Jonathan Spyer argues that Israel, prior to October 7th, was guilty of concentrating on the empirical and ignoring the ideology of Hamas – the power of political Islam:
To understand the dynamics and likely direction of events, one must study ideas, and the societies that adhere to those ideas, and not only military systems. This was Israel’s mistake before, and it was its mistake in 2023, too. But the Jewish state was hardly alone in this error. In the west, where supporters and apologists of political Islam have been permitted to burrow deep into the key systems of political power and of the formulation and dissemination of ideas, the problem is yet more acute. Israel may have been gravely in error and allowed itself to be attacked. But the society that could produce people like Roi Beit Yaacov, and Gal Shabbat, and Shani Louk too possessed the vitality and cohesion to mobilise effectively in its own defense. In the case of the west, partly as a result of the years of neglect, it is not at all clear that the same can be said. In any case, capacities like those displayed by the 202nd battalion of the paratroopers brigade in Jebalya, with the heavy price incurred, are of the type which only need to be deployed when something has gone terribly wrong. The failure to take an interest in the enemy and his mode of thinking was what began the road to October 7. The west should learn from this as well as Israel, and with no less urgency. The old slogan of the Polish patriots was ‘For your freedom and ours.’
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