It is folly not to realize that the advantage gained by Israel through electronic surveillance and gathering of intelligence has given it an undeniable edge in the war against Palestinians. Its present approach in the continuing war seems to pick off the top political and military leaders of Hamas and Hezbolla as soon as they take charge and use the period of resulting chaos and confusion to decimate as many Palestnians as possible.As though they are just pests.
It is all very well to declaim that the fight will go on whatever happens and allow the periodic vacuum in leadership to continue.Apart from rising casualties and periodic demoralization it tends to forestall timely retaliation.
There appear to be two weak points in Hamas and Hezbolla armour that give an advantage to Mossad and Isareli military intelligence.The latter seem to have infiltrated the Palestnian intelligence network.And further they seem to have hacked and suborned Palestinian digital network.Israel has had a technological superiority that enabled it to get a toehold on Palestinian digital communications network.The ubiquitous mobiles that have servers controlled by foreign companies provide allegedly private and secure data to governments on demand. Encryption does not help as for instance a year or so ago WhatsApp was compelled to surrender secure personal data to Govt.of India following its acquisition by Google.Palestnian leadership must soon get around this booby trap by using digital communications powered by different possibly foreign networks of countries hostile to US and Israel.There must also be in place effective jammers and decoys to put Israeli digital hawks off the scent.Presumably that will take some time.
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Until this threat is met and effectively countered Hamas and Hezbollah might try temporary decentralization of leadership as well as military strategy into several groups as well as discrete actions so as to confuse the aggressive enemy.Such decentralized groups could work alone or jointly to distract and confuse the enemy at least until the digital and intelligence edge of the enemy is overcome.This approach is a common defensive tactic after a major set-back.Or Hamas and Hezbolla counter- attacks will keep getting shaken up even before these get off the ground.It is not suggested that the campaign and the leadership should remain in such a shape permanently.
Even the sober and sedate LANCET has been shocked by Israeli savagery in Gaza.Picking off human targets in neutral countries like Lebanon also upset sober minds in the world.
Hiren Gohain is a political commentator
