God loves martyrs

In all the great outpouring of commentary on the latest Israel/Palestine conflict, there seems to have been very little said about what Hamas thought they were up to. Instead we are left to believe that they are, in the words of one or two Israeli ministers, simply animals not worthy of human concern. This reflects the views of some on the Israeli far right that Palestinians don’t exist as a people and hence don’t deserve to possess any land of their own. As we have seen over the last week, this view isn’t very conducive to living in peace in Israel. Hamas must have worked for some time on their plan to invade Israel and it’s hard to imagine that they didn’t ask themselves what they thought the consequences might be. As the history of conflict in this area shows, a disproportionate number of Palestinians always wind up dead—and already more in Gaza have died than Israelis, with many more likely to follow. Israel knows how to do retribution. So Hamas will have anticipated what was to come, and this I think must form part of their religious fanaticism, indeed it is what is at the heart of it—the urge to martyrdom, not just for themselves but for all of the people in their charge. Like Hitler, if they cannot get what they want they would rather take everything down with them. What other explanation is there for their ’strategy?’ As part of this, it is conceivable that their aim is to drag others into a wider battle. Would they care if the whole Middle East went up in flames? Probably not. Is the Israeli government going to fall prey to this martyrdom complex?