How to Actually Defeat Hamas: A Guide

You cannot defeat terrorists by playing your game. You defeat them by playing their game — better than them — while being unapologetic about it.

Israeli soldiers operating in Gaza (photo: IDF/X)

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Terrorists, especially those of the Islamic Jihad variety, play by much different rules than us Westerners.

Actually, I take that back.

It is not that they play by different rules, but that they are playing an entirely different game. In the West we are playing tennis, while terrorists are shooting darts.

By “playing tennis” we Westerners can badly bruise terrorists in military conflicts, but their movement and ideology ultimately remain alive. They do not care how many of their own people, no less that of the enemy, die in the process. As long as they are not fully wiped out, that is a victory in their minds.

In the West, we aspire for what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu calls “total victory” — nicely packaged with the so-called “image of victory” that can be broadcast on news channels and printed in history books.

But to achieve “total victory,” you cannot “play tennis” when your opponent is shooting darts. You must play their game — better than them — and be unafraid of whatever consequences may follow.

For example, terrorists profusely use human shields because they know the West will think twice about attacking the given target. And in the instances when the West does indeed attack it, the terrorists then disseminate images of bloodied civilians and blown-up buildings to the gullible, uncritical-thinking Western media, which pines for “gotcha” journalism against their own governments.

In turn, Western viewers are shocked and awed by these images. And instead of doing the relatively simple cause-and-effect math — the cause being terrorists profusely using human shields — Western viewers blame their governments for “crimes against humanity” and “genocide.” Thus, Western politicians are exponentially less interested in pursuing targets that make them “look bad.” And the terrorists eventually win.

The more victorious way to prosecute terrorists is to be unrelenting in pursuit of them and their assets. Using the example above, there should be no second-guessing when it comes to going after targets, even when human shields are involved. If Westerners are disturbed by the use of human shields, they should encourage these humans to revolt against governments that use them as shields.

Wars are not pretty, and neither are revolutions — just ask the French, the Americans, the Spanish, and countless others. Yet, by infantilizing the human shields and acting like they have no agency, Westerners are only enabling the governments of these human shields to continue this disgusting practice, when we could be encouraging much-needed revolution (if that is indeed what the human shields want).

And if the human shields tolerate this practice, implicitly or explicitly, that is on them. It seems that Islam, for example, celebrates death; therefore, Muslims who subscribe to this belief are doing so with agency, and their deaths are ultimately their choice, their responsibility, and their garbage to clean up. To blame Westerners for killing people who invite and indulge in death is like insisting that one plus one equals seven.

Another way in which Westerners are defeated by terrorists is when we fail to understand the enemy. Many Westerners believe that all eight billion humans are exactly the same, aspire for exactly the same things in life and that, if only everyone was given the same “opportunities,” we would all live in peace and harmony.

That line of thinking makes for a nice Disney movie, but it endangers the West as we know it. For example, there are thousands of Israelis protesting on a weekly basis to pressure the Israeli government to agree to a hostage-release deal.

Their hostage-minded intentions are definitely noble — but Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and the terrorist states Qatar and Iran perceive these demonstrations as a weakness on our part, thus giving them more leverage in negotiations and, ultimately, further heightening the hostages’ plight.

If we thought strategically about how to secure the hostages’ release, we would be demonstrating for the assassinations of the leadership of Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Qatar, and Iran. Nothing says hostage release like going after the decision-makers who sanctioned the Hamas-led October 7th massacres and abductions. Allah knows these people in high places do not want their lives cut short, no matter how much they preach “Jihad.”

Finally, there are the Westerners who submit to “peace at all costs” — even when the costs are Western life as we know and love it. A few days ago, I sat around a dinner table of self-described “extreme leftist” Israelis, one of whom said: “It it crazy to think that we are extreme leftists because we want peace.”

I did not say anything at the time because I am getting to that age where I care less and less if people want to staunchly believe, proverbially speaking, that planet Earth is flat. But in the same breath, it is shocking to think that some Israelis, especially after October 7th, actually believe there is peace to be made with the Palestinians as we know them.

The notion that “not all Palestinians” are genocidal, antisemitic terrorists is typically the knee-jerk rebuttal — but many of them are, and many more sympathize with genocidal, antisemitic terrorism against Israel, Israelis, and Jews. To ignore this fact of Middle Eastern life is like arguing that the tooth fairy is real.

If we were to psychoanalyze these “peace at all costs” people, we might find that some of them simply cannot bring themselves to fathom a world in which some people are bad, because this makes them feel insecure (i.e. unsafe).

Another way to think about this issue is that war is exhausting, and the West tends to tire from wars much faster than terrorists. Indeed, terrorists are in a forever-state of war, either in the process of fighting one or planning their next attacks. Thus, we in the West must develop the emotional and psychological stamina to keep fighting the good fight, and we must also be unrelenting during it, as previously noted.

One of the reasons why the Israel-Hamas war is approaching its ninth month is because Israel has been forced to take far too many precautions for the enemy’s benefit, thus elongating the conflict and tiring out Israel’s Western supporters, including Israelis. Had Israel been more steadfast in its approach from the outset, Hamas’ governing apparatus in Gaza would have likely fallen and most of the hostages would have been released.

As it stands, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Qatar, and Iran are simply playing the long game, knowing that the West’s patience with this war is thinning out with every passing day, notwithstanding a growing subset of Israelis.

The West is in a period of reckoning — reckoning about colonialism, racism, imperialism, and so forth. But assuming that we want the Western world to persist, we must also reckon with how we fight our terrorist enemies.

After all, if the tables were turned, the enemy would not do us any favors in pursuit of its goals to topple the West and everything it offers us.

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