Michael J. Totten's Blog, page 26

Hamas Chooses Guns Over Butter

The current round of fighting between Israel and Hamas will likely wind down as soon as the Israel Defense Forces are confident that the vast network of underground tunnels has been dismantled, but until then, fat chance.

Paul Alster at Fox says the IDF has so far uncovered at least 28 tunnels with more than 60 access shafts, and Ben Piven at Al Jazeera makes it clear that these tunnels are used offensively.

“Tunnels are just one weapon used by the resistance,” Abu Obeida, a Qassam spokesman, t...

Israel is Not Going Anywhere

An Israeli journalist gave his Palestinian cameraman a tour of Tel Aviv and this is what happened:

On the Ayalon Highway, the highway leading to the big city, he first laid eyes upon the tall buildings, Tel Aviv’s towers, the branching road system, the bridges, the lights, the life. It was all so different from Gaza, which seemed light years away to him. On the way, we passed the sites Hamas terrorists struck some years before: the Dizengoff commercial center, the Dolphinarium night club, Mike...

Going in Circles in Gaza

Now that the Israelis have mounted a ground invasion of Gaza, casualties are climbing on each side. According to NPR, 20 Israelis have been killed so far along with more than 400 Palestinians.

Hamas claims it kidnapped an Israeli soldier, but the Israelis say no one has been taken. I don’t know who to believe, but Hamas’ claim would be more credible if its commanders had a name and photograph of the person they say they've kidnapped.

The Israelis are systematically demolishing underground tunne...

Hamas is Losing and Everyone Knows it

Hamas is losing and everyone knows it.

More than 200 Palestinians have been killed so far in the current round of fighting while the number of dead Israelis amounts to a grand total of one.

That’s almost certainly the reason Hamas rejected the Egypt-proposed cease-fire agreement. So far it has accomplished practically nothing. A small band of serial killers on the West Bank managed to murder more Israelis a couple of weeks ago than Hamas can manage with its entire missile arsenal now.

It’s pathe...

Year Four: The Arab Spring Proved Everyone Wrong

I wrote this essay for the print edition of World Affairs. It is now available online.

Shortly after the Arab Spring broke out at the tail end of 2010, two narratives took hold in the West. Optimists hailed a region-wide birth of democracy, as though the Middle East and North Africa were following the path blazed in Eastern Europe during the anti-communist revolutions of 1989. Pessimists fretted that the Arab world was following Iran’s example in 1979 and replacing secular tyrants with even m...

An Excerpt from RESURRECTION

If you haven’t yet picked up a copy of my zombie novel, here’s an excerpt that might pique your interest. Be sure to read the book before the movie comes out. The studio that purchased the film option is moving ahead and has two outstanding actors attached to it. (Nothing is official yet so I cannot tell you their names.)

Like AMC’s The Walking Dead, this is a character-driven story. There are zombies, yes, but the story is about how the characters react to the zombies and to each other.

My fav...

Hamas is the New Lesser of Evils

A resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is further away than ever. Hamas is the biggest obstacle to peace between the two sides, yet Israeli Brigadier General Michael Herzog tells Colin Freeman at Britain’s Telegraph that Hamas needs to be preserved and maintained lest something even worse takes its place.

“One way in which an Israeli military operation could backfire is by shaking Hamas' control on the ground to the point that it allowed other factions, including jihadists, to come t...

Here We Go Again

The Israeli-Palestinian war is turning hot again, this time in response to the murder of three Israeli teenagers and one Palestinian boy.

Hamas is firing rockets at Israel. Israel is launching air strikes at Hamas. Maybe the Israelis will invade Gaza again and maybe they won’t. Either way, not a damn thing will be resolved by this fighting. Israel will stubbornly continue existing, as will Hamas.

A Lebanese friend of mine once asked me, “where are we going?” The “we” in that sentence referred t...

Back a Bit Early from Vietnam

A medical emergency forced me to return home from Vietnam a bit early, but I’m okay now and at least I got most of what I needed and wanted from Hanoi. I was hoping to spend a few days in Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) to round things out, but alas that was not in the cards.

This is the first time I’ve ever had to go home early for any reason, let alone a medical reason, but I’ve been doing this for ten years now so I suppose it was bound to happen eventually.

No need to worry about me. I really am...

On the Desert's Edge

The Moroccan American Center recently took me to Morocco and the Western Sahara. The following dispatch is the result of that trip.

On the West Coast of Africa, directly across the Atlantic Ocean from Cuba, is the region known as the Western Sahara, one of the few remaining on earth that isn’t recognized as part of a nation-state.

It is administered by Morocco yet claimed by the Polisario, a guerrilla army hatched by Fidel Castro and Moammar Qaddafi that fought to take over from colonial Spain...