Sahm and Rad‘a: The Language of Control

Sahm (Arrow): سهم Rad‘a (Deterrence): ردع

[AI translation in Hebrew and Portuguese below. Posted at nancyharteveltkobrin.substack 24.04.26]

Reading Michael Barak’s excellent analysis of Hamas’s internal psychological warfare prompted a closer look at something often left aside: the language itself.

Recent reporting has described Hamas’s use of internal enforcement units with names such as Sahm (Arrow) and Rad‘a(Deterrence). These are typically presented as operational or security mechanisms. That is correct—but there is more.

The names themselves are doing psychological work.

Sahm—arrow—does not simply indicate precision. It marks. It selects. It transforms a body into a target-object. What appears as identification is already a form of action. The moment of naming collapses ambiguity. The question of loyalty is resolved not through inquiry, but through designation.

What is produced is not a person, but a marked body.

Rad‘a—deterrence—extends this process into the social field. It is not only punishment. It is display. Punishment becomes visible, circulates, and acquires meaning beyond the event itself. It functions as a language through which the collective is addressed.

The purpose is not merely to eliminate. It is to regulate.

A marked body is not a person. It is an object.In this framework, people do not appear as persons; they are constituted as objects, available for designation and elimination.Within this framework, there is no recognition of psychological needs—no space for trust, security, or the formation of a human bond. The designated body is stripped of differentiation and rendered available for annihilation as a form of regulation.

To be separate is to risk being named. To be named is to become visible. And to become visible is to be reduced.

Within a shame–honor structure, visibility is not neutral. To be exposed is already to be diminished. To be named publicly is to be stripped of protection and recast as a bearer of shame across the social field. The act of making visible is itself punitive.

What is threatened here is not simply dissent, but differentiation itself. Separation disrupts the fused structure of the group, in which the group-self dominates and takes precedence over any singular existence. The response is not engagement, but elimination.

This is why terms such as Sahm and Rad‘a must be read together with tactics. The visible act and the hidden structure operate as one. The strike is not only tactical; it is the expression of a deeper system that marks and eliminates the object to restore coherence. It is this convergence that gives the act its force—its terrifying punch.

Taken together, these terms describe a two-stage structure. First, the marking of the target. Second, the circulation of fear. The first isolates; the second binds. The first reduces; the second organizes.

This is not simply coercion. It is a system that cannot tolerate ambiguity within itself. Uncertainty—about loyalty, belonging, or intention—must be resolved quickly and visibly. The solution is to externalize threat onto bodies, designate them, and then display the consequences.

Order is restored not through deliberation, but through repetition.

What is often described as “psychological warfare” can also be understood as the management of anxiety within a closed system. Fear is not incidental; it is functional—it stabilizes the system.

In such a structure, differentiation is dangerous. To be separate is to risk being named. To be named is to become visible. And to become visible is to be reduced.

The language makes this clear.

Sahm.Rad‘a.

Strike.Deterrence.

Not as tactics, but as structure.