Munich 1972 Lessons: Why Mossad's Assassination Campaign Won't Defeat Hamas

-Analysis-

CAIRO — The brazen assassination of Hamas boss Saleh al-Arouri, killed in a densely populated neighborhood of Beirut, was textbook Mossad. The vaunted Israeli intelligence agency relied on its on-the-ground network of human sources and state-of-the-art technology to track down al-Arouri in an apartment building in a southern quarter of Beirut, a security stronghold of Lebanon’s powerful Hezbollah group — and guide a kamikaze drone to take out the target, and several other Hamas operatives.

Al-Arouri, 57, was the first high-profile Hamas official to be killed since the war broke out in Gaza following Hamas' unprecedented attack on southern Israel in October. As the deputy chief of Hamas, he was believed to be the architect of the group’s closer ties to Hezbollah and Iran, and was one of the founders of the group’s military arm, Qassam Brigades.

It was arguably the biggest single “victory” in Israel’s stated goal of dismantling the militant group, which has included public vows to hunt down and kill Hamas leaders in Gaza and abroad. It was also a lift for Mossad, which has been reeling since the intelligence failures that led to Oct. 7.

A day after the successful elimination of al-Arouri, Mossad chief David Barnea vowed that the mission to take out Hamas leaders would resemble Israel's decades-long operation to kill Palestinian militants involved in the killing of 11 Israeli athletes in Munich Olympics in 1972.

“Let every Arab mother know that if her son took part in the massacre - he signed his death warrant,” Barnea said, referring to the October attack. His comments came during the funeral of ex-Mossad chief Zvi Zamir, who oversaw Israel’s operation to kill Munich preparators.

Individual Israelis celebrated his killing, while newspapers discussed how his assassination would impact Hamas capabilities and its supply lines with Hezbollah and Tehran. Others have been debating whether carrying out the attack in Lebanon risks widening the war across the Middle East region.

Yet while few can deny that the operation was a morale boost for Israel or that, unlike the far more indiscriminate bombings in Gaza, was a legitimate military target, the killing also raises a fundamental question about the strategy driving the assassination campaign.

Can killing its bosses really do anything to actually destroy Hamas?

Munich 1972 analogy

Former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak quickly tried to downplay the impact of al-Arouri’s killing on Hamas, saying the movement would quickly appoint another talented successor.

“It's a mistake to think that this (al-Arouri’s assassination) will cause a shake-up to Hamas and there won’t be a replacement within 24 hours,” Barak said in televised comments. “Whoever hopes that his replacement will be less talented than him is also wrong.”

Hamas has already survived the assassinations of its political and military leaders, starting from Ahmed Yassin, the movement’s founder and spiritual leader who was assassinated by Israel in 2004, to Ahmed Jabari, the second top military official in Hamas, who was also killed by Israel in 2012. Jabari’s killing triggered a brief war between Israel and Hamas.

Regional movement

Others assassinated included Abdel-Aziz Rantisi who succeeded Yassin as Hamas chief, and Mahmoud Mabbouh, a senior Hamas operative who was assassinated in his hotel room in Dubai in 2010. His killing was attributed to Mossad.

Assassinations and the repeated wars they sparked with Israel didn’t degrade Hamas

Looking back, history tells us that such assassinations and the repeated wars they sparked with Israel didn’t degrade Hamas, and the movement developed its military capabilities to launch its stunning October attack.

In the meantime, Hamas has also expanded into a regional movement with deep links with other Iranian-supported groups such the Houthis in Yemen and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Even before the October attack, al-Arouri was on top of the list of figures Israel threatened to assassinate for his rule as Hamas’s top leader in the occupied West Bank, said Michael Milshtein, an Israeli expert on Palestinian affairs and former advisor to the Israeli government. Israel had accused al-Arouri of orchestrating a spate of attacks against Israelis over the past year inside Israel and in the West Bank.

Long view

Milshtein said the Palestinian movement would be able to recover from the war which wrecked Gaza and killed more than 22,000 people in the strip. It has driven 1.9 million of Gaza's 2.3 million population out of their homes, and reduced much of the enclave to rubble. “Even if we laughed at that, it (Hamas) would say I succeeded to hold up,” he said.

Al-Arouri was killed along with two commanders of Hamas’ military’s arm, Qassam Brigades, four others, according to Hamas. Lebanese media said he was assassinated in an Israeli drone strike, though Israel has not officially claimed the strike.

Abu Rudeineh, a senior Palestinian official, said that wars and assassinations won’t achieve security for Israel and the wider region. “They have tried war and assassinations multiple times before,” he said, “But they won’t be able to get either peace or security without the contentment of the Palestinian people.”

For the real lesson of the successful assassinations after Munich 1972 is very different than Mossad wants to admit today: that as satisfying as vengeance — and even justice — might feel for Israelis, a political solution is an even more difficult operation.