What can a sociologist say that hasn't been said many times about the Hamas raid and Israel's retaliatory war in Gaza? I will draw on theoretical generalizations from the history and time-dynamics of violence (Mann 2023; Collins 2022); as applied to a daily chronology of news sources from Oct. 7, 2023 onwards. I will make 3 points.
[1] Hamas's violent incursion, killing and raping civilians and taking hostages, is a reversion to ancient and medieval forms of war. It is a conscious rejection of modern laws and norms. It is also a tactic to compensate for Israel's overwhelming advantage in state capacity and military power.
[2] The sequence of events fits the pattern of polarization found in all large-scale conflicts: emotions and beliefs go to extremes. All virtues are on our side; all evil qualities are on the other. Each side sees the other as the epitome of evil, and themselves as innocent victims. This moral gulf justifies both sides in carrying out extreme acts against the other.
[3] Time-dynamics are patterns in the intensity of mobilization over a period of time. When a large-scale conflict breaks out, excitement spreads very rapidly in the first few days. Expressions of emotional and moral polarization are at their peak in the first weeks. Mobilization stays at a plateau for about 3 months; by 6 months part of the group loses their militancy, and begins to seek a truce or end the conflict; while another faction presses on for their righteous drive to victory. To conflict with the enemy is added conflict between "hawks" and "doves". This time pattern was studied in the period followed the 9/11/01 attacks, and with historical data on public behavior and opinion after the outbreaks of war, from World War One through the recent past (Collins 2004; 2022). Time-dynamics enables us to predict in some degree what will happen in the future.
Deliberate revival of pre-modern cultural traditions of violence
Raiding was the predominant style of war in tribal societies-- i.e. temporary coalitions of warriors; in contrast to state-organized societies with a permanent government and professional armies. A raid does not attempt to take enemy territory but just temporarily cause havoc in it. Tribal coalitions had an informal leader-and-follower pattern on the battlefield. War between adjacent tribes usually took the form of loose battle lines, with individuals darting forward to shoot arrows or spears and then running back. Such confrontations were usually indecisive. Most casualties were caused by raiding the other's territory, especially by stealth, and killing any isolated victim-- a child or woman from the enemy tribe was considered a victory and was celebrated.
A more sophisticated version of raiding was capturing enemy warriors; sometimes taken as slaves. The Aztecs of central Mexico fought to capture warriors to sacrifice on their ceremonial pyramid; this served both as an impressive religious ritual, and to terrify neighbouring tribes into submission. Tribes with herding animals raided to capture the cattle or horses of their enemies. When European settlers spread across the Americas, hostilities were often triggered by native tribes raiding their livestock, leading to the whites retaliating with modern fire-power.
Medieval armies, whether fighting within Europe, or in the Crusades to Palestine and Syria, were typically bands of mounted knights. In the shifting stalemates that often ensued, they would concentrate on capturing hostages, who could then be traded either for ransom or in a prisoner exchange. When armies of the Roman phalanx type encountered tribal armies in North Africa, the latter used the tactic of a noisy attack, then suddenly running away, setting up an ambush as their pursuers became strung out and lost their formation. Middle Eastern armies had an historical tradition of hit-and-run raids. The Arab army mustered by T.E. Lawrence in World War One raided Ottoman railroad lines, combining camels for mobility with modern explosives. There was a long tradition of taking captives, either as slaves (the Mameluke army of Egypt was itself recruited from boys captured as slaves), or as hostages for exchange. Arabs were the principal slave traders, intermediaries between sub-Saharan Africa and slave markets elsewhere.
With the development of modern customs and laws of war in Europe, such practices were gradually stigmatized and outlawed. Hostage taking became kidnapping-- one of the capital offenses along with murder. Capturing for ransom has become heinous, as is trafficking sex-slaves. Distinctions became drawn between civilians and military; deliberate violence against civilians becomes a major crime akin to genocide.
The Hamas raid into Israel was designed to capture hostages to trade for the release of Hamas prisoners held in Israel. One could call it a deliberate atavism; but it is also hyper-modern in the sense that it is a calculation as to what tactics would work against a militarily dominant state. Israel had proven itself unmoved by modern tactics of mass demonstrations, terrorist bombings, and guerilla war; reacting by bulldozing family homes of terrorists and destroying hiding places among the civilian population. But experience in recent years showed the Israelis were willing to release a large number of prisoners in exchange for a few or even one hostage. Hostage taking was one tactic that worked.
It also fits with the moral stance of militant Muslim groups. Western society is represented in cartoons and propaganda as immoral and decadent; its sex life as pornographic; its women as dissolute, compared to the purity ideal of covered-up Muslim women. The biggest target of the October 7 raid was an all-night drug concert, Western-style music with ecstasy and psychedelics, held in the desert near the Gaza border. It was simultaneously an easy target -- a bunch of stoned druggies-- and a display of what conservative Muslim culture considered disgraceful. The concert was the site of numerous rapes, stripping women naked, killing them or taking them prisoner. Intercepted messages of excited congratulation from the families of the rapists show the righteous attitude of the traditionalists; comparable to Biblical rejoicing in the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. This is not just anti-modernism; it is moral condemnation of modernity.
We may add one more point on tactics. Throughout the spring and summer of 2023, a political crisis built up in Israel, concerning the power of the Supreme Court to over-rule decisions made by the legislature. With a coalition of conservatives holding a narrow majority, liberal parties mobilized impassioned demonstrations, in an atmosphere widely regarded as a constitutional crisis. Large segments of the Israeli military joined the opposition; there was wild talk of civil war. Hamas leaders, close observers of their enemy, saw an ideal opportunity for their hostage-taking raid. Political controversy in Israel following October 7 has faulted the government for failure of vigilance. But a sociological explanation of the intelligence failure must include the distraction of attention, including within the armed forces and intelligence agencies, when the focus was on the constitutional crisis.
Religious and other forms of traditional moralities and practices can coexist with strategic caculations. Technologies of war have always been the quickest to diffuse to traditional societies. There is no anomaly in Hamas using drones, gliders and bulldozers to mount a tribalistic raid aimed at civilians of all ages and sexes, practicing both ritual humiliation and strategic hostage-taking. The combination of modern rationality and anti-modern traditionalism is no sociological contradiction.
Polarization of righteous outrage on both sides
The October 7 raid was viewed with shock and outrage not only in Israel-- where the Supreme Court crisis was quickly dropped and an all-parties war cabinet formed-- but world-wide. On the other side, sympathy for Palestinian grievances has grown since the Intifada protests in the 1990s, which although a failure in Israel, attracted attention of the outside world. Sympathy existed not only in the Muslim world, but in Europe and among left-wing and immigrant groups. In the USA, which contains the largest Jewish population outside Israel, politicians and journalists reacted vehemently to pro-Palestianian statements and demonstrations, accusing liberal university administrators of shielding anti-semitism. Although the media were largely on the Israeli side, public ambivalence increased when Israel invaded Gaza, with devastating use of modern air power, causing outrage among Palestinian sympathizers and qualms among neutrals.
The war quickly became a contest of rival public relations campaigns. Israel at first attempted to keep the focus on the victims of the raid, especially civilian atrocities upon children and women (with less attention to the number of Israeli soldiers also taken captive). Over time this was upstaged by news coming out of Gaza, a mounting toll of deaths, estimated at comprising two-thirds women and children. Israel attempted to keep control over news sources, allowing only selected reporters to cover the scenes it wanted to publicize, notably the underground tunnels; soft-spoken military spokespersons explained on television that Israel's response was moderate, precision-planned, doing everything possible to protect Palestianian civilians. Meanwhile, photos from Gaza showed buildings flattened like the worst of WWII, and on television people digging bodies out of the rubble with their bare hands. As Israeli forces moved southward, virtually the entire population was forced to crowd into a shrinking space. Israeli warnings to evacuate came across as propaganda, giving little practical opportunity to escape, and nowhere safe from aerial attacks.
Although perhaps sincerely meant by some Israeli officials, precautions to protect civilians were advisory only and could be overruled by military contingencies. The concept of "precision weapons" is itself euphemistic; the fog of war still exists, even with advanced electronics and surveillance. An instance is the scandal when several hostages escaping in the war zone were killed by Israeli troops, who thought they were a Hamas ruse for an ambush; even when the hostages called out in Hebrew, some of the soldiers did not hear the order to hold fire, in the noise of combat. Unintended strikes on civilians continue to happen in high-tech war, especially when it consists of long distance air strikes plus dispersed infantry operations in the maze of urban warfare. And some strikes are intended, willing to inflict civilian casualties if they provide cover for militant hide-outs. Although numbers are always suspect under these conditions, the 1200 Israelis killed in the Oct. 7 raid have been steadily drowned out in the rising level of Palestian casualties, surpassing 30,000 at time of writing. To counter this perception, Israeli public relations periodically released more graphic depictions of the original Oct. 7 atrocities and the experiences of hostages released in prisoner trades.
Since late October 2023, Palestianians and international aid organizations have described a desperate situation throughout Gaza-- running out of water, sanitation, medical supplies, and food. By all appearances the situation was dire-- almost everyone's home destroyed, the economy ground to a halt. But since a person can live only 3 days without water, 3 weeks without food, after a couple of months one would expect virtually the entire population of Gaza would be dead. One might infer that pro-Palestianian and humanitarian sources exaggerated the civilian peril. In February, pro-Israeli news counter-attacked with a new scandal: evidence of United Nations relief workers who are members of Hamas and took part in the Oct. 7 attacks. Fog of war not only exists; but fog of competing public relations; which is to say, the struggle between polarized perceptions of reality. The scope of this information war, as of this writing, appears to be entering an even more extreme phase. In March, 5 months into the war, reports of deaths by famine were beginning, beyond direct fatalities of military weapons. A news report estimated that one-quarter of Gaza inhabitants were in famine and starvation, and another half in acute malnutrition. Highly escalated conflict, in the dimension of information and news, is a war of competing accusations of atrocity. The time-dynamics of the information war, in its sixth month, protends a turning-point.
Time-dynamics from unity to hawks vs. doves
The pattern of rallying in response to an external attack has been found in the outbreak of wars in the past two centuries, since aristocratic wars were replaced by mass politics and mass armies. Analyzing public response to the 9/11/01 attacks by crashing hijacked airplanes into buildings, I found a sudden wave of support for the President; display of flags everywhere; near-unanimity in demands for swift military retaliation (Collins 2004). After 3 months, articles started to ask "Is it OK to take our flags down now?" By 6 months, flag-display had fallen by a half; Presidential popularity dropped; and the normal partisan divide reappeared. In the following year, acrimonious debate took place over the decision to invade Iraq. Comparing government popularity polls and other indicators for previous wars, I concluded that the time-dynamics of response to an atrocity jump quickly to a plateau; during the 3-to-6 months period unity erodes; and thereafter, internal debates go on between a militant push-on-to-victory faction and a stop-the-bleeding faction.
Wars can continue for years, but after the initial months, patriotic fervor is replaced by government regimentation. World War I showed all of these phases in an extreme form: enthusiastic crowds demonstrated for war in the major capitals of Europe in the summer of 1914; by winter, war had become a grind, continued more by conscription and coercion than patriotism. Political movements for a negotiated armistice, and even mutiny in the armies became widespead after two years. These were put down by the continue-to-victory factions in England, France, and Russia; this tells us that although the hawks-vs-doves split sets in if the war doesn't end in victory within a few months, we don't have a systematic explanation of which faction will win in this political conflict over continuing a war. The pattern is seen also in the Ukraine, where volunteer soldiers were enthusiastic during the early months of fighting the Russian invasion; but by the second year, the government aggressively conscripted men in the face of increasing evasion, as the war turned into a high-casualty stalemate on both sides, and the President's popularity began to fall.
For the Gaza war, internal splits appeared more quickly than 3 months. In Israel, this took the form of a movement to free the hostages by bargaining with the enemy; at 2 months, a partial exchange was worked out for a portion of the civilian hostages. By 4 months, the movement for hostage exchange became more vehement, even favoring a truce, and holding protest demonstrations demanding the resignation of the Prime Minister. The Israeli government has remained firm on pursuing the war to total extermination of Hamas. In much of Europe and the rest of the world, initial outrage about the Oct. 7 raid was outweighed by the destruction of Gaza and the sufferings of its homeless population. These responses appear correlated with the size of the Muslim population. In the US, public sympathy was strongly on the side of Israel; and pro-Palestinian demonstrations and statements have been excoriated. But here too, public sympathy for the plight of Gaza residents has grown; within two months, the US government swung around to urging Israeli military restraint; and opposition has grown to military aid to Israel.
The surge of righteous militancy and the swing to internal debate fits the 3-to-6-month pattern; most slowly in Israel itself, the initial victim; more rapidly in other countries depending on the strength of their ties to Israel or to Muslim populations. Extrapolating forward in time, I would predict that if the Gaza war continues past 6 months, there will be a rapid falling off of external support for Israel; in Israel itself, the war may turn unpopular around the one-year mark. To stay in office, the Israeli government may attempt to expand the war with its neighbours, bringing about a more serious emergency (since the immediate threat from Hamas is low) to justify a larger war mobilization, and to involve its hesitant foreign allies.
The debate between war-victory faction and peace faction includes both emotional rhetoric, and reasoned calculation. Emotions are stirred by "their sacrifice shall not be in vain!" "the victims will not be forgotten, they must be avenged!" But also arguments that peace is secured by strength; that to show weakness now is to invite future attacks; that the capacities of the enemy must be utterly destroyed to make sure they do not rise up again. Peace through strength is a reasonable argument, and has some historical support. But it also has its limits; harsh sanctions on Germany after WWI caused WWII; the Marshall Plan after WWII brought a lengthy peace in Europe. Tough Israeli responses to domestic terrorism during past decades have intensified polarization. Although it is possible that most Hamas members will be killed, memory of sufferings in Gaza would promote equally hostile movements in the following generation.
The peace movement position is also realistic: whatever the righteousness of the cause, whatever the desire for justice, for revenge, for restoring historic borders; if your war is not quickly won, to prolong it is to increase the amount of destructiveness and human suffering. If the costs of continuing to fight are high on both sides, the most rational things to do, as well as the most humane, is to stop; to make a truce; to end the fighting. This is so in a war of mutual attrition and stalemate like the Ukraine; and also in a one-sided war like Gaza where one side suffers far greater casualties and material destruction than the other. But even here, the costs to Israel of becoming hated for a destruction that the defeated view as their own holocaust, is a high price to pay.
Aren't we forgetting the terrible atrocities of October 7, now fading in the rear-view mirror? Yes, that is what happens in the time-dynamics of public emotions. Just as old political scandals are forgotten in the wake of new political scandals; remembered as history but without the emotional intensity of the lived event. Some people keep the outrage of old atrocities alive; but they have to organize their lives around evil memories while the rest of the world goes on with their lives. And also as new atrocities happen, with public attention turning to the latest. This is a long-term consequence of the emotional time-dynamics of violent conflict. From a peace movement point of view, this kind of realism holds out at certain amount of hope. Without emotional forgetting, old cycles of revenge would never come to an end.
References
Randall Collins. 2004. "Rituals of Soldarity and Security in the Wake of Terrorist Attack." Sociological Theory 22: 53-87.
Randall Collins. 2022. Explosive Conflict: Time-Dynamics of Violence. Routledge.
Michael Mann. 2023. On Wars. Yale University Press.
