Via Tacitus we see this NYT article about the aftermath of the Rantisi assassination. Most of the article is unsurprising – Hamas vows revenge and promises to retaliate even more harshly, Arafat’s regime flew flags at half mast in mourning, Israel promises to keep targeting known terrorist leaders whenever possible (with the unstated suggestion that it’s not wise to stand next to one); the usual, in other words – but what was interesting was this:
Rantisi was killed less than a month after Israel assassinated Hamas spiritual leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin. The group’s Damascus-based leader Khaled Mashaal reportedly instructed the organization to keep the name of its new Gaza leader secret.
OK, as I see it, three possibilities:
1). As of yet, there is no new Gaza leader of Hamas, but nobody wants to admit it. Either Gaza affairs have been taken over from a distance by the main organization’s, or there’s some sort of power-sharing scheme going on, or maybe the local organization is out of the main group’s control. This is chaotic, yet unstable: the strain of operating a group from a distance and/or trying to keep an organization running smoothly without a clear local leader will be considerable, especially since Israel will undoubtedly start blowing up anybody who looks like they might be the new Gaza leader of Hamas. Won’t last, in other words.
2). There is a new Gaza leader, but they’re only telling a few people (Highest probability scenario). In that case, you’ll know who he was when Israel blows up his car. Fairly quickly, too: what, you think that Mossad has no agents inside the jihadi groups? ‘Course, they’ll be using the situation as a justification for blowing up all the other possible local leaders (see #1), so this won’t last long, either.
3). There is a new Gaza leader, but they’re telling nobody who it is (Lowest probability scenario). I mention this only for completeness; the problems with having a leader with a secret identity should be obvious, especially if one could get their hands on his verification codes.
And that’s all I care to blog about this issue today: it’s a beautiful Sunday morning here and I have shelving to install. Pleasure and duty call to me, in other words.
Moe
The Scarlett Pimpernel of Hamas.
Also, the Hamas folks can get to use the Spartacus Gambit.
By the way, why are the Backstreet Boys in charge of Basra?
“Hamas vows revenge and promises to retaliate even more harshly”
This is the problem with already being in a state of total war with someone. There’s really not anything else you can do. What can they say. . that they were holding back before out of a sense of decency but now they’re going to let them civilians really have it?
Bush and Sharon were stupid to give Hamas so much control over the peace plan. Or rather, Bush was stupid: Sharon’s plan is not so much for peace but to gain control of the West Bank. For that, he needs Hamas to keep making strikes at Israeli civilians: real peace would, in the long run, mean that Israel had to go back to the 1967 borders, and that’s never been in Sharon’s mindset.
Jes, what peace plan? Which illustrates the problem, you can’t have peace if Arafat is being paid to wage war, now can you.