did it.
Why Terrorism Works
Terrorism succeeds — in the rare times it does work — when the target state overreacts to the provocation and damages itself by doing so. The trick to knowing when it will work (and when it will be devastating) relies on one insight from Sun Tzu.
If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.
Knowing your Enemy
What does knowing your enemy mean? It means that you understand how your enemy makes decisions. If we narrow this down more, using John Boyd’s decision-making framework, it’s an understanding of how an enemy orients their decision-making.