Ponmala

The coordinated lightning strike by air, sea and land executed by Hamas took Israel off guard. None of the awe inspiring intelligence agencies of the world – Israel’s Mossad, America’s CIA and Britain’s M16 – got any wind of it. Barging into homes and recreational areas of 20 Israeli settlements bordering Gaza, Hamas fighters killed over 1400 individuals and took away over 200 as captives. Hamas went on a rampage, executing an ISIS-style massacre. The world stood aghast as Israel’s army took 12 hours to reach to the rescue of their besieged citizens and a week more to clear its territory of the killers. The world wondered how it could happen to a country that was supposedly walled in securely and protected impenetrably from attacks by land, sea or air.
From all corners came the prompt reaction that it was Israel’s 9/11. Quite true. Exactly 22 years back, America was similarly caught off guard as two passenger planes crashed into New York’s Twin Towers, another crashed into the Pentagon, the headquarters of America’s defence department, and yet another missed the White House by a whisker, thanks to the valiant intervention of passengers. The intelligence agencies of NATO countries had got vague hints of something brewing, but they did not find them worthy of serious consideration and follow up. It has also been claimed in the case of the Hamas attack that Egyptian intelligence had tipped off Israel about something very big Hamas was planning, but that too was apparently ignored. The repetition of two colossal intelligence failures within a span of two decades calls for serious soul searching to find the root causes for it.
History has this habit of repeating itself. The worldwide calamity caused by two World Wars did not prevent Russia from embarking on a misadventure – the assault on Ukraine – that many fear can any time trigger another World War. That is because we don’t care to learn from history. If the Israelites had paid attention to the ingenuity Al Qaeda had displayed in keeping Western intelligence agencies in the dark about the planning of 9/11, this attack by Hamas could have been prevented. Overconfidence leads to complacency, to which alone this colossal failure should be attributed. CIA and Mossad falsely believed that nothing could evade their peering eyes. And that led them into letting their guard down.
While Israel put her faith in the Iron Dome that shot down incoming missiles, Hamas silently worked on a maize of tunnels that snaked for 500 kilometres under Gaza city. While Israel’s Mossad put its faith in the Pegasus spyware that can enter any electronic device and extract information, Hamas laid a network of telephone cables in the tunnels and communicated safely, denying access to prying outsiders. While Israel put her faith in advanced technology, Hamas relied on outdated technology, and won. What made the difference was human input and persistent striving.
The day of David has arrived once again. The cockiness of gigantic Goliath is no match for the ingenuity of feeble David. In the place of David’s catapult we now have swarms of cheap drones and rockets. Hamas sent 5000 rockets at a go into Israel. That swarm of rockets overwhelmed Israel’s Iron Dome. Ukraine came up with sea drones that forced Russia to evacuate its navy fleet from occupied Crimea. On 5 May 2023, two drones burst over the Kremlin, shattering Russia’s cosy sense of security. Big powers are now forced to think twice before throwing a stone at the hornet’s nest. Weapons that can be produced in huge numbers at minimum cost has ushered in an age where small is powerful. This may help to put an end to the arrogance of the mighty.
All agree that there is but one available solution to the Palestine-Israel conflict – it is the two-state solution, which envisages the two countries co-existing as friendly sovereign nations. but there are too many imponderables for achieving it. On the side of Palestine are Islamic nations like Iran who aren’t still reconciled to the existence of Israel, and on the side of Israel are orthodox Zionist Jews who want to occupy more of Palestine land and to keep that country as Israel’s protectorate. On the side of Palestine again are Islamic terrorist organisations like Hamas, Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah, who don’t respect the laws of war or international opinion. Israel, on the other hand, is a nation that takes pride in being a democracy that respects international obligations. Iran and its proxies are set on the unattainable mission of annihilating Israel. This lightning strike by Hamas has, on the other hand, reinforced Israel’s belief that its very existence is under threat unless and until the proxies of Iran are made to bite the dust. The feeling one gets from all this is that the twain shall never meet.
A prominent leader of Hamas opined that, when it comes to the existential threat of a nation, millions may have to pay the ultimate prize for it, the number of deaths does not matter. He points out the likes of Russia and Japan, who lost millions in World War II, as examples. Which means he does not bother about Palestinians getting decimated to ultimately win the whole of pre-1948 Palestine for Allah. Parallelly, Israel, which in 2006 released 1000 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for one Israeli soldier, is now contemplating the extremely painful option of putting the lives of 200 and odd captives, whom Hamas is keeping as a bargaining chip, in danger to cleanse Gaza of Islamic terrorists. Both the warring groups are seeking to gain one and the same piece of land for one and the same God they worship, whom they happen to call by different names. It is left to Yahweh or Allah to intervene and find a solution.