Self –infliction of suffering – Current Palestinian strategy: Part one

Hamas, the jihadi organization gained control of the Palestinian Parliament in 2006, has ruled Gaza since 2007 and  become the focus on global attention after massacring around 1,400 Israelis on Oct. 7.  For fifteen years, Hamas  has implemented an opposite and historically unique purpose in tormenting its subject population. Rather than sacrifice soldiers for battlefield gains, it sacrifices civilians for public relations purposes.

In words  of an  expert on Islam, historian  Dr. Daniel Pipes. “The more misery endured by Gazans, the more convincingly Hamas can accuse Israel of aggression and the wider and more vehement the support it wins from antisemites of all persuasions – Islamists, Palestinian nationalists, far-leftists, and far-rightists. Hamas actively wants Gazans to be bombed, hungry, suffering, homeless, injured and dead. It bases troops and missiles in mosques, churches, schools, hospitals, and private homes. An Emirati political figure, Dirar Belhoul al-Falasi, explains that “Hamas fired a rocket from the hospital’s roof, so that Israel would bomb this hospital.” It calls on Gazans to serve as human shields. It parks vehicles in the roads to block civilians to move southwards and out of harm’s way. It even shoots would-be refugees’

In 2014, US diplomat Dennis Ross commented that Gazans paid a “staggering” price for Hamas’ aggression but its leaders “have never been concerned about that. For them, Palestinians’ pain and suffering are tools to exploit, not conditions to end.” Douglas Feith, a former high-ranking Pentagon official,  finds it “unprecedented for a party to adopt a war strategy to maximize civilian deaths on its own side.” He dubs this “not a human shield strategy [but] a human sacrifice strategy.”

Dr. Pipes also notes that ” Hamas digs into its Islamist ideology to justify this practice. One official blithely explains how Palestinians “sacrifice ourselves. We consider our dead to be martyrs. The thing any Palestinian desires the most is to be martyred for the sake of Allah, defending his land.” Mosab Hassan Yousef, son of a founding Hamas leader, puts it another way: “I was born at the heart of Hamas leadership… and I know them very well. They don’t care for the Palestinian people. They do not regard the human life. I saw their brutality firsthand. Hamas’ brutal logic brings multiple benefits; First, it benefits Hamas tactically, because Israel, which tries to avoid harming civilians, avoids attacking those mosques and schools. Second, if Israel does hit such vulnerable targets, Hamas crows about the victims. Third, should Hamas misfire, as in the Ahli Hospital incident, and kill Gazans, it can anyway blame Israel, convincing many. Fourth, campuses and streets worldwide erupt with anti-Israel demonstrations”