By Frank Sobchak
On October 7, the terrorist group Hamas perpetrated the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. Many have explained away those crimes by blaming Hamas’s deep antisemitism, but while that explanation rings true, it is insufficient.
Organizations such as Hamas compete with each other to obtain financial resources, public support, and recruits. Because media attention is crucial in all those factors, terror groups have been in a race to carry out ever more awful acts of inhumanity, vying to outdo each other. As brutal as October 7 was, if Hamas is not destroyed and made an example of, the next attack from a terrorist group will likely exceed its barbaric depravity.
United States Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis coined the term “race to the bottom” to describe heightened competition between states or companies engaged in irrational economic decisions to gain competitive economic advantages. He observed that when competition increased in a particular geographic region or economic sector, governments engaged in deregulation to lower the cost of production to attract businesses. Hence, competition drove a race to the lowest standards possible so that those entities could continue to be competitive. The events surrounding October 7 are illustrative of a “race to the bottom” where terrorist groups compete to stay globally relevant and for allocations of limited resources such as manpower and money. For these groups to stay pertinent, they must generate as much fear and media coverage as possible and will race each other to the bottom in ever more brutal acts.
Terrorism is fundamentally about using fear as a psychological weapon to generate effects far beyond the number of casualties in individual attacks.
Traditional media coverage amplifies those effects because of the journalistic adage, “If it bleeds, it leads,” meaning that exceptionally sensational and violent stories are promoted above others. Social media, whose algorithms are often set to maximize viewing based on relevancy and popularity, has only accelerated this truism as our mobile phones now alert us when horrible things happen and demand that we take notice. Over time, repeatedly witnessing such extreme violence across different contexts leads to rapid desensitization and the public becomes numb to brutality.
Therefore, to continue instilling deep levels of dread, terror groups must perform ever worse levels of cruelty.
There is also an economic component to the vicious logic. Terror groups require money to function and carry out their attacks, and these funds come from various sources. The level of donations is often directly tied to the amount of publicity generated, with groups sharing short videos of their exploits along with links to send money. Funds from state actors, such as Qatar, are also intertwined with the amount of media coverage attacks create.
Hamas fighters took advantage of this by using GoPros and phones to record the carnage they created and posting it on social media and/or sharing it directly with victims’ families. There was no shame in their depravity because they knew it would create a financial windfall that would put them far ahead of rival organizations. Competing in the media space and getting more social media views is economically lucrative and terrorism has become big business, with the head of Hamas’s worth estimated at $4 billion.
Public support is also directly related to the media attention that terror groups receive.
More coverage and social media hits result in increased popularity, and groups that are savvy can garner international credibility and backing. Press exposure, even of atrocities, can similarly result in increased recruiting. When faced with which group an individual decides to join, those with the greatest media presence are likely to benefit the most. But to stay relevant and keep getting views, donations, and supporters, groups have to keep outdoing each other in a race to the bottom of more and more awful acts of inhumanity.
Race to the bottom
Indeed, the race to the bottom amongst terrorist groups is nothing new as Islamic terrorist groups have been engaged in escalating violence against civilians for the last 20 years. Al Qaeda in Iraq split with its parent organization because it believed that Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden were not aggressive enough – and set too many limits on which groups were fit to be slaughtered.
ISIS grew out of Al Qaeda in Iraq and took its depravity to the next level, which was so horrific that even Al Qaeda, an organization content to crash airliners full of innocents into civilian buildings, disavowed ties.
Hamas has political competitors in Gaza, and across the Palestinian territories in general, and its abominations are driven in part by a desire to overshadow them.
The best way to counteract this downward spiral is to utterly destroy Hamas – annihilate the organization’s military and political wings – so other terror groups recognize that copying them only will result in following them into oblivion.
Respecting the laws of armed conflict is essential, but such a requirement is not mutually exclusive with ensuring the destruction of Hamas. At the same time, eradicating Hamas, which will be difficult militarily and politically, is not enough. It is also critical for the world to condemn what happened. Unequivocally. No platitudes that the barbarity must be contextualized, as if slicing off a woman’s breast could ever be put into perspective. In all likelihood, we will see even worse horror next time if we can’t stomach accomplishing both tasks.
After the October 7 attacks, Ghazi Hamad, a member of Hamas’s political bureau, pontificated: “We must teach Israel a lesson, and we will do it twice and three times. The Al-Aqsa Flood (the name Hamas gave its onslaught) is just the first time, and there will be a second, a third, a fourth.”
We should take Hamad and his organization at their word. Not just for the sake of Israel and the broader region, but also because other terrorists are watching the world’s response. They will undoubtedly be spurred to use the same level of brutality – or worse – in the future- if Hamas is not fundamentally dismantled.
October 7 is a canary in the coal mine for terrorist violence. A new Pandora’s box of monstrosities has been opened and if an example is not made of Hamas, these horrors will happen again and again.
Frank Sobchak is a retired US Army Special Forces colonel and a publishing contributor at the MirYam Institute. Iris Sobchak has taught history at the US Military Academy at West Point and is a publishing contributor at the MirYam Institute.