Water Is Wet, Sky Is Blue, Hamas Is Evil

By Seth Mandel

Friday, September 06, 2024

 

The German newspaper Bild has a story today based on a Hamas intelligence document it claims was discovered on a computer in Gaza. The document appears to have been approved by Yahya Sinwar directly, according to the article.

 

The document lays out a strategy of tormenting hostages, manipulating their families and supporters, and drawing out negotiations for a ceasefire-and-hostage deal with the goal of attaining not a deal itself but international recriminations against Israel as the talks dragged on.

 

What’s most interesting about the document is that it describes what is obviously happening. I have not seen a reason to doubt the document’s authenticity nor have I seen proof of its origins, but it is as if someone claimed to have retrieved a document from Sinwar’s hard drive that argued, in detail, that water is wet.

 

And that helps explain some of the frustration of watching coverage of this conflict. Blaming Israel for the lack of a ceasefire deal, and for the longevity of the conflict in general, requires one to believe or pretend to believe the most irrational explanations for everything.

 

Some snippets from the purported document:

 

“Continue to exert psychological pressure on the families of the prisoners, both now and during the first phase (of the ceasefire), so that public pressure on the enemy government increases.”

 

“Israel’s stubbornness” should be “held responsible for the failure of an agreement.” To accomplish this, the document suggests media manipulation.

 

“Arab forces be stationed along the eastern and northern borders” should be the only peacekeeping troops, so that they can “serve as a buffer to prevent the enemy from entering Gaza after the war ends until they (Hamas, ed.) have reorganized their ranks and military capabilities.”

 

In other words, until Hamas is ready for the next war.

 

This is purported to be a document from Sinwar’s command. But it could be a document from the brain of any sentient human being who has spent more than five seconds following the conflict. The most unrealistic part of the alleged document is the idea that it would take any effort whatsoever to manipulate Western media into parroting the Hamas line.

 

This document is believable as a strategy note straight from Sinwar or as a programming note straight from the executives at MSNBC.

 

As for exerting psychological pressure on the families in order to whip up public division, well, the same day this report was published, Hamas released a propaganda video of the American hostage they just executed, Hersh Goldberg-Polin.

 

No one reacted to this document leak by suggesting that it doesn’t sound like something Hamas would do. It is describing exactly what the public is watching in real time, showing Hamas planning to do what it is doing now, before our very eyes.

 

My point is this: Documents such as this should not change anyone’s mind about the conflict, because it does not allege anything that isn’t obviously and inarguably true. But it demonstrates just how much contempt the public ought to have for those who have tried to rationalize siding with Hamas all along.