Anti-Israel POPULISM and COOPTION Responsible for the Deaths of 17,000+ Hamas Fighters
Cooption is about deliberately taking the opposite view presented by a hated party—'...we love what they hate, and hate what they love'. Populism, in our times, refers to the subtle art of telling audiences what could be. Populism involves theorizing and promoting alternatives, even if they are not factual or humanly possible.
But for anti-Israel sentiments, the ongoing Gaza war could have been averted. But for protests in London, Berlin, New York, and other cities that placed the blame solely on Israel, 17,000 young Gazan men would be alive today. The sheer ignorance and one-sided blame of Israel blinded essential decision-makers to better alternatives that would have saved lives and promoted a path to peace.
What the Populists & Coopters Did Not Know
After the October 7th attacks, Netanyahu came out and stated clearly that "every Hamas operative is a dead man."[1]. This was said in a tone of anger, and anyone who wanted to help Palestinians should have moved to intervene.
What most people did not know was that in the decade between 2005 and 2015, when Israel left Gaza, they developed an advanced technological system to map out everybody in Gaza and around the world.
Prior to 2005, Israel relied on spies in communities they needed to attack or effect arrests. By 2015, Israel didn't need people on the ground to give them real-time updates on enemy movements. Israel had developed and maintained an efficient system for tagging high-risk persons and the capability of monitoring their movements around the clock.
When Netanyahu was threatening Hamas members, he knew what he was saying!
The wisest path to peace was to intervene, return the hostages, and get Hamas fighters to surrender.
One-to-one technology has come a long way since 2015.
When one examines a specific technology like facial recognition, it is easy to monitor faces from satellite and drone footage in real-time. Thus, a war in Gaza only meant the identification of people and deploying the right technological tools to execute them in seconds.
The only option a known Hamas member had was to wear a mask to cover their faces.
In an all-out war, such fighters will not get the benefit of the doubt they would otherwise get in peacetime.
Thus, the responsible thing anti-Israel protestors should have thought of is the safety of Hamas members in an active war situation. Many are just young, misguided persons aged between 17 and 24. They have known nothing all their lives apart from Yahya Sinwar's venomous anti-Israel indoctrination.
If Hamas Had Surrendered in November 2023, They Would Have Been Exiled.
Hamas believed that some intervention would stop a harsh response from Israel. They assumed Iran would aid them or a regional conflict would ensue. That was not to happen.
They just threw themselves into the conflict and relied on their radical beliefs and interpretations of the afterlife.
However, if Hamas had surrendered in the early days of the war, they would have most likely been exiled. That is because Israel cannot hold the 20,000+ Hamas fighters as prisoners in Israeli jails.
Before October 7, 2023, Israel had an average of under 5,000 Palestinian prisoners at any point in time for the decade prior. That is primarily because Palestinian prisoners are a distinct class of political prisoners under international law. Keeping them in jail is generally counterproductive. They will ultimately have to be released at some point, and most of them do not change in prison – some go back more radicalized.
Thus, Israel maintained a minimal number of Palestinian prisoners at any point in time.
After the October 7 War began, the number of Palestinian prisoners doubled to over 9,000, and the number kept in administrative detention has risen to almost 5,000[2]. All Hamas fighters who surrender or are captured in Gaza are transported to Israeli jails. Inciters and persons involved in petty acts are held in administrative detention.
Once any semblance of peace is established, Israeli jails are likely to be decongested because it is expensive to hold so many Palestinians in custody.
Thus, if Hamas had surrendered, there was no realistic chance that Israel could hold over 17,000 militants in their jails. Israel would have also come under international pressure to exile these fighters. There is no limit to countries that would have accepted these Hamas operatives.
The Fatal Nature of Anti-Israel Protests
Protests against Israel around the world sought to absolve Hamas of any wrong. Hamas was cast as a resistance movement, and soft aspects of international and humanitarian laws were invoked to make Netanyahu and Israel look bad.
In reality, international law is a law of states.
International law gives states powers to act to protect their citizens.
Strictly speaking, the action of Hamas on October 7 as a non-state militia made them enemies of all human beings – hostis humanis generis under customary international law. It was naïve and reckless to try to use superficial components of international law to justify Hamas' actions and condemn Israel. That was meant to fail in any form it was invoked.
Anti-Israel protestors did not ask Hamas to return hostages. They rather legitimized Hamas' actions on the grounds of condemning Israel.
Using the same laws Turkey is using to fight the PKK and Pakistan is using to fight the Baluchistan Liberation Army (BLA), Israel commenced military action against Hamas fighters.
Targeted Killing of Hamas Fighters
Hamas fighters are just young people born into a cycle led by sociopaths and psychopaths. Radicalization is a complex process. Once a person is born into it and embraces it without looking at alternatives, it shapes them. When a radicalized person kills, their mindset and nature changes irreparably.
This was the case with Yahya Sinwar.
He is reputed as having killed alleged collaborators in Gaza with a sharp machete. The "Butcher of Khan Younis", as he was known, allegedly showed no remorse when he was imprisoned in Israel. He always encouraged more radical violence. This shows the kind of people who raised the generation of Hamas fighters who have been killed so far.
Israel uses an advanced facial detection system to identify faces in Gaza. Once a person is found to be a Hamas fighter, they are executed with a drone.
If known Hamas fighters are captured on video footage entering a building, their names, ranks, and levels of radicalization are matched on an Israeli military database. This is compared with the number of people in the building and balanced in legal terms. Within seconds, an Israeli legal expert is contacted to give an opinion on necessity, proportionality, and war crime liability. If he gives approval, the building is targeted instantly.
Sometimes, innocent civilians are taken out with these marked fighters with links to the October 7th massacres. It is tragic. However, if Hamas had surrendered earlier, there could have been a chance for them to embrace a different ideology for a more peaceful solution to be found.
Conclusion
There is only one direction this war can take – Hamas will have to surrender sooner or later. However, they will do so with a pile of some 17,000+ bodies of young Gazan men killed because of their refusal to surrender. The one-sided blamie of Israel did not help these young men of Gaza. It was reckless and irresponsible for people to protest without looking at the alternatives for a balanced solution. If care had been taken before putting pressure on Israel, it would have been apparent that a mass Hamas surrender would have saved lives and granted these young men a chance to learn other ideas in exile and change for the better. The protests were ill-advised, and instead of helping the people of Gaza, it created more misery for them. Moral clarity is needed to resolve this conflict and put the Palestinian people on a path toward statecraft. For now, the cooption and populism that fueled anti-Israel sentiments instead of asking Hamas to surrender has played a major role in the deaths of the 17,000+ Hamas operatives. But for the protests, which created a false justification of October 7, Hamas would have been forced to surrender earlier and save the lives of their fighters, who would have most likely been exiled and would alive today.
[1] Kathryn Armstrong & Yolande Knell. "Every Hamas member is a dead man, Netanyahu says" BBC. Published October 11, 2023. Available at: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-67082351
[2] B'Tselem. "The Israeli Prison System as a Network of Torture Camps" Published: August 2024. Available at: https://www.btselem.org/sites/default/files/publications/202408_welcome_to_hell_eng.pdf
