One reason Hamas attacked: They really believed Arab/Iranian propaganda that Israel was weak. They are clueless about Jewish unity.

In the months before October 7, Arabic and Iranian media were as always filled with the usual articles about Jews "storming Al Aqsa." 

But there was also intense interest in covering the protests against the government quoting Jews about how the country was being torn apart. About how some Israelis were leaving to live elsewhere. About how the "curse of the eighth decade" ensures Israel's imminent doom. About how Israeli society is irrevocably split between secular/religious, or Ashkenaz/Mizrahi, or white/Ethiopian. 

To an extent, this narrative of Israel's self-destruction was always a fixture in Arab and Muslim media.  Iranian leaders have claimed for years that Israel was "weaker than a spider's web." But the anti-government protests really made it appear, to the Arabs, that this time Israel was on the brink.

Hamas - and Iran - may have drunk their own Kool-Aid.

There are plenty of Arab analysts who specialize in Israel, Zionism and Judaism, but only rarely have I seen any of them say anything that was remotely accurate. Their analyses has always been leavened with antisemitism, above all with the absolute certainty that Judaism is merely a religion and Jews aren't a people.

What none of them have ever noticed is that Jews are a family. We jokingly refer to each other as MOTD, fellow "members of the tribe." 

Real families bicker, argue, and scream at each other. (cf.  Knesset.)  You won't see so much passion between strangers on the streets of the US as in Israel, because everyone in the US is frightened that the person they are upset at might pull out a gun or a knife. But generally people are far more impassioned in family arguments because they are secure that deep down, everyone loves each other.  That closeness, paradoxically, allows the informality that can be interpreted as a lack of respect and manners. 

Yes, millions of Israelis were passionate about judicial reform. But the argument was over whether the Supreme Court should go back to the powers it had 30 years ago or not. It was not the existential issue that the media played it up to be. 

Hamas' pogrom is an existential issue. And when faced with a real threat, Jews come together. 

Hamas and Iran thought that Israel was on the brink, and a push would topple it. Bizarrely, the Palestinians still believe that. The AWRAD poll I reported on shows that 75% of Palestinians still expect a Hamas victory. 

They primarily get their news from Al Jazeera and social media, especially Telegram. 

So we have a society that has no ability or desire to understand Israel, and whose impressions of Israel come from propagandists. They make life and death decisions based on this propaganda - the vast majority of Gazans do not believe Israeli pamphlets air-dropped telling them where to go safely. They look at the anti-Israel demonstrations and believe the world supports Hamas. It is a feedback loop where their delusions become entrenched and reality cannot enter. 

Of course, we see the same delusions every day on social media worldwide. 

There can never be peace with people who cannot tell the difference between truth and falsehood.  

 

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