So…Hamas?

On the previous Thursday, during a discussion at the Council on Foreign Relations, Itamar Rabinovitch, Israel’s former ambassador to Washington, expressed his opinion that the U.S.-Israeli emphasis on securing a Saudi-Israeli agreement at that time was poorly thought out. He believed this approach was flawed because it attempted to ignore or downplay the Palestinian issue. In drawing a parallel, he likened the attitudes of Israeli and U.S. leaders to passengers on the Titanic, casually sailing towards the looming iceberg of the unresolved Palestinian problem that remained dangerously close. Hamas initiated its Operation “Al-Aqsa Flood” 36 hours later. This extensive and technically intricate breakout caught nearly all Israelis off guard and exposed the profound strategic complacency and tactical disarray that had befallen Israel’s once-renowned security system.

In the majority of Western discussions, the initial responses to the events of October 7 followed the following patterns:A profound sense of shock and dismay over the suffering endured by Israeli civilians. Some unsettling and racially biased assertions that “Hamas could not have organized something like this on their own… it must have been orchestrated by Iran.” Horror and condemnation of Hamas’s actions, often framed as deliberate attacks on Israeli civilians. Urgent calls for a strong Israeli response against Hamas, often with little acknowledgment of the potential harm this might cause to Palestinian civilians and the Israeli captives held in Gaza. Frequent declarations that Hamas “must face consequences,” accompanied by unsupported comparisons of their actions to those of the Islamic State (despite significant differences).

Wabsite