Who is leading the criminal mobs in Gaza that are armed by Israel?
Yasser Abu Shabab's Popular Force militia might get Israeli support as the fight for Gaza intensifies
Yasser Abu Shabab has been named as the leader of a Palestinian militia in Gaza that Israeli officials have reportedly armed to attempt to undermine Hamas, the New York Times reported on Friday.
Abu Shabab, a Bedouin man in his 30s, leads the Popular Forces, a crime group in Gaza that is significantly smaller than Hamas.
On Thursday, Yisrael Beytenu chairman Avigdor Liberman claimed on Kan Reshet Bet that Israel is arming crime families and militias in Gaza to fight Hamas.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office did not deny Liberman's claim, and defended his decision.
'What's bad about it?' he said, as reported by the New York Times. 'It's only good and it only saves the lives of Israel Defense Force soldiers.'
A Thursday press release from the Prime Minister's Office stated: 'Israel is working to defeat Hamas through various means, as recommended by all heads of the security establishment.'
A video posted on Wednesday showed Abu Shabab telling the people of Rafah to return home, and said that food, medicine, and shelter would be provided. He then said he and his forces were working under 'Palestinian legitimacy,' a phrase that the report noted the Palestinian Authority often uses.
However, analysts interviewed by the New York Times claim that the government is arming groups like the Popular Forces in order to avoid a long-term occupation of Gaza or a Palestinian Authority-led government ruling the enclave.
'If you think about who really can be an alternative to Hamas in Gaza, you have two options: either an Israeli military administration or the Palestinian Authority,' said retired Brig. Gen. Shlomo Brom, a former top Israeli military strategist.
Brom told the New York Times that given the choices, the Israeli government was looking for 'other solutions.'
Abu Shabab has been accused several times of looting aid trucks in the Gaza Strip by aid truck drivers and international humanitarian officials.
Senior UN official Georgios Petropoulos once called him 'the self-styled power broker of east Rafah,' according to the report.
In an interview quoted in the report, Abu Shabab said that he did not raid the trucks, and instead asserted that he was feeding his community.
'We are taking trucks so we can eat, not so we can sell,' he said, accusing Hamas of stealing aid.
The Popular Forces also said that it had safeguarded aid trucks entering the enclave.
'We confirm that 92 trucks were secured and entered areas under the protection of our popular forces, and exited safely under our supervision,' a post from the criminal grou reads.
Liberman originally claimed that the Palestinian groups were affiliated with ISIS. The New York Times report did not mention these claims.
The Yisrael Beytenu leader also said that the matter did not pass cabinet approval, and said that he did not know if the IDF was aware of the operation.
'In my opinion, this did not pass cabinet approval,' he said. 'This was with the knowledge of the head of the Shin Bet [Israel Security Agency], but I don't know how much the [IDF] chief of staff was privy to the matter.
Amichai Stein contributed to this report.
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Is arming Gazan militias and clans an effective tactic?
Relying on a tribal militia or clan in Gaza may work in the short term. However, in the long term it is unlikely to achieve success. On June 5 reports confirmed that Israel has been arming and apparently supporting or working with an armed militias in Gaza. Some reports refer to this group as a 'gang.' Other reports describe the leader of the group, Yasser Abu Shabab, as a member of a large clan in southern Gaza. There may be more clans being activated or encouraged than just the one linked to Yasser Abu Shabab. Shabab is not his real name and his name is a nomme de guerre, meaning the full details about this group continue to be shrouded in some mystery. As the details are shrouded in some fog, it is hard to know if these groups will become an effective anti-Hamas movement. If the groups aregangs that are more well-known for looting and crimes in the past, rather than achieving much, then they will likely not be embraced by the average people. If the groups are made up of clans or even men with links to Bedouin tribes, then it's possible that it will be hard for them to make inroads among other Gazans. It's worth asking whether the new militias in Gaza may be effective and whether history tells us that arming militias is an effective tactic. First, let's look at what we know about Gaza. It's worth noting that Gaza's population is divided into different groups. There are people who came to Gaza as refugees in 1949 1949, fleeing areas in the Negev that became part of Israel. These people likely make up more than half the population of Gaza. Then there are the people in Gaza who trace their heritage to people who lived in Gaza for hundreds of years before 1948. Those people could be called the original Gazans. They are very different than those called 'refugees.' The refugees moved to camps such as Khan Younis, Rafah, Maghazai, Deir al-Balah, Jabaliya, Nuseirat and Shati. The camps became the backbone of the Palestinian political and armed movements. They also became a hotbed of Hamas activity in the 1980s and 1990s, and thus a hotbed of terrorist activity. The Gaza Gazans, who predate 1948, are less inclined toward Hamas. This means that any attempt by the armed militias, gangs or clans will face hurdles in terms of penetrating Gazan society. This is because groups that have roots in one area, may not be popular in others, or they may even alienate people. Back in the 1980s, Gazan families and clans were often involved in violence against one another. This kind of family violence is also common to Arab villages in Israel, where there has been an unprecedented level of gun violence in recent years. This kind of violence means people are often divided and it is hard to unify them, either militarily or politically. What does history tell us about the challenge that militaries or countries have in recruiting or arming tribes, mercenaries, militias or other types of paramilitary groups? In antiquity, it was not uncommon for tribes to play a role as auxiliaries alongside normal military formations. In addition, it was common that when countries were at war they would often bring along a cavalcade of smaller allies. For instance, when Hannibal was fighting Rome, he had to recruit people from Italy because the actual number of Carthaginians in his army began to decline over time. By the 15th and 16th century, mercenaries played a major role in fighting amongst the Italian city states. This was the era of Machiavelli, who wrote that mercenaries were often 'disunited, ambitious, [and] undisciplined.' However, mercenaries continued to be used by European states. The British employed Hessian mercenaries and others during the Revolutionary War. These groups generally did not prove effective. In addition, the British and other colonial powers often relied on alliances with tribes to help during wartime or to keep the peace on the frontier. For instance, at the battle of Isandlwana, the British army fighting the Zulus included a number of local native troops. The native troops of the Natal Native Contingent, for instance, included tribes that had fought the Zulus. Henan Cortes, during his conquest of the Aztec empire, allied with groups that had been suppressed by the Aztecs in the past. In the modern times, many countries have sought to work with tribes and militias. For instance, Lawrence of Arabia worked with tribes that were in revolt against the Ottoman Empire. During the Vietnam war, the US often worked with Montagnard fighters who opposed the Communists. The US also worked with the Hmong people in Laos. Later, during the US occupation in Iraq the US relied on a group called the Sons of Iraq or Sahweh, which were Sunni tribal militias. 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