I suspect Hamas took a page out of Bin Laden’s playbook, and expected Oct 7 to invite an extreme reaction, the same way Sept 11 drew America into two decades of war, thousands of deaths, and trillions of dollars.
I don’t think Bin Laden predicted America’s reaction to 9/11, most of the world, including Americans didn’t either. I also don’t think Hamas has the capacity to be this strategic. I think it really is as simple as it was. They planned a bunch of terrorist attacks to cause as much harm and damage as possible to Israel and Israelis, and then take a bunch of civilians hostage to escape the consequences that would ensue. I think Hamas banked on Israel’s history of giving up a lot to retrieve their hostages to sign a ceasefire right after the attacks and get the hostages back. They probably didn’t expect Israel to ditch the hostages and start bombing Gaza into oblivion like this.
America will never recover from 9/11, and Israel will never recover from 10/7, no matter how many Muslims they murder.
Countries will always recover from tragedy. If Japan can recover after being burned down and nuked, if Poland can recover from a century of Nazi and Soviet occupation, if China can recover from the worst famine in history, then countries can recover from terrorist attacks and their aftermath.
Though I agree with you that trying to wipe out terrorist groups with force is futile. You can’t erase ideologies with violence. What America did and Israel is doing now is playing a futile game of whackomole where the only thing they end up achieving is killing a lot of innocent people and throwing obscene amounts of money down the drain.
I don’t think Bin Laden predicted America’s reaction to 9/11, most of the world, including Americans didn’t either. I also don’t think Hamas has the capacity to be this strategic. I think it really is as simple as it was. They planned a bunch of terrorist attacks to cause as much harm and damage as possible to Israel and Israelis, and then take a bunch of civilians hostage to escape the consequences that would ensue. I think Hamas banked on Israel’s history of giving up a lot to retrieve their hostages to sign a ceasefire right after the attacks and get the hostages back. They probably didn’t expect Israel to ditch the hostages and start bombing Gaza into oblivion like this.
Countries will always recover from tragedy. If Japan can recover after being burned down and nuked, if Poland can recover from a century of Nazi and Soviet occupation, if China can recover from the worst famine in history, then countries can recover from terrorist attacks and their aftermath.
Though I agree with you that trying to wipe out terrorist groups with force is futile. You can’t erase ideologies with violence. What America did and Israel is doing now is playing a futile game of whackomole where the only thing they end up achieving is killing a lot of innocent people and throwing obscene amounts of money down the drain.