The Israelis launched a strike on a school that was occupied by both civilians and Hamas fighters yesterday. A small number of fighters and a much larger number of civilians were killed. The world is outraged; the Israelis say the attack was justified. What conclusions should we draw from this?
Hamas is fighting a guerrilla war in Gaza. It has no alternative, because it is totally outmanned and outgunned. Its fighters try to survive by mixing with the civilian population. It is what the Viet Cong did, and what the Boers did, and what the Cuban rebels did in the 19th century. As a tactic, it is nothing new.
The logical approach to the problem is to separate the fighters from the population. The Israeli military is not doing that, either because the government sees the entire population as the enemy, or because it thinks the job is just too hard. The government has decided that its overriding objective is to kill fighters, not to protect civilians. As a result, attacks like yesterday’s resulting in high numbers of civilian casualties are commonplace. The Israelis aren’t singling out civilians, but if they get in the way, they are acceptable collateral damage.
Indifference to civilian deaths creates a political problem for Israel both in Gaza and in the rest of the world. The Israelis are, in the long run, only strengthening opposition to their control of Gaza by offering no plausible alternative to resistance. One of two things is going to happen: either Hamas, or something like it, will revive after the Israelis get sick of the costs of the occupation; or the Israelis will have to escalate and either liquidate the population or move it elsewhere.