Monday, December 28, 2009

Do They Notice it isn't Working?

The Institute of Terrorism Research and Response reports that jihadist chatter is pointing towards further kidnappings of Israeli and American soldiers in order to "free Gaza". This comes from the pretty far-right INN, so take it with some salt, but assuming it's true -- have these folks noticed that this tactic isn't working? One would think that decades upon decades of history would give some indication of what strategies are likely to lead to Palestinian independence and which ones are not. Yet, violent warfare remains the dogma.

Kidnappings of this sort have traditionally led to one of two outcomes for Palestinians:

1) Prisoner exchanges (which I imagine groups like Hamas like, but have little to do with "freeing Gaza"), and/or

2) Bruising Israeli military campaigns.

The one thing they've had virtually no positive impact towards is convincing Israel to withdraw from Palestinian territories.

Now, I'm being deliberately credulous here -- I'm acting as if the primary goal of Palestinian terrorist groups is "freeing Gaza" rather than inflicting pain on Israel. And we all know that isn't true -- these groups have always been willing to trade the former for the latter, and this would be yet another example.

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