A New ‘Conceptsia’?

In the now almost year and a half since the October 7, 2023 attacks by Hamas and associates, we have heard again and again about an idee fixe, a “conceptsia,” that gripped all levels of government and the army (less so, the shabaq). According to this conception, Hamas was deterred and not interested in war with Israel.

Instead, it was Israel that was “deterred”– which deterred itself, going to absurd lengths to keep the peace– with a Hamas robustly fed by Qatari cash (because banks would not allow their own use for transfer of funds to a terror organization), delivered in suitcases, in cars, by Israel. Into which policy, Netanyahu resolutely refuses an investigation.

“The conceptsia” was a fatal misreading of evidence and a reminder about the supreme power of interpretation. As I used to tell my students, no matter the text, benign or malign, or the evidence, ultimately, it is interpretation that matters.

Since the restart of IDF attacks on Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Gaza two nights ago, we have been hearing various justifications and rationales for the new campaign. It is more of the same, only not. This time, is, will be, way more aggressive. And relentless. No let up until Hamas and Jihad release all the hostages. And cede control of Gaza. To whom or what, not specified. Oversight? Surely not. Gaza as real estate for the taking is, after all, the vision of Smotrich, Ben Gvir, the Likud, of Trump, of course, and even of the most militant elements in the Haredi political spectrum, however much they want the children of others to see to all that. Smotrich’s staying in the coalition after Ben Gvir left has been rewarded, and Ben Gvir triumphantly returns to it. Over the legal objections of the Attorney General, whom Netanyahu, not yet having replaced her with someone he controls, is now openly ignoring.

We have heard, not that I know of, officially, that this time, there will be takeover of territory there, some part, every day the hostages are not released. Or, girsa aharina, alternate version: any time the terrorists kill a hostage in retaliation for IDF military action or even presence in the vicinity of hostages. How this will help the hostages or their families and other loved ones, not discussed.

Question: what about hostages killed inadvertently by IDF bombing or shelling, as has occurred several times? Of course, we should hold Hamas/ Jihad responsible for any such deaths, too. We hear that the IDF has a pretty good idea where the hostages are and won’t be active right there. As if the terrorists won’t escalate the abuse of hostages already severely weakened, or kill hostages in revenge for this escalation and their frustration, as they have done when previous deals fell through or when a terrorist suffered loss of property or family and took revenge on hostages. As returned hostages have testified in horrifying detail. The, “how will this help the hostages and their loved ones” question applies regarding this scenario, too.

Hamas has used the the two-month cease fire to regroup, reorganize, plot more attacks, in the absence of an operative deal for the last few weeks, doing so without releasing any hostages: pure benefit to them. We hear that another attack on southern communities was imminent. A large number of senior Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders in Hamas’ civil administration were assassinated as the opening action of the IDF two nights ago. There has been extensive bombing of newly established terrorist installations.

We know that the terrorist regime in Gaza cares nothing about Gazans, or Gaza. They also don’t care about their own lives, glorifying death as holy martyrdom, no matter whose death is involved. They certainly don’t care about mere foot soldiers, there is always more where those came from. But they say the same about the deaths of Sinwar, Haniye, Deif. They care nothing about physical destruction since they bank (literally), on rebuilding, just as they have done again and again after previous conflagrations. So, this campaign is way bigger. So what? in their ideology. It is just a bigger challenge to their zealotry, a challenge, even a spur, to their jihadist devotion.

However many of them we take out, whatever we do to their infrastructure– after all, we’ve done plenty, much of Gaza is a wasteland and their most prominent leaders and commanders have been assassinated or otherwise killed– doesn’t deter them– obviously: they were plotting a new, violent invasion, per Oct. 7, if no longer doable on anything approaching that scale. If even one of them is left standing, that, to them, is victory and they will rebuild.

But the new policy, we hear, actually, have been hearing for a while from critics of the now-dead deal, unlike anything else we’ve done, will speak Hamas’- Jihad’s language. They care about territory, loss of land. Only that.

We can try that one out, apparently, we now are. It’s a big risk but only of the lives of the hostages. Or of some more soldiers. Whose job, after all, it is to have their lives risked, or taken. That is not true of the hostages, but some “collateral damage” is inevitable.

Are we, or some of us, how many remains to be seen– in the grips of a new conceptsia about Hamas? Imputing our ways of calculating cost-benefit, of self-interest, of rational, that is, pragmatic, decision making, to them? Imagining that punishing Hamas, Islamic Jihad in this manner will get them to behave — as normal people, a normal organization would behave if it suffered such blows?  We will hurt them really hard and that supposedly, will change their behavior; they–Hamas, Islamic Jihad! will behave– pragmatically– and release the hostages? Alive, yet. And escape in boats to– not clear.

You’ve heard of win-win? and win-lose? Hamas is fine with lose-lose, because they are fanatics, zealots, and such people don’t operate by rational criteria as we define these.

I am a historian and the analogy that comes to mind is that of the Nazis who, even when they were losing the war and knew they were, diverted critical resources– men, trucks, trains, scarce fuel– from the conventional war against the Allies to the ideological one, to their most basic and immovable obsession: mass murdering Jews. Missing the fundamental difference between how conventional thinking operates and how that of politicized sociopaths, psychopaths, religious fanatics operates, got many killed during the War Against the Jews. As I have put it in other contexts, it is dangerous to think with my/our head, when they think with theirs.

Is this the latest “conceptsia”?

Or is it a big bluff, fed to the media, to the public, something the decision makers hope we buy, propagated in order to defame and still the protests, knowing full well this tactic– land for hostages– won’t get the hostages released (alive)?

We know that Netanyahu’s visit to Trump’s White House bolstered him tremendously, giving him a vastly enhanced appetite for autocratic decision making and decisions, which he has been implementing ever since. Is what we are experiencing now the unholy alliance between this government and Trump, given their mutual interests in Gaza?

I dread finding out the hard way.