What did Hamas think was going to happen?

Much misfortune the woebegone couldn’t have seen coming: a raging fire in the house next door that spreads to yours. The invention of some kooky technology called ‘the internet’ that puts your travel agency out of business. Yet other calamities are foreseeable. If you suddenly stop filing tax returns without a good excuse – like, dying – it’s a virtual certainty that the all-seeing computer will come after you. So when compounding fees and interest leave you skint, our sympathies are apt to be scant. What did you think was going to happen? Or to up the moral ante: if you slaughter 18 innocents in a frenzy for no apparent reason, you have to expect that your own life will soon be effectively over, too – which is why last week’s shooter in Maine, despite Robert Card’s mental disarray, was still sane enough to eliminate himself voluntarily. What did he think was going to happen?

Cause and effect being alive and well, then, when Hamas decided to pour into Israel and murder, rape, mutilate and kidnap every Jew they could get their hands on, what did they think was going to happen? Perhaps a cowed, contrite appearance by the country’s Prime Minister on national television. ‘My dear terrorists,’ Benjamin Netanyahu would surely begin. ‘We had no idea you felt so strongly about our presence on what is really your land. Given that little unpleasantness on 7 October, we’ve learned our lesson. We don’t belong here. So we are declaring a ceasefire, but only to give us time to evacuate every last Jew from the land formerly known as Israel. This second exodus of the abruptly un-chosen people will take a good fortnight, but if you’re patient, at least by Halloween we’ll leave you with a Semitically immaculate Palestine from, to coin a phrase, the river to the sea.