Larry Johnson: New Hamas vs. Old Hamas

The tensions are ratcheting up in a way that we have not seen since the formation of the state of Israel, and that this can get out of control very quickly because Israel is not fighting the old Hamas. That’s the piece I wrote last night about Israel facing Hamas. It’s going to be my next question. New Hamas versus old Hamas? Yeah. So the old Hamas was not terribly competent, if you think know they’d launch rockets into Israel.

Okay, what were they hitting? Well, they didn’t know. They weren’t precision guided. They’d launch them up, and it was like, launched I shot an arrow in the air, and where it lands, I know not where. Well, that was their approach. Well, that doesn’t accomplish anything. It’d be one thing if they were launching those rockets at Israeli defense establishments, bases, weapons, but they weren’t. And rarely you seen Israel turn around and say, oh, look at all the dead and wounded and the mass destruction caused by these Hamas missiles.

It’s like they were inconsequential. And a lot of this was back and forth that the Israelis would raid what they thought was a terrorist cell, and they would kill some civilians. Hamas would then launch some rockets in retaliation. Then Israel would go back in to punish to try to wipe out the rockets. That’s not what happened on October 7. October 7 was a well organized, well orchestrated military operation that also really crossed the line in terms of killing civilians.

But apart from the civilians who died, hamas took on direct Israeli military israeli elite military forces and killed them, captured some captured equipment, destroyed tanks, destroyed communications. So you don’t have another example of Hamas doing this in the last 30 years. What do you think Hamas’s goal was? I think to provoke Israel into doing what Israel’s doing now. .