Revisiting Hamas’s Metro

Screenshot of an article written for The Islamic Theology of CounterTerrorism

The above image of the Hezbollah tunnel is an unconscious image of emerging from Ummi's womb

"The Seeds Were Planted Early"

For Hamas's Atrocities

Pre-Ideology

By Nancy Hartevelt Kobrin, Ph.D.

War Blog #35

Consider this: 94% est. of thinking is unconscious & 95% est. of communication is nonverbal, thus symbols and fantasy are at the core of the problem of political violence. Form follows function; function follows fantasy. All behavior can be potentially understood.

Pre-Ideologies = Early Childhood Development

I wanted to post an addendum to the theme of the tunnels in Hamas warfare as I had an afterthought which had not been specifically highlighted. It’s quite simple and generally has been completely missed. That is often the case as the elephant in the room because the behavior is so psychotic and terrifying. It is behavior which involves early affective states of rage due to unmet psychological needs involving early childhood attachment to the mother. It has been written of my work that "the seeds are planted early" for the jihadis. Prof. Encarnación Hidalgo Tenorio, La Universidad de Granada

This means that the problem pre-exists ideologies. Babies and toddlers do not understand as yet political ideologies. Ideologies mobilize group fantasies and package them to be readily deployed for example through social media.

Perversion - The Misuse of the Tunnel as Object

In my war blog number #34 where I compared the London Tube to Hamas’s “Metro,” I stressed the subject of perversion, and that Hamas misused the concept of the tunnel NOT to benefit humanity. Their aim is genocidal. The misuse of the object constitutes a perversion.

The pitting of British democratic society of the London Tube against the authoritarian terrorist group Hamas foregrounds the lurking issue of jihadi terrorist groups as a herd-like borderline fused group versus a self-standing autonomous group personality which is imperative for a democracy such as Israel.

Tunnel warfare almost always (though there may be some exceptions) is deployed by a terrorist group which seeks to attack an established self-functioning viable democracy. Other examples are North Korea attempting to infiltrate South Korea and the Vietcong attempting to infiltrate South Vietnam. It is known too that North Korea has provided extensive help to Hezbollah to infiltrate the northern border of Israel by the building of massive tunnel structures, even more complicated than the "Metro" in Gaza.

Borderline vs. Autonomy

North Korea, the Vietcong, Hamas, Hezbollah are all shame-honor societies where there is an unconscious prohibition to separate from the mother. They are all violent and have a rage that exceeds murder itself because they are in conflict over their maternal symbiosis and their huge unmet psychological needs from early childhood. Psychological needs should not be confused with economic needs though there is an intersection. For example, a jihadi can be rich and still be murderously full of rage such as all the Hamas leadership who sit in Qatar or Turkey. Let us recall that Osama bin Laden was extraordinarily wealthy as well.

Borderline psychopathology always has to do with pushing and bullying set boundaries. The borderline fantasies are of fusion with the perceived stronger entity by infiltration – power and control through aggressive if not violent behavior. This fits with Hamas's objective for their "Metro."

Hamas envies Israel and must attack. North Korea envies South Korea’s stability and progress and thus must attack. So on and so forth.

The Tunnel as Symbol of the Unconscious Mind

"It’s dark, humid and warm" wrote Jotam Confino in his special report to the Jewish News UK as he entered Hamas's target tunnel. It was striking to me how he described his experience - dark-humid-warm. It is as if he is describing the womb.

https://www.jewishnews.co.uk/special-report-jewish-news-on-the-ground-inside-hamas-largest-gaza-terror-tunnel/

I am not the first to suggest that the tunnel is a symbolic representation of the Unconscious associated with birth. Jung did as well as Freud. Tunnel dreams concern fantasies about sexuality, birth, prelapsarian time where all needs are taken care of as well as associations to power and control vis a vis issue around anality.

Sinwar and his cohorts do not realize how much they have revealed about their psychotic genocidal group fantasies through the creation of their “Metro” system. They do not realize how transparent their behavior is as this deep dive depicts its symbolic meaning. They are in conflict over mummy's body, (Ar. ummi). They have never grown up; they remain infantile in their primitive mental states.

Form follows function and function follows fantasy. Hamas’s attempt to “infiltrate” Israel’s “body” was not only the horrific atrocities which they committed on October 7th of murder, mutilation, and rape, psychologically they seek to inflict their mode of primitive mental states on Israel a functioning democracy out of pure envy. Always remember that envy involves an attack on the Other.

#Bringthemhomenow