On the 28th day of the war between Israel and Hamas, Guillaume Ancel believes that “the Israeli government gives the impression that it wants to continue in this impasse at all costs, because what the Netanyahu government is currently showing is that it has done so “No strategy against Hamas. Currently, Israel’s non-strategy is destroying the Palestinian population* (…) And that is unacceptable to the international community, even its best allies like the United States.
The author recalls US President Joe Biden’s comments two weeks ago during a visit to Israeli soil: “He said: ‘You have to be clear about your war goals. Above all, you must not do what we do “The mistake we made after the September 11 attacks when we remembered that, for example, the Americans had invaded Afghanistan to drive out the Taliban.” And then, after ten years, they were the ones who had to leave the country with their tails between their legs.”
Hamas, a ghost army
Guillaume Ancel believes that the Israeli government is making a mistake with a military response to Hamas, “which is not a hard target militarily”: “Hamas has no conventional army, no tanks, no combat base, no heavy weapons or ammunition depots , which can be destroyed with an army. However, the IDF is a conventional army. So the IDF is fighting a ghost.”
According to him, the IDF can therefore “cause only civilian deaths by fighting in one of the most densely populated areas in the world.”
Israel is trapped in its strategy
Regarding the October 7 attack, which was “complete bestiality and which we suspected was not the 1,000 or 1,500 Hamas militiamen who would overthrow the Israeli government,” the ex-officer analyzes that it was just was a provocation intended to lure Israel into a trap: “It was clearly with the aim of getting Israel where it wanted. The Israeli army has fallen into the trap set by Hamas, namely the ground fighting in the Gaza Strip, where 2.5 million Palestinians live in complete poverty and are beaten for a month.” Now.
In fact, this not only makes Hamas a key player for the Palestinians, which was not at all obvious until now, but Israel also completely discredits itself in the eyes of the international community. His answer is completely inappropriate. And that’s what makes me talk about non-strategy: Hamas has succeeded in trapping Israel.”
Update, Sunday, November 5th, 8 a.m.: Guillaume Ancel correctly pronounces “Israeli population” in the interview, but then clarified what was meant was “Palestinian population”. To avoid confusion, the title of the article that contained this quote has been changed.