We keep
going back to this thing that, you know,
I've been to Gaza
so many times I can't count.
But it is
one of the most surveilled areas
in the Middle East.
It is constant.
And yet this comes out of the blue.
In a military sense,
Israel blindsided sided.
Talk about that failure
and why you think it might have happened.
Yeah, Michael,
I think this is
one of the classic
failures of technology,
because when you look at
what you experienced
when you went to Gaza,
you saw all the surveillance techniques
that the Israelis had.
You saw the equipment,
you saw the cameras,
you saw the other devices
that the Israelis used.
And we knew that
there were other things that
that they were doing
in terms of monitoring radio traffic,
telephone traffic, all of those things.
But what Hamas did, what
their leadership did was
apparently they moved off
of the normal modern communications
links that we take for granted every day
and went back to what you did
in the 19th century,
face to face meetings.
They went and use couriers
instead of going in and,
you know, using the telephone
or the cell phone.
And that,
I think, played a large role
in doing this.
They seem to be very patient Hamas.
And in terms of how they planned this,
how they carried it out.
And it really,
I think, takes us back to a point where
we have to
look at the fact
that technological intelligence
is not always the end
all and be all that we've gotten used
to from an intelligence perspective.
Yeah. Yeah, great point.
I mean, Israel
was talking about this earlier
with somebody else.
Israel has has for literally years
said it will
and wanted
to destroy
the military capability of Hamas.
And clearly that's failed.
So what are Israel's options now?
The options are really limited, Michael.
And you know,
this is
one of those headaches
that war planners always have
because
it's one thing to bomb
something into oblivion,
but it's a completely different thing
to take control of the society
and take control of a mindset
and change that mindset.
This is you know,
there's no way
that the so-called hearts
and minds of Hamas and its adherents
are going to be changed
in any way, shape or form
by what the Israelis do.
But on the other hand,
the Israelis have to respond
to what happened here.
So, in essence,
they're they're caught between
a rock and a hard place
because they really
don't have any military means
to change the things
that brought them to this point.
So what we'll see is
unfortunately, the
continuation of this conflict,
but at a much higher level
until and unless cooler heads prevail.
And that's going to be,
I think, a very difficult thing
to achieve at this point.
Given given
the obviously the
the depth of planning
that went into this.
And it must have been a lot
and probably over a long period of time.
One imagines that, you know,
Hamas went into this
knowing the possibility
or even the likelihood
of an Israeli ground incursion.
How prepared
do you think Hamas will be
for that eventuality?
A ground operation?
And could
that be why they took hostages into Gaza?
I think that
that was actually one of the main reasons
why they took hostages
of course, Hamas
and other terrorist groups
in the Middle East
have a used hostage
taking as a bargaining tool
and a policy
for many, many, many decades.
But the way in which they've done
this does
reflect a degree of meticulous planning.
And I think what they're looking at
is keeping those hostages
so that
a ground incursion by the Israelis
would have only limited success
and may
be a very difficult thing
for the Israelis to achieve.
So the Israelis are going
to have to be very meticulous
if they do plan something like this.
And it's
going to be very hard
for them to
find where the hostages are
and to extricate them forcibly
So this,
I think, will require
more diplomacy
as opposed to forceful means.
But Israel should definitely plan
for both possibilities at this point.
Yeah, because I guess, you know,
when it comes to the hostages,
Israel has got some pretty capable
special forces who could carry out
such things and have done in the past.
But the thing is,
they would be relying on intelligence
in terms of where the hostages are
and so on.
And we have seen this
intelligence failure.
So would that complicate hostage recovery
make it that much more perilous?
It certainly could.
But I think we also have to make
the distinction
between a strategic intelligence failure,
which this seems to be, as opposed to
a tactical intelligence situation.
A tactical intelligence situation
is one in which
now that things have happened,
they may very well
find the ways in which they can trace
where Hamas is.
They may be able to find
telltale signs of where the hostages are
or perhaps where they have been.
And that becomes something
that they can use
from a forensic standpoint
in order to track them and potentially
extricate them from Gaza.
It's it's
not a done deal in either way,
but it is absolutely
a very difficult proposition
for the Israelis
to conduct such operations.
There's no doubt about it.
Yeah, good point.
I mean,
one thing
that's been staggering about this, too,
the most staggering thing
is the infiltrations,
which nobody's ever seen before.
In covering this conflict.
But it was the massive number of rockets
fired in a short period of time.
Where does Hamas I mean,
Gaza is blockaded.
I mean, not
much gets in or out
that the Israelis don't know about with
is Hamas
get the material to make and and fuel
and arm these rockets? Do we know?
Yeah.
So there are several theories.
And in some cases
we have some concrete evidence.
But I the Hamas forces have developed
various techniques
to manufacture some rockets,
reverse engineer others.
And they get a lot of aid
through several means.
Most of it coming
eventually can be traced back
to places like Iran.
In some cases,
there is some connection to Hezbollah
in Lebanon.
And and other areas in that region.
But it is something
where there is
has been
a lot of I'll call it indigenous work,
if you will,
that has been going on in Gaza
by Hamas itself.
And they've been pretty good
at figuring out certain things, reverse
engineering others
and learning from the mistakes
they've made in the past.
So they've become
a fairly effective insurgent force.
And I would characterize them
as an insurgent force
because that is more of what
they're like as compared to
a regular army at this point.