The cost of assumptions: Iran, Oct. 7 and the power of a ‘conceptzia’ By David Isaac

https://www.jns.org/the-cost-of-assumptions-iran-october-7-and-the-power-of-a-conceptzia/

The IDF’s performance against Iran throws into sharp relief the difference a conceptzia can make. The same military that reeled against a Hamas onslaught on Oct. 7, 2023, acted with jaw-dropping efficiency 20 months later.

It was, in large part, due to the way the Israel Defense Forces viewed the threat from Iran vs. that from Gaza. Clear-eyed about the dangers from one, it was blinded by misconceptions about the other.

“When your enemies say something, they usually mean what they say. In Iran’s case, we understood that. In Hamas’s case, we did not,” Or Yissachar, director of research at the Israel Defense and Security Forum (IDSF), told JNS.

The conceptzia that misled the IDF about Hamas consisted of a series of governing assumptions: 1) Hamas had been deterred, particularly after 2021’s “Operation Guardian of the Walls”; 2) Hamas was contained—its rockets by the Iron Dome, its invasion tunnels by the “Iron Wall,” and 3) Hamas, preoccupied with governing Gaza, could be bought off.

“Hamas exploited that belief to conduct a years-long deception campaign, not only misleading Israel’s strategic planners but reinforcing the … conceptzia …, the outdated and unfounded assumptions that Hamas sought calm in exchange for economic relief,” John Spencer, chairman of Urban Warfare Studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point, told JNS.

Compounding these assumptions was the belief that Hamas wasn’t capable of a major offensive. Israel believed it could mount a small raiding party at most. “It was a failure of imagination as much as it was a failure of preparation,” Spencer said.