Postface

In the early hours of 7 October 2023, the terrorist organization Hamas launched a massive and surprise multi-pronged attack against Israel, resulting in the murder of more than 1,200 Israeli citizens, most of them civilians. This attack was also marked by numerous acts of extreme brutality by the Hamas attackers, including the murder of children and babies, rape, torture, body desecration, and burning captives alive. The Hamas terrorists’ exactions were very similar in scope and cruelty to those of the Islamic State. As of this writing, Israel has launched a massive air and land operation to defeat Hamas into Gaza and has mobilized an unprecedented number of reservists. Hamas-related agencies are claiming that there have been over 11,000 casualties among the Palestinians. It is not yet known if the conflict between Israel and Hamas will escalate to involve other actors, nor how long the military operations in Gaza will last.

The chapter by Ron Schleifer and Yair Ansbacher was written before these horrible and tragic events, but it was to some degree predictive. There is no doubt that Israel was deceived by its adversary and indeed self-deterred in taking decisive actions against Hamas prior to 7 October 2023. This weaker self-imposed deterrence posture may have also, at a more unconscious level, contributed to the Israeli intelligence failures and Israel’s political authorities’ lack of attention to warning signs received. Furthermore, as Schleifer and Ansbacher noted, Hamas had developed a quasi-air force and navy, and it made the most of them in its murderous rampage.

On the more specific topic of disinformation, although Hamas did try to muddy the waters about the cruelty of its actions, it does not seem to have worked. Many supporters of Hamas and critics of Israel in the Western world have either changed their views or remained silent. Most Arab states have taken a moderate tone, and only a handful have celebrated Hamas’ exactions, mostly Iran and its proxies such as Syria and Hezbollah. Israel has been quite effective in showing the world the actual cruelty of Hamas and in preventing Hamas disinformation to flourish. As it has been the case in all conflicts involving Israel since military operations in Lebanon in the 1980s, international public pressures and contested press coverage are now influencing the potential scope of Israeli operations. However, in a most cynical way, Hamas, by copying the example of the Islamic State, has changed the disinformation and deterrence context against itself. As the authors noted, “So far, Hamas has been successful in maintaining the psychological and informational notion that invading and permanently occupying the Gaza Strip is an unthinkable option.” This is no more the case.

—Eric Ouellet