.
Revenge is a dish best served cold. - Sicilian proverb.
Actually, no. It wasn’t even in The Godfather.
But it’s accurate.
The warning against excessive grief is wise even though sometimes you can’t help it.
However, I’m not going to wallow in it. I sobered up and went into declutter mode. I deleted a bunch of notes, which were the product of an agitated mind, and deleted my X account. I may explain that whole thing at some point, but right now, I’m trying to detox from X, so suffice it to say I was sick of gang warfare (which is really what X is), sick of the cheap engagement farming, sick of slipping over my own boundaries, and most of all, screaming into a void. It was time to go.
I wrote a post earlier today, I Don’t Have A Title For This, quoting Yarden’s sister. In it she lamented: “This disaster should not have happened. You should not have been taken, and you should have returned alive….They could have saved you but preferred revenge. We lost.” I understand her POV but I disagreed. I don’t think Israel really had a choice, but we — the US — did. We have power — and we didn’t use it to do the right thing.
Revenge isn’t a bad thing in and of itself. But be smart about it. Doing the same thing over and over again, ending up in a worse place, is stupid. It’s insanity. And that’s what I think Israel has done with Gaza, and is about to do again.
In the past few weeks, I’ve written several things about Israel and asymmetrical warfare. I’m going to combine them into one piece, so there may be some repetitiveness.
This post is part of my declutter mode. I know that I have no control over events. I only speak as an American.
Using the classic demagogue’s tactic — manipulating emotions with tragedy —Netanyahu gave a speech waving pictures of Shiri, Ariel, and Kfir Bibas in the air. The Bibas family told him to “shut up” and served him with a cease and desist letter.
Everybody is torn up about the Bibas family. It’s agony. I can’t imagine what it’s like in Israel in the wake of such a tragedy.
On X, before I nuked my account, I was seeing a lot of “Nuke Gaza,” “Finish them,” and “Turn Gaza into glass” tweets. It’s understandable but I’m not going along with this. It leads nowhere — it’s nihilism.
I’ve also seen ostensibly intelligent people hinting darkly about God’s wrath and expressing astonishment that Hamas hasn’t been finished off — saying it could have been done, and it will be done. The next time. Just give us one more chance, more bunker busters, relax the rules and Hamas will be no more.
After all the live hostages are retrieved, Israel will take another whack at Gaza and this time, Hamas will be finito.
No, it won’t.
It won’t work any better than last time. And you’ll be out another couple of hundred young men.1
Israelis keep expressing shock that Hamas is still in control. But Hamas was always in control. That’s been obvious for a long time.
When Israel killed the World Central Kitchen volunteers, much of the outrage focused on the fact that the aid workers were traveling in a "deconflicted zone." But the crucial, unasked question was: Why was Hamas in control of that zone in the first place?
Yesterday, there was another rocket attack. It was pathetic, landing in Gaza and injuring a Palestinian, but still, outrageous. Then the macabre show with all the factions strutting and preening arrogantly. Eighteen thousand fighters gone, and Hamas hasn’t gone anywhere.
Because that’s the way it is with insurgencies. They absorb blows, you think you’ve won, they melt away, and come back at a moment of their choosing.
The conflict between Israel and Hamas et al (I use this term to acknowledge the presence of other terror groups in Gaza) is a textbook example of asymmetrical warfare: conflicts where the opposing forces have vastly different military capabilities, tactics, and resources.
Israel has a conventional, technologically advanced military with air superiority, precision-guided munitions, armored divisions, and intelligence capabilities. Hamas and other groups in Gaza rely on guerrilla tactics, unguided rockets, small arms, tunnels, and irregular warfare strategies.
While Israel is no longer conducting a counterinsurgency in the traditional sense—since it's not trying to win hearts and minds within its own governed territory, as it did from 1967 to the first intifada—it is waging war against a much weaker, non-state actor that cannot contest Israel’s dominance in conventional military terms. What is this, if not asymmetrical warfare?
Normally, this would be easy to say. But not in this instance. The pro-Israel line is to refuse to acknowledge that their war against Hamas et al is asymmetrical. Martin Van Creveld (whose blog is now offline) acknowledges it, but most Israelis do not.
These arguments don’t hold water:
“Hamas governs Gaza, so this isn’t asymmetrical warfare.”
Asymmetry is about the disparity in military strength, not governance. The fact that Hamas controls Gaza doesn’t make it a peer military force to Israel. It still lacks air power, armored divisions, advanced surveillance, and other conventional capabilities.
“We’re not trying to govern Gaza—we just want to replace Hamas and be left in peace.”
Also irrelevant.“For Israel, it’s existential. Vietnam was 12,000 miles away from the U.S.”
So what? It’s still an asymmetrical fight. The fact that Gaza is right next door makes it more imperative to stop the madness.
I suspect the problem with acknowledging the asymmetry is that it feels like it undermines Israel’s legitimacy. In their minds, guerrilla = good guy. Asymmetrical warfare is just a factual description of military imbalance. Guerrillas aren’t always the good guys. And stronger doesn’t mean illegitimate. It could. But it could also mean you’re fighting the right war in the wrong way.2
Remember John Stuart Mill: “he who knows his own side of the argument knows little of that.”
I’m not saying an insurgency can’t be defeated. I’m saying Israel can’t replicate any of the historical successes, all of which were temporary and conditional. Total eradication is rare, and success requires isolating insurgents from their support base, cutting off external aid, and addressing political grievances.
Let’s look at some successful counterinsurgencies:
Peru’s fight against the Shining Path shows that insurgencies can be crushed through military force, intelligence, and political strategy. But Peru was fighting insurgents within its own borders, not trying to impose control over a foreign population. It’s a poor model for Israel.
Britain’s victory in Malaya was a successful counterinsurgency by a foreign power. But the key was that the insurgents were ethnic Chinese, racially distinct from the Malay majority, and lacked broad-based support. Britain also cut the legs out from under the Communist insurgency by granting Malaysia independence in 1957. Israel has no equivalent strategy in Gaza.
Israel in Gaza is much closer to Afghanistan, Vietnam, and Algeria. Hamas et al are deeply embedded within the local population, sustained by nationalism, religion, and resentment toward Israeli policies. Even when Israel achieves tactical victories—assassinating leaders, destroying infrastructure—those actions galvanize further resistance. Some Israelis themselves call it “mowing the grass.”
The Boer War (1899–1902) is instructive. The British and the Boers had competing nationalisms — neither was indigenous to the Cape. The British saw the Boers as obstacles to progress and themselves as the rightful rulers of South Africa. Once gold was discovered in the Transvaal, the Boers became intolerable, and Britain moved to crush them. The British won, but at great moral and political cost, using scorched-earth tactics, concentration camps, and overwhelming force — methods widely condemned even then. And none of which Israel can do now.
Most importantly, the British ultimately integrated the Boers into the "Union of South Africa." Economic and political co-optation made long-term peace possible—until the Boers took over and institutionalized apartheid. Even then, there was a tacit peace: the British controlled the economy and pretended to be liberal, while the Boers strutted around, had braais, and did the dirty work of upholding apartheid.
Nothing comparable is possible between Israelis and Palestinians. There will be no economic integration into a “Union of Israeli States” where Palestinians have cultural autonomy and both sides cooperate to oppress a third group.
No historical counterinsurgency offers Israel a model for victory.
What do I think should happen?
Destroy UNRWA. Don’t “defund” it — destroy it. Revoke its charter, or however they do it.
Come to think of it, defund a lot of the UN. UNIFIL is garbage too.
Revoke the refugee status of the Palestinians.
Regime change in Qatar.
Change the Palestinians status, and go after the MONEY.
It’s not glamorous, it’s not satisfying, it doesn’t hit that sweet spot for bloody revenge. But it just might work because it focuses on the core of the problem: the eternal refugee status of the Palestinians. Take away that and they’re naked. Hamas et al aren’t Boers. Individually, on their own turf they may exhibit bravery, but on the whole, they suck as fighters.
And Gaza is an enclave, for God’s sake. Cut off their funding, remove their refugee status, and they’re nothing.
Oh, and harden your defenses. Israel neglected the basics of self-defense and left its communications apparatus exposed.
Whose fault was that?
One more thing.
I don’t consider Israel’s tactical win over Hezbollah to be a successful win against a popular guerrilla group. Hezbollah is popular among one faction of Lebanese, the Shia. They’re hated by all the rest. I include them in the designation “Lebanese” under protest. They aren’t Lebanese. Lebanon was created for Maronite Christians. So the notion of an insurgency that represents “the will of the people” doesn’t apply here.
It will be impossible to completely disentangle Hezbollah from the Shiites but cutting their legs and other body parts off was a good start. Now that Syria has fallen they’ll be easy to suffocate.
That’s not true of Hamas et al. Destroying them will be a multi-pronged effort that will require great dedication and focus. Start with UNRWA.
Here’s a good recap of the futile Gaza interventions. I disagree with Joseph here: “This hopeless cycle of violence will continue ad infinitum until the underlying cause, the Israel -Palestinian war is peacefully settled.”
No. It will never be peacefully settled. This cycle of violence will continue ad infinitum until Israel decides to stop cooperating with it.
France in Algeria is another case where the occupying power wasn’t all bad and the insurgents weren’t all good. France had a genuine responsibility to the “pieds noir” - Mediterranean people who had been in Algeria for 132 years. The FLN were no angels, targeting pieds-noirs women and children, with bombings, shootings, and knife attacks.