As Israel focuses on a potential hostage deal it is important to understand how Hamas will seek to continue to exploit the conflict with Israel. Hamas has thrived for forty years on being underestimated.
When it was founded in the late 1980s its goal was to challenge the leading Palestinian group, Fatah, and fill a void it had identified in Palestinian politics. Hamas succeeded in the late 1980s and 1990s by being underestimated. It also thrived because it was often able to convince some voices in Israel that Hamas was a positive alternative to the other Palestinian groups. Sometimes it preyed cynically on this tendency in Israel to want to balance Fatah and the Palestinian Authority with Hamas.
Hamas has always been a genocidal terrorist group. It has always used massacre as a means to prevent peace. However, no matter the body count and the level of its crimes, it has been able to lull Israel and the region into accepting Hamas. It accomplishes this in several ways.
One way it accomplishes this is by partnering with countries that back the Muslim Brotherhood or political Islam. Because Hamas has its roots in this ideology it has gained close ties to Turkey and Qatar. At times Hamas has also been seen favorabaly by others who see it as an alternative to Fatah in Palestinian politics, despite its bloody past.
Hamas has also successfully angled for Iranian support over the years. Despite being a Sunni group closely linked to other Sunni Islamic groups, it has been able to get Iranian support because of its war with Israel.
Hamas thus benefits from both “sides” of the different ideological strains in the region. It gets support from Iran, which backs groups like Hezbollah, and from Turkey which has backed extremist groups in Syria, for instance.
Sustained rule in Gaza
Another way that Hamas thrived over the years is by getting Israel to buy-in to its sustained rule in Gaza. Israel left Gaza in 2005. Israel may have been surprised by the rise of Hamas in Palestinian politics and elections in 2006, but Israel looked on as Hamas took over Gaza in 2007.
Even though Hamas immediately began launching rockets at Israel and had also kidnapped soldier Gilad Schalit in 2006, Israel chose to appease Hamas. Hamas was allowed to keep Schalit for five years and build up a terror army in Gaza.
Hamas then killed three Israeli teens in the West Bank in 2014 and fought another war with Israel, kidnapping the bodies of two soldiers in Gaza. Israel let Hamas keep the bodies and also two living civilians, Avera Mengistu and Hisham Sayed.
Hamas understood after 2014 that Israel wouldn’t do a deal for two bodies of soldiers and two civilians, it understood that it benefited from Israel constantly believing Hamas was weak and deterred. Every time Hamas and Israel fought short conflicts, Hamas would walk away without many losses, but Israel would claim a major victory. Hamas played into this, encouraging Israel and the region to underestimate Hamas.
Hamas pretended to be deterred and defeated even as it gathered a massive arsenal and built hundreds of miles of tunnels. Hamas understood Israel preferred precision wars with a low death toll and Hamas obliged. In 2021 a short war saw Hamas lose basically nothing, but the conclusion in Israel was that Hamas was set back years. Hamas was fine with encouraging this view and it grew in power and strength.
Hamas’ main goal after 2021 was to knit itself into the Iranian axis and also get its friends in Qatar and Turkey to pave the way for wider international acceptance of Hamas.
It was in this context it launched the October 7 attack. Hamas assumed it could get away with this massacre because it had watched closely Israel’s elections in 2022 and domestic politics. Hamas knew that it would be in the interests of the Israeli Right to downplay the Hamas threat and that Hamas knew Israel’s politics was increasingly chained to Haredi parties whose men don’t go to the army and that they were growing in power.
Exploiting Israel’s weakness
Hamas diagnosed that Israel was entering a point of extreme weakness internationally and domestically. Hamas assumed it could draw Israel into a long war in Gaza and that Hamas would leverage this to take over the West Bank.
Taking large numbers of hostages, including women and children, was key to the Hamas plan. Hamas had seen that Israel’s leadership, which hadn’t changed much for two decades, didn’t mind waiting to do a deal for a male soldier. Five years for Schalit. Ten years and nothing was done for the two soldiers’ bodies kidnapped in 2014 and Mengistu and Sayed.
Hamas knew that Israel wouldn’t trade for male soldiers or male civilians, but it might be encouraged to do a deal for a hundreds hostages, many of them women and children and the elderly. Hamas assumed Israel wouldn’t abandon IDF women in Gaza, or babies, or elderly Holocaust survivors. A country founded on “never again” would likely want to save people who had survived the Shoah, or save Jewish children.
After October 7 Hamas chose to do its usual tactic of hiding in schools and hospitals and changing into civilian clothes, vanishing among the population. Hamas knew Israel wouldn’t replace it in Gaza because it had seen Israel leave Gaza in 2005 and seen how Israel was worried about getting stuck in Gaza again.
Hamas assumed if Israel did stay in Gaza then it could engage in a slow insurgency to weaken Israel while Hamas made plans to take over the West Bank. Hamas knew that holding hostages would also keep it in power because the IDF wouldn’t want to engage in risky rescue operations. Hamas knew it wasn’t facing Ariel Sharon or the kind of Israelis who went to Entebbe. It was facing a known quantity of Israeli leaders who had waited five years to bring Schalit home.
Hamas knew under these circumstances it would have to massacre a huge number of people to create a massive history-shifting war; and that it would need to take a large number of hostages to keep Israel in Gaza for years to come via endless hostage talks.
A new phase
Hamas is now preparing for a new phase where it hopes to be underestimated. It knows Israel will need to sell any hostage deal to its public and it hopes that part of the narrative Israel’s leaders tell people will be that Hamas is “defeated” again. Hamas will thrive as Israel portrays it having only “two battalions” of fighters left.
Yet Hamas has far more than two battalions. Hamas continues to easily control most of Gaza and it knows there is no plan to replace it. Hamas is ready for the new phase where it will be portrayed as defeated and deterred again. It will then rebuild its forces and being the process of trying to take over the West Bank. Hamas leaders live in Doha and they will begin to angle for reconstruction funds and to strengthen Hamas. New leaders will emerge.
The group has thrived for four decades on being underestimated and it assumes this will happen again. It also assumes that it can kill large numbers of Israelis and kidnap as many people as it wants and get away with it. It has done this in the past and always been rewarded. It knows that Israel’s leadership does not view it as a threat.
The only question Hamas may be asking itself is if it will have to kill more than 1,000 people and kidnap more than 250 next time, since it already killed more Jews than at any time since the Shoah and Israel continues to underestimate Hamas in Gaza.
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