While Israel continues to lose psychological advantage in Gaza, satanic Hamas continues to gain both locally and internationally. The current accusations of the International Criminal Court (ICC) and the snowballing of democratic countries that recognize a Palestinian state are just the latest and most shocking of Hamas’s psychological “victories.” There seem to be no bounds to the rewards that terror can achieve – a repeat of the disastrous results of Israel’s unilateral withdrawal from Gaza in 2005. Israel protests in shock but offers little or no counter psychological war initiatives.
For months now, some foolish pundits have said that you can defeat Hamas militarily but you can’t defeat its idea. Yet, all the moderate Sunni Arab states are counting on Israel to do just that – to lead in attacking and defeating the Islamist idea as a successful weaponized faith.
In spiritual terms, Hamas’s idolatrous placing of religion above Allah should be fated to fail because it is the devious work of the devil. Such effort must be done with the holy Quran in hand. Israel’s successful assertion of force against Hamas has primed the Islamic mind to reject Hamas and Hezbollah as failed idolatry. The ball is in Israel’s court if we truly want victory in order to abort Islamism’s otherwise rise to power among all our neighbors.
For five years (1990-95) as an American foreign service officer, now retired, I managed US assistance to the promotional projects of Egypt’s State Information Service for the country’s development objectives. Therefore, I have some experience in the matter of persuasion.
Israel needs to launch full psychological warfare
Israel needs urgently to move beyond its good PR information activities in Arabic to full psychological warfare. The latter is in a realm all its own beyond explaining Israel’s position to foreign media, whether in Arabic or not. Concrete examples come to mind for “bombarding” Gaza and Lebanon with psych measures to affect local people’s hearts and minds, even if only a few are influenced in the beginning:
- Masses of children’s flags air dropped over Gaza and inscribed in Arabic: “Free Gaza from Hamas.”
- The same, air dropped over Lebanon with the words in Arabic: “Free Lebanon from Hezbollah.”
These messages should resonate locally and internationally way beyond the current theater of operations. They and others to combat and defeat the Islamism idea should be discussed within a prospective national psych warfare directorate, still awaiting creation. Those who say that Fatah is an even greater threat to Israel than Hamas are confused as to what war Israel is currently fighting. Fatah can wait until after victory over Hamas, when Fatah may be attuned to compromise.
All this also raises serious questions about what the state comptroller will audit with regard to the failures up to October 7 and thereafter. Operational probes should be carried out in real time to improve military effectiveness and discern what psych initiatives would have contributed to greater success.
In the current war, the issue is not just to question actions taken but also to ask for answers about potentially beneficial actions not taken and why. The government and the security services should implement full-scale psychological warfare attuned to the enemies’ psyche; and, if not done, to understand why.
Maybe because of a regrettable disdain for the enemy, because of political disagreement over messaging or other loose thinking. Some still suffering from the pre-October hubris might opine that “they” won’t be swayed. However, only a few percentages could make all the difference. This is especially true when the war is ongoing and particular psych initiatives might result in additional enemy surrenders, which would save lives of troops and hostages. The latter’s families are demanding answers. Whatever psych measures are decided on now, if any, should follow two essential ground rules:
- Work within the terrorists’ own mindset and so-called religious framework. One of the terrorists who had surrendered in Gaza stated in recorded testimony that Satan (i.e., not Allah) had caused him to rape.
- Determine up front that victory itself is the end game, not promotion of anyone’s political ideology or agenda. When Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union in 1941, the Allies did not hesitate to join with such an “evil empire” to defeat Nazism militarily, even though there were some misguided voices which championed a pox on both of them.
Hopefully, America sees itself in this war together with Israel – the latter on the front line in the Middle East, with America at its back. Both should work together on psychological warfare, not just armaments, for the good of all the peoples of the region and beyond.
The issue, therefore, is not the validity of one psych measure over others but full review of such strategy or lack thereof right now. If such target-relevant psychological initiatives are not considered during the war, they should at least be part of the future state audit thereafter – belatedly, not for this war and all its casualties.■
The writer, who lives in Jerusalem, is an American-born, retired US Foreign Service officer, board member of the Israel Interfaith Association, R.A., and founder of the non-sectarian Jewish Covenant Alliance, R.A. (JCA) (www.covenantalliance.org), advancing Jewish service to the nations in the struggle against worldwide totalitarian evil.