Myself with Sheikh Ahmed Ismail Hassan Yassin while interviewing him as part of a small news team in the Gaza Strip during the Second Intifada in 2002, I was the team’s security advisor. Sheikh Yassin was the founder of Hamas in the 1980s and later the father of the suicide bomber, sending many young men and even young women on suicide missions against Israeli targets. When asked about sending suicide bombers, he replied that the Israelis have attack aircraft and helicopters, tanks and artillery…we now have the suicide bomber.
In my military career of 23 years I would become heavily involved in the military skills of anti terrorism. Towards the middle and to the end of my military career, I would begin to ask the question as to just why individuals become what “my side” called terrorists.
After my military career, I would spend almost 17 years still asking the question while seeing for myself just why, and meeting many terrorist’s from the foot soldiers to the leadership.
One of the early leaders was the man at the top of this blog…Sheikh Yassin. Believed to have been born in the 1930s, he became a quadriplegic after a wrestling accident with a friend while still a youth. We met him “secretly” inside the Gaza Strip during the Second Intifada, arguably the biggest conflict between Israel and the Palestinians until this present one that we see today.
He spoke with great difficulty given his disability while sitting in his wheel chair in his safe house. But every word that came from his mouth meant much to me in understanding, or at least trying to understand why he founded Hamas, and why he then chose to recruit and send out suicide bombers.
He explained how way back his village was ethnically cleansed by Israelis, and like many others they uprooted and moved to Gaza. He also explained how he would fight anyone that would kill and uproot his family. It wasn’t because they were Jewish it was because of what they had done…his words of course.
He then explained how the Israelis have the best US supplied weapons in the Middle East, and that Hamas could never ever compete unless they had the suicide bomber, which in his view helped to level things up.
It didn’t take long to understand that the psyche of many was to fight to the death in order to become a martyr…something that perhaps as a Westerner I couldn’t come to grips with.
I would go on to meet many Hamas fighters back then…even going on the ground with them with an amazing camerawoman called Margaret Moth. We were of a similar age, she came from New Zealand, and was no doubt the best individual that I’ve ever worked with in a conflict zone post my military career. If you Google her name, you can read all about her. There have been a good few documentaries made about her, and I believe a film is in the process of being put together as I write this.
Over the years, I would go on to meet hundreds of “terrorists” of one sort or another while working with the media. From Iraq to Afghanistan and Pakistan. Top people to foot soldiers once again…and all with a similar psyche…I will fight the enemy until they are defeated or I am martyred!
So after years of fighting them, observing them, talking with them, and trying hard to understand them, there is no doubt whatsoever that the answer to defeating them is not through the military option.
The answer is firstly by being proactive. Not allowing the space or situation to develop that would give an individual the idea of creating a Terror cell in the first place.
Secondly, being on top of any individual who is attempting to recruit for terror, and finding out why.
Thirdly, convincing an individual or individuals why terrorism is not the way to go, and what is the better option.
Fourthly, to ensure that Western foreign policy addresses what’s wrong in the area of the Western sphere of influence overseas, and not just ignoring it for commercial profit sake.
Honesty and integrity in foreign policy is everything…politically, diplomatically and even corporately.
When we look at the wars of the last 20-25 years that the US and UK have played a part in, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria…we can bomb all we want, but at the end of the day, the result became to either not defeat the terrorist, or to even produce the terrorist, whether the intention was to go after the terrorist or carry out regime change which then produced the terrorist from the vacuum or implementation of a weak government!
When extremely pressured, the terrorist then simply blends with the local population, or moves away…ready to morph into another grouping when the time and place suits.
Back in our own domestic “Troubles” over decades in Northern Ireland(I love how it was not overdone by calling it a conflict or a war!), although there was indeed a careful military option, it would be the talking and the $$$$$ that would ultimately solve the day. Talks were going on behind closed doors by government after government no matter who was in charge. And no matter what any soldier or ex soldier or security agent thinks about it.
So, lets get back to the place where this post began…Gaza. Hamas will NOT be eradicated inside the Gaza Strip by Israel. The fact that Israel hard liners running their government today don’t want dialogue shows that there is definitely another motive for using Gaza as a live firing range onto live targets…any live targets!
Every day that the IDF kill more and more innocent civilians is only recruiting young men of fighting age for Hamas’s ranks tomorrow, both inside Gaza and inside the West Bank.
Without both serious and honest dialogue, and a serious and honest peace broker, the terrorists will become the winners.
Remember, in a democracy, like here in the Western world, every military has a limited window of opportunity to get it done right. That’s because if victory doesn’t come quickly, or defeat looms, it then effects the political game back home.
Today that’s the case in Israel, and it’s also the case in the USA and the UK two major countries’ governments that are standing side by side with Israel’s government.
Therefore to put the lid back onto the two state peace process (something that even the International community hasn’t taken seriously for a very long time now) dialogue, even with Hamas’s recent vicious and inhuman assault on southern Israel…has got to take place.
Because the alternative will be even worse when other nations decide to pitch in with aggression.
Bob Shepherd 
The United States lacks effective foreign policy to deal with the world we are living in today. I know we have good people in the state department, but our lack of effective strategies in the world order since the collapse of the Soviet system is very troubling .
You say that the troubles in NI wasn’t known as a conflict or a war ? I’m confused at your remarks ~
Hi Arthur, in my view a conflict or war is against an enemy military force, such as the Gulf War or Falklands War before it. The Troubles were against an armed resistance or terrorist grouping, which is why it’s always referred to as such, even though no doubt there was extreme conflict at times. Today Israel is fighting an armed resistance terrorist grouping…I’m making the distinction between the two.