There is a mantra in the press that somehow, Israel's targeted killings of Hamas leaders must make the organisation more dangerous. The logic of the argument is never really explained. For example, Molly Moore's WaPo article titled Killings May Make Hamas More Formidable makes a mutated form of the common argument made after Yassin's death:
"The worst thing is a headless Hamas," said Eyad Sarraj, a prominent Palestinian psychiatrist and human rights advocate who has closely monitored the role of Hamas in the Gaza Strip. "A headless Hamas means too many heads, too many agendas. Then you can't control exactly what happens."
With the assassination of the most influential leaders of Hamas, and raids that have killed or captured nearly the entire West Bank military command structure, the military wing in the Gaza Strip has become the most dominant faction of the organization, according to Israeli military officials and Palestinian officials.
This doesn't make sense. If the targeted killings of Rantisi, Yassin and other leaders means Hamas is a "headless" military organisation, they may well be more dangerous for somebody, but hardly for Israel. The high skill and alertness of the IDF means that it requires a level of capability and organisation to infiltrate Israel and conduct terror attacks. Headless rage and ruthlessness is not enough.
This is where so many pundits get it wrong. They think that just enraging these organisations means anything. Hamas members are already extreme murderers, who would do anything they possibly could to hurt Israel. Israel can't reduce their will, but can reduce their capability.
Ironically, the rest of the article demonstrates how Hamas is suffering at every level. While certainly no guarantee it will not be able to rebuild some capability, this is really good news at every level.
Abrupt Segue, a blogger who served with the US forces in Iraq, gives us one less reason to trust al-Jazeera:
When I was in Iraq, I worked for two people, the Division Information Officer for 4th ID and the 2nd Brigade Combat Team's Public Affairs Officer. The Division IO was off in Tikrit and we never saw him after we crossed the Kuwaiti border, not once. Our on the ground boss, the PAO, we saw every day. He was the link between 2nd BCT 4th ID and the Media. He met and worked with every journalist who came into our sector, from Fox, CNN, AP, AFP, Reuters, Local journalists, etc, etc, etc.. AND Al Jazeera. I worked with people from each of these outlets.
When the little kid who hung out at our C-MOC pointed out the two people who'd paid him to run up and down the street waving pictures of Saddam, those two people were identified as the local Al Jazeera Correspondants by our boss.
Those same two people then later paid people to incite a riot -intended to cause American Soldiers to shoot up civilians- during a demonstration at our gate.
Not a surprise at all that Bin Laden's favourite satellite channel is working hard to sabotage the coalition effort to rebuild Iraq. Also read this older posting from same blog.
