Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is facing public backlash for concentrating on expanding Jewish settlements instead of protecting the existing ones. The total surprise attack by Hamas from Gaza just deflated Mossad’s prowess balloon, as Israel was caught unprepared. Just like the 1973 war. We figure that Netanyahu’s job is on the line as Prime Minister once the dust settles, which means Netanyahu can only save his job by destroying Gaza. The war on Gaza is a ballot on Netanyahu surviving the Hamas attack.
However, if the hostages die, all bets are off. The Israeli people will never forgive him for the intelligence failure of his government.
No matter how much support Israel gets in the U.S., the rest of the world matters more from a standpoint of global influence
LAYING THE GROUNDWORK FOR A GENOCIDE
The horrific facts emerging from the Hamas incursion are starting to make the world news. Hamas’ fate is now in the hands of an avenging country intent on laying the groundwork, from a public opinion point-of-view, to commit genocide in Gaza.
Not that the Islamists who perpetrated the atrocities in Israel do not deserve the ultimate death, but there are hundreds of thousands of Palestinian civilians who abhor Hamas and its extremist ideology. The last Israel wants is to recklessly and randomly decimate those who may take over the Gaza Strip if Hamas is defeated permanently. How becomes the big question. It is not an easy job to sort and systematize the bad guys from the non-violent ones as Israel seems to prepare for an invasion.
Furthermore, the media in the United States is pro-Israel all the way. Not so in the rest of the world where if images and videos appear of an Israeli genocide, it might just flip the public opinion against Israel on its head. No matter how much support Israel gets in the U.S., the rest of the world matters more from a standpoint of global influence, and Netanyahu can only save his job by destroying the Gaza Strip.
Prime Minister Netanyahu, in preparing for a ground invasion, may have already assumed that Hamas has killed all the hostages.
THE GAZA TRAP
One major issue Israel must also consider is the expectation, given the violence of Hamas inside Israel, that Hamas may have predicted such an invasion, and may have prepared well for that eventuality. In other words, as brilliant as their attack against Israel was, which took the country by total surprise, the worst may yet to come with a ground invasion.
In 2005, Israel withdrew from Gaza because it faced a close quarter guerilla warfare that taxed heavily the small country. Today, as Israel prepares to invade, experts are warning this is going to be costly for both the Israelis and the Palestinians. Moreover, if Iran has assisted the Palestinians in welcoming an invading army, the world should expect the worst to happen because the cleverness of the Iranian tactics will not be easy to overcome.
These tactics will come in all forms. From new traps to kill as many Israeli soldiers as possible, to new guerilla warfare capable of exacting heavy losses on Israel. Notwithstanding how Israel values the lives of its citizens, the Palestinians are content to become martyrs. This provides Hamas with another tactical advantage if Israel invades.
Add to this equation the hostage situation. How will Israel free them and how valuable its human intelligence (Humint) inside Gaza truly is to locate them for rescue operations. Given that Hamas took Israel by surprise, it is safe to assume that Israel’s Humint is almost non-existent.
Prime Minister Netanyahu, in preparing for a ground invasion, may have already assumed that Hamas has killed all the hostages. If so, Netanyahu’s last act as Prime Minister is the invasion of Gaza.