Thanks to Israel’s assault, Hamas’s power is actually growing. Just as the Viet Cong grew stronger during the massive “search and destroy” operations that ravaged much of South Vietnam in 1966 and 1967 when the United States poured troops into the country in an ultimately futile bid to turn the war in its favor, Hamas remains intractable and has evolved into a tenacious and deadly guerrilla force in Gaza—with lethal operations restarting in the northern regions that were supposedly cleared by Israel only a few months ago.
The central flaw in Israel’s strategy is not a failure of tactics or the imposition of constraints on military force—just as the failure of the United States’ military strategy in Vietnam had little to do with the technical proficiency of its troops or political and moral limits on the uses of military power. Rather, the overarching failure has been a gross misunderstanding of the sources of Hamas’s power. To its great detriment, Israel has failed to realize that the carnage and devastation it has unleashed in Gaza has only made its enemy stronger.
For nine months, Israel has pursued virtually unfettered military operations in Gaza, with little evident progress toward any of its objectives. Hamas is neither defeated nor on the verge of defeat, and its cause is more popular and its appeal stronger than before October 7. In the absence of a plan for the future of Gaza and the Palestinian people that Palestinians might accept, the terrorists will keep coming back and in larger numbers.
But Israeli leaders appear no more willing to conceive of such a viable political plan than they were before October 7. There is little end in sight to the tragedy continuing to unfold in Gaza. The war will go on and on, more Palestinians will die, and the threat to Israel will only grow.
