Cynics in Hamas

Any cynic looking at the current Israeli incursion into Gaza might wonder was this pre-planned by elements of the Hamas leadership or was it chance?

If the leaders of Hamas and their proxy PRC, planned to kidnap an IDF soldier knowing full well that Israel would be compelled to respond, and the weakness of the Israeli Prime Minister would drive him to wave a big stick.

Prior to this immediate conflict Hamas was faced with a number of political problems:

• The conflict with Fatah and Abbas;
• Financial pressure;
• Relations with the EU;
• Relations with Israel;

So provoking Israel is a quick way of sidestepping these issues, when the smoke clears the world will not remember the original problems, and Hamas will be off the hook.

But was it all pre-planned, and if so, for how long?

Evidence for this view is in the tunnel.

The tunnel was some 600 (six hundred) metres long.

Now I don't know how long it would take a group of people to secretly dig a 600 metre long tunnel but they would need to be expert at it and it was not done overnight. More likely it took 4-8 weeks to build.

So this provocation and kidnap was pre-planned in my view, but why?

To let Hamas off the hook and make Israel look like the aggressor.

Afterwards Hamas can then play the victim card to full effect, procuring more weapons and money from neighbouring oil rich Arab states, whilst people in the West wring their hands and bemoan “Israeli aggression”

Of course, only a cynic would view it like that, but we shall see.