A rocket fired from the Gaza Strip takes off toward Israel. AP

Is Israel Repeating Mistakes of the Past?

By Yassin Musharbash, Der Spiegel, December 31, 2008

Israel has promised a “war to the bitter end.” Yet history is full of examples showing that battling an organization like Hamas is almost futile. It is a lesson Israel learned just two short years ago.

It was almost a century ago when the British soldier T.E. Lawrence described for posterity the World War I revolt of the Arabs against the Ottoman Empire in the Middle East. Lawrence helped organize the revolt, and he famously said that combating such an uprising was “like eating soup with a knife.”

A rocket fired from the Gaza Strip takes off toward Israel.
His adage may not be perfectly applicable to the current Israeli offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Hamas, after all, is more than just a rebel group. It is simultaneously a political party, a social-services organization and a terrorist group. It is a sworn enemy of Israel, and it continues to incessantly fire rockets across the border, hoping to kill Israeli civilians at random. The group has a civilian and a military component.

Still, the maxim uttered by Lawrence — who was later immortalized in the film “Lawrence of Arabia” — does have a present-day application when speaking of the ongoing fight against terror groups like the Taliban, Hezbollah, al-Qaida. And Hamas. Lawrence was essentially describing the problems that result when a regular army comes up against an irregular fighting force. In military parlance, such a conflict is called “asymmetrical.” Continue reading Is Israel Repeating Mistakes of the Past? →