Five Myths About Hamas

When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu talks about Israel’s ground offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip, he says that “without action, the price that we would pay would be much greater.”

But predicting how Hamas is likely to act and react requires probing what the organization can do, what it wants and how it sees itself. From Hamas’s angle, the current fighting offers just as many opportunities as threats. Let’s examine five myths about the militant Islamist organization.

1. Hamas poses no meaningful threat to Israel.

As a movement, Hamas offers resistance — attacking civilians, launching rockets and ransoming captives — but it cannot field a military force that could face Israel on the battlefield. Indeed, all the ground combat is happening in Gaza; Israeli territory remains relatively unscathed. As of Saturday, at least four Israelis had been killed in the latest round of fighting, while Israel’s actions had led to more than 330 Palestinian deaths. So it is absolutely true that Hamas does not pose an existential threat to Israel.

However, more than Israel’s existence is being threatened. The abduction and murder of three Israeli teens last month may or may not have been a Hamas operation — but the event captured the attention of the Israeli public, and the Israeli government reacted as if Hamas were responsible. While the effectiveness of Israel’s Iron Dome antimissile system is debated — officials boast that itintercepts 90 percent of Hamas’s missiles — large parts of the Israeli population now feel within Hamas’s reach as the range of its rockets creeps higher. Some have relocated farther away from Gaza, and those who remain show signs of stress. Israel’s political, military and security leaders are focused on deterring the rocket attacks.

Hamas may never come close to vanquishing Israel on the battlefield, but changes in its capabilities — tunnels, abductions, missiles and even a drone — continue to make Israelis nervous and force them to react.

2. Hamas’s popularity stems from the social services it provides.

Outsiders sometimes see Hamas as something like an American big-city machine that trades jobs and welfare benefits in return for political loyalty and votes — though a machine with an armed wing.

Hamas does have an armed wing, and other parts of the organization attempt to provide some social services, but the number of Palestinians who benefit from those services is small. And it’s dwarfed by those who get assistance from the Palestinian government, international aid bodies and nongovernmental organizations. This fact is missed by outsiders who often mistake anything Islamic for Hamas.

Hamas’s support from Palestinian civilians, when it comes, stems from other things. For example, the movement poses as uncompromising on Palestinian rights and uncorrupted by money and power. The political and diplomatic solutions, such as the Oslo peace process, offered by other factions such as Fatah seem meaningless to most Palestinians, who have grown cynical about their leaders’ ability to deliver.

The image of Hamas as an uncorrupt movement unconcerned with the trappings of power grew outdated once the group stepped into power after its 2006 election victory. But earlier this year, Hamas resigned all its cabinet positions and agreed to surrender political leadership of the Gaza Strip. With the decision to stop being a government as well as a movement, Hamas’s reputation may begin to recover. And some of its leaders may be saying now: What better way to start the effort than to return to the movement’s roots in armed resistance?

3. Hamas has lost popularity.

In all kinds of ways, recent opinion polling shows that the majority of Palestinians back positions that Hamas rejects regarding diplomacy and resistance. Hamas remains more hard-line than the public it seeks to lead, and surveys also show that the group would have tremendous trouble repeating its 2006 election win.

But right now, Hamas’s leaders aren’t concerned about whether they could obtain a majority of the vote. Elections are unlikely any time soon. And the despair among Palestinians is so deep, the numbers do not look much better for any leader or faction; at this point Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas is seen as isolated, aloof and having spent all his political capital on a failed peace process.

What concerns Hamas’s leaders is their relevance, their ability to articulate the deep senses of frustration and injustice that most Palestinians feel — and whether their rhetoric will resonate with the public. The current path of the conflict, and its fiery rhetoric, offer Hamas opportunities to present itself as more in line with the times.

Yes, Hamas surrendered its cabinet positions to people appointed by Abbas. And yes, Hamas is taking a beating and its activists are being driven underground. But its credentials as the movement that does not bend and dares to take on Israel are being burnished among much of the audience it cares about.

4. Hamas’s loss of regional allies has tied its hands.

Hamas’s base in Syria was shut down two years ago. Its Iranian allies have greatly reduced their support. Its big brothers in Egypt, Mohamed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood, can do little for the movement now that they are out of power. In the last round of fighting, in 2012, Egypt helped broker a cease-fire; now its position seems as hard-line on Hamas as Israel’s. Internationally isolated and strapped for cash, Hamas is in crisis. More

 

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How Cell Phone Tech Resulted In The Spookiest Surveillance Camera On Earth

Everyone marveled when the iPhone 4S came equipped with a full high definition video camera. Little did they know that the race to miniaturize cell phone cameras led to quite possibly the spookiest surveillance camera on earth.

Autonomous Real-Time Ground Ubiquitous Surveillance Imaging System, or ARGUS-IS, which we recently covered, is the result of a low budget and 368 cannibalized cell phone cameras, slammed together to create the largest, finest surveillance camera in the world.

Attached to a predator drone, the camera records approximately 1 trillion gigabytes of information in a single day. More

 

 

The ARGUS-IS, or the Autonomous Real-Time Ground Ubiquitous Surveillance Imaging System, is a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) project contracted to BAE Systems. According to DARPA:^[1]

The mission of the Autonomous Real-time Ground Ubiquitous Surveillance - Imaging System (ARGUS-IS) program is to provide military users a flexible and responsive capability to find, track and monitor events and activities of interest on a continuous basis in areas of interest. The overall objective is to increase situational awareness and understanding enabling an ability to find and fix critical events in a large area in enough time to influence events. ARGUS - IS provides military users an "eyes-on" persistent wide area surveillance capability to support tactical users in a dynamic battlespace or urban environment. More

Killer robots a danger to mankind, warns human rights group

A HUMAN rights group is launching a global campaign to warn of the imminent danger of "killer robots".

They say the machines -- like Arnold Schwarzenegger's character in Terminator - "would be able to select and engage targets without human intervention".

Now Human Rights Watch wants to highlight the danger of killing machines and wants a ban before they become a reality.

The group says robot warfare is the next step up from unmanned drones, and will be available within the decade.

But HRW, a New York based NGO which spends millions each year raising awareness of human rights, says that the public at large are not aware of the danger.

To this end, it is launching the "Stop The Killer Robot" campaign at the House of Commons. Supporters include academics and Nobel peace prize laureates.

It says: “Fully autonomous weapons do not exist yet, but they are being developed by several countries and precursors to fully autonomous weapons have already been deployed by high-tech militaries.

“Killer robots are weapons with full autonomy would be able to choose and fire on targets without any human intervention.

“The aims of the conference are: 1) To increase civil society awareness and understanding of the challenges posed by fully autonomous weapons (killer robots); and 2) To encourage action by civil society to campaign for a ban on their development, production, and use.”

Dr Noel Sharkey, a robotics expert at Sheffield University, warns that automated weapons are unregulated and pay little heed to moral implications or international law.

He said: “These things are not science fiction; they are well into development.” More

 

 

A dangerous new world of drones - Peter Bergen

Washington (CNN) -- A decade ago, the United States had a virtual monopoly on drones.

Not anymore. According to data compiled by the New America Foundation, more than 70 countries now own some type of drone, though just a small number of those nations possess armed drone aircraft.

The explosion in drone technology promises to change the way nations conduct war and threatens to begin a new arms race as governments scramble to counterbalance their adversaries.

Late last month, China announced that it would use surveillance drones to monitor a group of uninhabited islands in the South China Sea that are controlled by Japan but claimed by China and Taiwan.

In August 2010, Iran unveiled what it claimed was its first armed drone. And on Tuesday, the country's military chief, Gen. Amir Ali Hajizadeh, disclosed details of a new long-range drone that he said can fly 2,000 kilometers (1,250 miles), which puts Tel Aviv easily in range.

Study: Drone strikes kill, maim and traumatize too many civilians

But without an international framework governing the use of drone attacks, the United States is setting a dangerous precedent for other nations with its aggressive and secretive drone programs in Pakistan and Yemen, which are aimed at suspected members of al Qaeda and their allies.

There has been virtually no substantive public discussion about drone attacks among policymakers at the international level.

Just as the U.S. government justifies its drone strikes with the argument that it is at war with al Qaeda and its affiliates, one could imagine that India in the not too distant future might launch such attacks against suspected terrorists in Kashmir, or China might strike Uighur separatists in western China, or Iran might attack Baluchi nationalists along its border with Pakistan.

This moment may almost be here. China took the United States by surprise in November 2010 at the Zhuhai Air Show, where it unveiled 25 drone models, some of which were outfitted with the capability to fire missiles.

It remains unclear just how many of China's drones are operational and how many of them are still in development, but China is intent on catching up with the United States' rapidly expanding drone arsenal.

Drones in Action Obama reflects on drone warfare use 'Drones completely counterproductive' Barack Obama's 'lethal presidency'

When President George W. Bush declared a "War on Terror" 11 years ago, the Pentagon had fewer than 50 drones.

Now, it has around 7,500. More

 

In Paper, Chief of Egypt’s Army Criticized U.S.

As a student at the United States Army War College in Pennsylvania, the chief of staff of Egypt’s armed forces argued in a paper that the American military presence in the Middle East and its “one sided” support of Israel were fueling hatred toward the United States and miring it in an unwinnable global war with Islamist militants.

Gen. Sedky Sobhi

The paper, written seven years ago by the new chief of staff, Gen. Sedky Sobhi, offers an early and expansive look into the thinking of one member of the new generation of military officers stepping into power as part of a leadership shake-up under Egypt’s newly elected president, Mohamed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood.

General Sobhi’s sharp rebuke of American policy is especially striking because he now oversees the military institution that has been the closest United States ally in the Arab world, relied on by American officials as a critical bulwark in support of Israeli security and against Iranian influence. Despite decades of military collaboration, he urged a full pullout of American forces from the region.

Scholars say his paper is even more significant in part because many of its themes reflect opinions widely held by Egyptians, their new president and people throughout the region — an increasingly potent factor in regional foreign policy, as Egypt and other countries struggle toward democracy.

American officials said their confidence in Egypt was unshaken, while analysts argued that despite the changes in the nation’s military and civilian leadership, any realignment in relations with Washington could be slow — in part because of Egypt’s urgent need for assistance from the United States and the West.

“For sure there are going to be big changes in Egypt’s relationship with Washington,” said Shibley Telhami, a political scientist at the University of Maryland and a scholar at the Brookings Institution who has studied Arab and Egyptian public opinion.

In surveys across the Arab world for more than a decade, he said, about 70 percent of the public has named the United States as the second-greatest threat to regional security, after Israel — even in Egypt, where Washington provides $1.3 billion in annual military aid, and in Saudi Arabia, another close American ally.

As General Sobhi argued, Professor Telhami said, “there were always two central issues driving Arab and Egyptian anger with the U.S., the Palestinian question — the prism of pain through which Arabs see the West — and the U.S. military presence.”

General Sobhi’s paper, first reported by an independent journalist in Cairo, Issandr El Amrani, offers a rare look into the foreign policy thinking of a military institution often considered all but impenetrable to outsiders.

For decades under President Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian military, and the nation’s foreign policy, had been closely allied with the United States and its regional interests. There was concern in Washington after Mr. Mubarak’s ouster that the relationship might not survive — an anxiety that was revived when Mr. Morsi was elected president.

But Washington knew that the longtime defense minister, Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi, and his chief of staff, Sami Hafez Anan, still wielded considerable power and were reliable allies.

Then, after an embarrassing terrorist attack in northern Sinai this month, Mr. Morsi appeared to consolidate his power by announcing their replacement, while keeping them on as presidential advisers. The shake-up raised for the first time the possibility that Mr. Morsi might begin to exert some real sway over Egyptian foreign policy, and General Sobhi’s paper suggested that at least some of the younger cadre of generals might share an interest in more independence from Washington. More

 

Former US President Jimmy Carter's Addressin Gaza

Gaza: Bombs, Missiles, Tanks And Bulldozers

Transcript of former US President Jimmy Carter's Address to the United Nations Relief Works Agency's Human Rights Graduation in Gaza, June 16, 2009.

By Jimmy Carter

June 19, 2009 "Information Clearing House" -- June 16, 2009 -- Director of UNRWA operations John Ging, thank you for inviting me to Gaza. Distinguished guests, children of Gaza, I am grateful for your warm reception.

I first visited Gaza 36 years ago and returned during the 1980s and later for the very successful Palestinian elections. Although under occupation, this community was relatively peaceful and prosperous. Now, the aftermath of bombs, missiles, tanks, bulldozers and the continuing economic siege have brought death, destruction, pain, and suffering to the people here. Tragically, the international community largely ignores the cries for help, while the citizens of Gaza are being treated more like animals than human beings. More >>>