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Israel Must Confront the Jihadist Desire for Immortality
Effective counter-terrorism is never just about strategy, tactics, or doctrine. Whatever an insurgency’s operational specifics, this area of national security planning should always remain starkly analytic and logic-centered. For Israel in the Islamic Middle East, this means a heightened conceptual awareness of death and “last things” as embraced by its jihadist foes.
It means, inter alia, that Israel’s counter-terrorism planners should continuously bear in mind the primacy of one consistently overlooked and underestimated form of power: the desire for immortality, or “power over death.”
Any promise of immortality is of course densely problematic. By definition, it lies beyond the boundaries of science and logic. How, then, should the desire of Israel’s terrorist adversaries for immortality be assessed by Israeli planners during the Gaza War?
Any such inquiry should begin with certain core questions. The principal query is this: How can one human being meaningfully offer eternal life to another? Reciprocally, it must also be asked: How can any terrorism-opposing state construct components of its national security program upon a determined enemy’s “hunger for immortality?” This phrase is taken from Spanish (Basque) philosopher Miguel de Unamuno’s classic treatise The Tragic Sense of Life (Del Sentimiento Tragico De La Vida; 1921). Unamuno would never, however, have been sympathetic to the twisted idea of a murderous faith-based “martyrdom.”
Though these questions are difficult, they have answers. Even in our age of incessant quantification and verification, there is something in our unreflective species that yearns not for reason-based clarity but for mystery and faith. In facing jihadist terrorist ideologies that promise the faithful eternal life, Israel must remain wary of projecting ordinary human rationality upon Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, and others like them.
Projections of decision-making rationality usually make sense in world politics, but there are enough major exceptions to temper hopeful generalities. If Israel’s national decision-makers were to survey the current configuration of global jihadist terrorist organizations (both Sunni and Shiite) from an analytic standpoint, the nexus between “martyrdom operations” and “life everlasting” would be conspicuous. At that point, Israel’s security planners would be in a much better position to deter murderous hostage-takers and suicide-bombers, both in microcosm (individual human terrorists) and in macrocosm (enemy states that support terrorists).
In such time-urgent matters, there are corresponding and converging elements of law. Jihadist insurgents who seek to justify gratuitously violent attacks on civilians in the name of “martyrdom” are acting contrary to international law. All insurgents, even those who claim “just cause,” must still satisfy longstanding jurisprudential limits on permissible targets and on law-based levels of violence.
As a matter of binding law, such humane limits can never be tempered by claims of religious faith. Faith is never legally exculpatory.
According to authoritative jurisprudence, the relevant legal matters are not inherently complicated or bewildering. Under longstanding rules, even the allegedly “sacred” rights of insurgency must always exclude any deliberate targeting of civilians or any use of force to intentionally inflict unnecessary suffering.
Law and strategy are interrelated; but at the same time, they are analytically distinct. Regarding the Gaza War and effective counter-terrorism, the legal bottom line is clear: Violence becomes terrorism whenever politically animated insurgents murder (intentionally kill) or maim noncombatants, whether with guns, knives, bombs, automobiles, or anything else.
It is irrelevant whether the expressed cause of terror-violence is presumptively just or unjust. In the Law of Nations, unjust means used to achieve allegedly just ends are always violations of the law.
Sometimes, martyrdom-seeking terrorist foes such as Hamas advance a supposedly legal argument known as tu quoque. This historically discredited argument stipulates that because “the other side” is guilty of similar, equivalent, or greater criminality, “our” side is necessarily innocent of any wrongdoing. Jurisprudentially, any such disingenuous argument is always wrong and invalid, especially after the landmark postwar judgments of the Nuremberg (Germany) and Far East (Japan) tribunals.
For conventional armies and insurgent forces, the right to use military force can never supplant the rules of humanitarian international law. Such primary or jus cogens rules (rules that permit “no derogation”) are referenced as the law of armed conflict, humanitarian international law, or the law of war. Significantly, these terms apply to both state and sub-state participants in any armed conflict.
Repeatedly, however, and without a scintilla of law-based evidence, supporters of Hamas terror-violence against Israeli noncombatants insist that “the ends justify the means.” Leaving aside the ethical standards by which any such argument should be dismissed on its face, ends can never justify means in the law of armed conflict. There can be no defensible ambiguity regarding such a conclusion.
The witless banalities of politics ought never be taken to accurately represent the expectations of binding law. In such universal law, whether codified or customary, one person’s terrorist can never be another’s “freedom-fighter.” Though it is correct that certain insurgencies can sometimes be judged lawful or even law-enforcing, allowable resorts to force must always conform to humanitarian international law.
Whenever an insurgent group resorts to unjust means, its actions constitute terrorism. Even if adversarial claims of a hostile controlling power were plausible or acceptable (e.g., relentless Palestinian claims concerning an Israeli “occupation”), corollary claims of entitlement to “any means necessary” would still remain false. Recalling Hague Convention No. IV: “The right of belligerents to adopt means of injuring the enemy is not unlimited.”
What about Israeli attacks on Gaza? Though Israel’s ongoing bombardments of Gaza are producing many Palestinian casualties, the legal responsibility for these harms lies entirely with Hamas “perfidy,” or what is more colloquially called Hamas’s use of “human shields.”
It is also noteworthy that while Palestinian casualties are unwanted, inadvertent, and unintentional, Israeli civilian deaths and injuries are always the result of Palestinian terrorist criminal intent or “mens rea.” In law, there is a great difference between deliberately murdering innocent celebrants at an Israeli music festival and the lethal consequences of indispensable Israeli counter-terrorist operations in Gaza.
International law is not an intuitive or subjective set of standards. Such law always has determinable form and content. It cannot be casually invented and reinvented by terror groups to justify their interests. This is especially true when their inhumane terror-violence intentionally targets a designated victim state’s most fragile and vulnerable civilians.
National liberation movements that fail to meet the test of just means can never be protected as lawful or legitimate. Even if the law were to accept the questionable argument that relevant terror groups had fulfilled all valid criteria of “national liberation” (e.g., Iran-supported Hamas or Hezbollah), these groups would still not satisfy the equally significant legal standards of distinction, proportionality, and military necessity.
These enduring critical standards were specifically applied to insurgent or sub-state organizations by Article 3 of the four Geneva Conventions of 1949 and by the two 1977 Protocols to these Conventions.
Standards of humanity remain binding upon all combatants by virtue of the broader norms of customary and conventional international law, including Article 1 of the Preamble to the Fourth Hague Convention of 1907. This rule, commonly called the “Martens Clause,” makes “all persons” responsible for the “laws of humanity” and for associated “dictates of public conscience.” There can be no exceptions to this universal responsibility based upon a presumptively “just cause.”
Under international law, terrorist crimes mandate universal cooperation in both apprehension and punishment. As punishers of grave breaches under international law, all states are expected to search out and prosecute or extradite terrorists. Under no circumstances are states permitted to regard terrorists as law-abiding “freedom fighters.” This ought to be kept in mind by states that routinely place their own presumed religious and geopolitical obligations above the common interests of binding law.
The United States incorporates international law as the supreme law of the land in Article 6 of the Constitution, and Israel is guided by the immutable principles of a Higher Law. Fundamental legal authority for the American republic was derived largely from William Blackstone’s Commentaries, which in turn owe much of their clarifying content to jus cogens principles of Torah.
Ex injuria jus non oritur. “Rights can never stem from wrongs.” The labeling by jihadist adversaries of Israel of their most violent insurgents as “martyrs” should have no exculpatory or mitigating effect on their terrorist crimes. As a practical problem, of course, these faith-driven foes are animated by the most compelling form of power imaginable. This is the power of immortality or “power over death.”
For Israel, a primary orientation of law-based engagement in counter-terrorism should always take close account of enemy attraction to “last things.” Philosopher Emmanuel Levinas’s observation that “an immortal person is a contradiction in terms” lies beyond intellectual challenge, but jihadist promises of “power over death” still remain supremely attractive to terrorists. It follows that Israeli counter-terrorist planners ought to focus more directly on the eschatology of its Gaza War terrorist adversaries.
For the foreseeable future, Hamas “martyrs” will present an incrementally existential threat to Israel. If these barbarous criminals should ever get their hands on fissile materials, however, this threat could become more immediately existential. Hamas would not require a chain-reaction nuclear explosive but only the much more accessible ingredients for a radiation dispersal device.
In a worst-case scenario, the use of a primitive nuclear device by Hamas or Hezbollah could spur Iran to enter into direct military conflict with Israel. At that point, Israeli policy considerations of “last things” could become all-important and determinative. For Israel, the primary battlefield will always be intellectual, not territorial. A jihadist enemy that links terror-violence against the innocent to delusionary promises of immortality poses a potentially irremediable threat.
Louis René Beres is Emeritus Professor of International Law at Purdue and the author of many books and articles on terrorism and international law. His latest book is Surviving Amid Chaos: Israel’s Nuclear Strategy (Rowman & Littlefield, 2nd ed., 2018). A version of this article was originally published by The BESA Center.
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The Philadelphi Conundrum
JNS.org – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, visibly frustrated and at times even rightfully furious, addressed a hostile foreign press Wednesday evening, condemning defeatist elements who advocate for Israel’s withdrawal from the Philadelphi Corridor—a move demanded by Hamas, the international community, some of the prominent leftist representatives in Israel’s political and defense establishments, and a minority of Israeli civilians.
Clearly under pressure from the international community to leave the corridor, Netanyahu warned repeatedly during the press conference that such a retreat would enable Hamas to maintain power and smuggle in weapons, preventing the demilitarization of Gaza and posing a grave threat to Israel’s security.
National Unity Party leader Benny Gantz and Knesset member Gadi Eisenkot held their own press conference on Tuesday evening, accusing Netanyahu of obstructing a potential hostage deal with Hamas. They also disputed his stance that Israel should maintain control of the Philadelphi Corridor.
But many Israelis believe this type of thinking is misguided and part of the failed “conceptzia” (governing assumptions) that preceded the Oct. 7 attacks.
As Gallant, Gantz and Eisenkot, as well as opposition leader Yair Lapid, have demonstrated in recent days, they and other high-ranking political and military figures still hold on to these defeatist views.
According to Enia Krivine, senior director for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies’ Israel Programs and National Security Network, “Since day one of the war there has been tension between two of the primary war goals—to bring the hostages back and dismantle Hamas.”
Some in Israel’s political and military echelon, said Krivine, “have decided that bringing the hostages home alive has become the paramount war goal and that this moral imperative supersedes the other two goals,” she said.
Thousands of Israelis siding with this view are currently demonstrating against Netanyahu, accusing him of obstructing a hostage deal.
Netanyahu has been criticized by Israelis on the right for not entering Rafah sooner and taking control of the Philadelphi Corridor immediately after the initial military invasion of Gaza on Oct. 27.
Now that Israeli forces are there, Israelis on the left want Netanyahu to withdraw them to facilitate a deal to get more hostages released.
But many experts, including Krivine and former Israeli National Security Adviser Meir Ben-Shabbat, agree with Netanyahu that contrary to what some Israeli defense officials believe, Israel will not be able to easily return to the corridor once it withdraws, as the international community will place heavy pressure on Jerusalem to keep it from doing so.
“There are those who believe that we can temporarily relinquish control—for 42 days—until the first phase of the deal is completed, and then, if the deal does not progress, return and regain control of the area,” said Ben-Shabbat.
“Of course, the IDF has the ability, operationally, [to] reoccupy this corridor even after 42 days, but it’s not just a matter of military capability,” he added. “Everyone understands that once we leave, Israel will face immense diplomatic pressure from the U.S. and other countries not to return.”
Ben-Shabbat, now the head of the Misgav Institute for Zionist Strategy & National Security, in Jerusalem, warned that since we are in the final stretch before the U.S. elections, the expected American pressure “will be extremely heavy.”
“The legitimacy Israel had to occupy this corridor following Oct. 7 will not exist after we leave it,” he said.
Krivine agreed, saying Israel “would [not] have the legitimacy or the support necessary to accomplish this; not from the United States, not from Egypt and not from the international community.”
Part of the reason for Israel’s insistence, she told JNS, is because the third primary goal of the war is “to make sure that Hamas can no longer pose a threat to Israel.”
Part of the confusion leading up to the press conference was that Netanyahu seems to now be saying he does not intend to withdraw from the Philadelphi Corridor, but media outlets had reported that he had agreed to withdraw from parts of the corridor that are heavily populated, in the second phase of a proposed ceasefire deal.
Netanyahu clarified on Wednesday that Israel would be willing to withdraw if a suitable foreign entity is found that is able to properly monitor the border and prevent smuggling there.
It is worth mentioning that the European Union Border Assistance Mission (EUBAM) was supposed to monitor the Rafah border after Israel’s disengagement from Gaza, but in 2007, after Hamas took over, EUBAM officials simply ran away, fearing for their own security.
Israel is not interested in, nor can it afford, a repeat of such a scenario.
The Philadelphi Corridor was problematic from the very beginning
When Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005, then-U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice overrode strong Israeli objections to giving up control over the Philadelphi Corridor.
Israel knew that without effective control of this strip of land, it would become a conduit for smuggling weapons into Gaza. But heavy pressure from the Bush administration, and Rice specifically, forced Israel to pull its forces from the area.
Rice urged Israel to vacate the corridor as a “peaceful gesture” to the Palestinians. Unfortunately, Israel’s leader at the time, Ariel Sharon, caved to this dangerous request.
While today Egypt denies it has allowed the smuggling of weapons into Gaza, we know this is not true.
Already in 2008, Rice said Cairo must improve border patrol efforts after Israeli officials complained that Egypt was doing a “terrible” job on the Gaza border, failing to stop smuggling of weapons and ammunition into Gaza through tunnels under the Philadelphi Corridor.
“We think that Egypt has to do more. Those tunnels need to be dealt with,” Rice said at the time.
Israeli officials said they had sent a video to Washington showing Egyptian security forces helping Hamas terrorists smuggle arms across the border into Gaza.
Egypt responded that it was “doing its best” with the number of personnel it was allowed to deploy at the border under the 1979 peace treaty and a subsequent agreement with Israel.
When Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi came to power in 2013, he allegedly moved to destroy many of the tunnels.
But having uncovered and blocked off 150 smuggling tunnels so far in just the past few months, the IDF has proven that Egypt cannot be trusted and Israel cannot again leave the corridor since Hamas, or other terror organizations, will swiftly return to building new ones.
That decision by the Americans—the type of thinking that continues to pervade the U.S. State Department through the present day—directly led to the tragic events of Oct. 7, the ensuing war over these last 11 months and the continuing tragedy of the hostages in Gaza.
This thinking is the reason Israel was forced to pause fighting for three months earlier in the war, was behind the American pressure on Israel not to enter Rafah and is the leading reason the Americans insist the war “must end now.”
Demonstrating more common sense, Israel’s Security Cabinet voted last Thursday night in favor of maintaining a continued IDF presence in the corridor, even at the cost of a hostage deal.
Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant voted against the decision, while National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir abstained.
Following news of the execution by Hamas of six hostages, whose bodies were found on Saturday in a Rafah tunnel, Gallant on Sunday called for the Cabinet to reverse its decision, claiming that the corridor is one of the biggest obstacles to a ceasefire deal.
U.S. President Joe Biden expressed his shock and anger over the hostages’ murders and said Hamas leaders must be held accountable.
However, when asked if he felt Netanyahu had done enough to get the hostages released, Biden said “no.”
During a local press conference on Monday, Netanyahu dismissed reports that Biden had criticized him for not doing enough to secure a ceasefire deal, saying he “does not believe Biden said that” in light of the murders.
“What message does this send Hamas?” said Netanyahu.
“I don’t believe that either President Biden or anyone else serious about achieving peace and achieving [the hostages’] release would seriously ask Israel to make these concessions. We’ve already made them. Hamas has to make the concessions,” he added.
What if Israel withdraws?
Ben-Shabbat told JNS that relinquishing control of the Philadelphi Corridor “would encourage Hamas, signal to the residents of Gaza that the terror organization will continue to be the dominant force in the Strip and might even embolden the ‘resistance axis,’ particularly Hezbollah, to take a harder stance against Israel.”
He added: “If, after Oct. 7, and after seeing the implications of military buildup, we don’t insist on this, then it essentially means Israel can be forced to fold on any issue.”
Ben-Shabbat went on to say that “past experience does not allow us to rely on the goodwill of others, especially after what happened to us on Oct. 7.”
He recalled what happened in January 2009 on the eve of the conclusion of “Operation Cast Lead,” when then-Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni signed an agreement with the United States and NATO for joint efforts to counter the smuggling threat.
“This agreement did not prevent even a gram of gunpowder from being smuggled into Gaza,” he said.
While some argue that it’s not wise to occupy the corridor because it’s a narrow strip of land, and staying there would expose Israeli forces, Ben-Shabbat told JNS that “now is precisely the time for the IDF to carry out all the necessary engineering work in the area to improve conditions for the safety of our forces,” adding, “Who said we have to settle for a 14-meter-wide strip?”
Ensuring the security of Israeli forces “justifies making the necessary changes to the terrain, and the width of the corridor should be determined accordingly,” he said.
In Krivine’s view, Israel may eventually be able to allow the Egyptians or Americans physical control of the corridor, but it would be irresponsible to do so today.
“There is no way to prevent arms getting in—or terrorists and potentially hostages—being smuggled out of the enclave without a credible inspections regime in the corridor both below ground and above ground,” she said. “Until there is a credible inspections regime established that deprives Hamas the ability to rearm, the Philadelphi corridor must remain in the hands of the IDF.”
[Hamas leader] Yahya Sinwar “understands that the hostages are his only remaining leverage over the government of Israel,” she said, adding that Sinwar’s “wicked decision” to execute the hostages when IDF forces were so close to rescuing them “was a ploy to create a wedge in Israeli society and pressure Netanyahu into making tough concessions at the negotiating table.”
Sinwar, she said, “knows that Israel’s Achilles heel is its deep valuing of human life, and he understands how to drive a stake into the heart of Israeli society.”
According to Krivine, giving in to Hamas’s demands means that the terror group survives and begins the process of rebuilding.
“There is no third party—not the P.A. and not the moderate Arab states—that will step into the void unless the IDF can ensure that Hamas is unable to regroup and rearm,” she said.
Israel’s path forward
Brian Carter of the American Enterprise Institute seems to agree.
He told JNS that “either Israel or another capable entity must control the Philadelphi Corridor for Israel to prevent Hamas from rebuilding its capabilities to the same level the group reached by Oct. 7.”
Otherwise, he warned, “Hamas will gradually rebuild itself and undo the progress Israel has made toward defeating the group.”
Any outcome that results in a rebuilt Hamas is “unacceptable and would constitute an Israeli defeat,” he said.
According to Carter, the way forward is to find a party that is capable of and willing to control the Philadelphi Corridor.
He believes it is “unlikely” that any force could prevent smuggling under the corridor without a presence on the corridor.
Ben-Shabbat told JNS that Israel can take more steps to ensure it achieves its objectives in this war.
First, Israel must “completely deprive Hamas of control over the supplies entering the Strip,” he said. “This is its lifeline and the main means of maintaining its governance.”
Second, Israel should “divide Gaza into more sections, beyond what currently exists.”
Third, as another former head of the Israeli National Security Council, Giora Eiland, proposed, Israel should launch a “broad operation” in northern Gaza. This means evacuating Gaza City and the northern Strip, closing it off as a military zone, cutting off supplies to the area, and then conducting a thorough military operation to destroy terrorists.
“In my opinion, it is a good option,” Ben-Shabbat told JNS.
“The plan does have its drawbacks though as Israel can expect resistance from the United States and the international community, and the fact that it involves returning many IDF forces to the Gaza Strip,” he noted.
Finally, Ben-Shabbat suggested Israel could “take action” against Hamas leaders abroad.
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Yemen’s Houthis Say They Shot Down US MQ-9 Drone over Marib Governorate
i24 News – Yemen’s Houthi jihadists claimed Saturday night that they successfully ambushed and downed an American MQ-9 drone in Yemen.
“The Yemeni air defenses shot down an American MQ-9 aircraft while it was carrying out hostile activities in the airspace of Ma’rib Governorate,” said the jihadist group’s spokesman Yahya Saree. “This is the eighth plane of its type that the Yemeni Armed Forces have succeeded in shooting down during the Battle of the Promised Victory and the Holy Jihad in support of Gaza.”
“The Yemeni Armed Forces continue to perform their jihadist duties in solidarity with the oppressed Palestinian people and in defense of beloved Yemen,” he went on.
“And with the help of Allah Almighty, they are in the process of strengthening their defensive capabilities to confront and respond to the American-British aggression by targeting its hostile military movements in the naval operations zone.”
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Jordanian Terrorist Kills Three Israelis at Allenby Crossing
JNS.org – Three security guards at the Allenby Bridge crossing in the Jordan Valley were killed in a terrorist shooting on Sunday morning.
The gunman, who according to the IDF was a Jordanian citizen, was killed, and Israeli forces were conducting scans of the area to ensure there were no more terrorists in the area.
Magen David Adom emergency service spokesperson Zaki Heller said that “after resuscitation operations, MDA medics and paramedics in cooperation with the IDF medical force pronounced the deaths of three men about 50 years old with gunshot wounds to their bodies.”
One of the victims was named as Yohanan Shchori, 61, a father of six from Ma’ale Efraim. Yuri Birnbaum, 65, from Moshav Na’ama north of Jericho, was also killed in the attack. The third victim was Adrian Marcelo Podsmeser, from the city of Ariel in Samaria.
The terrorist who carried out the attack was named as Maher D’yab Hussein Jazi, a 39-year-old truck driver from the city of Irbid.
The IDF said that the terrorist drove in a truck to the crossing from the Jordanian side. The terrorist then exited the vehicle and began firing at forces guarding the crossing. Security forces were working to rule out suspicions that the truck was laced with explosives.
Jordan’s Interior Ministry announced the “beginning of the investigation into the shooting incident” at the border. A Jordanian security official told Arab media that the Allenby crossing was closed on the Jordanian side following the attack.
The crossing was also closed on the Israeli side and security forces cordoned off nearby Jericho to rule out the presence of additional terrorists who may have crossed the border.
The Allenby Bridge, known in Jordan as the King Hussein Bridge, located around three miles east of Jericho, connects Israel’s Judea and Samaria region with the Hashemite kingdom. The terminal is used mostly by Palestinians and foreign tourists and is forbidden for Israeli citizens, except for Muslims making a pilgrimage to Mecca.
David Elhayani, head of the Jordan Valley Regional Council, told Channel 13, “We have known for several months from conversations with the military that they are aware of what is happening in Jordan, and are aware that the Palestinian population in Jordan supports Hamas and encourages it.”
He continued, “The army knows this and prepared for it, but they did not think that it can come from a bridge of apparent peace. The result is very difficult.”
Last Sunday, three Israeli police officers were killed in a drive-by shooting near the Tarqumiya checkpoint, some 7.5 miles northwest of Hebron in Judea.
They were identified as Ch. Insp. Arik Ben Eliyahu, 37, from Kiryat Gat, who is survived by his wife and three children; Command Sgt. Maj. Hadas Branch, 53, from Moshav Sde Moshe, who is survived by her husband, three children and granddaughter; and 1st Sgt. Roni Shakuri, 61, from Sderot, who is survived by his wife, daughter and granddaughter.
Shakuri’s other daughter, 1st Sgt. Mor Shakuri, 29, was killed in Sderot on Oct. 7 while fighting Hamas terrorists attempting to take control of the city’s police station.
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