A University of South Florida expert on the Middle East said the attacks on Israel by Hamas this past weekend are qualitatively different from attacks we have seen in the past.
USF political science professor Thomas Smith said Israel had come to see Hamas as manageable since the group rose to power in 2006. But, he says, the recent attacks have changed that.
"You know, this isn't lobbing missiles into southern Israel, but an actual sort of invasion, massacres of civilians and other and others in Israel," Smith said. "It's been stunning for Israel to kind of go through this."
The Hamas attack on Israel, which claimed over 1,000 lives, is being called Israel's 911. But Smith said there's a difference.
America didn't know its enemy until the planes struck the buildings. Smith said. Israel intimately knows Hamas, which does not recognize Israel's right to exist, and still didn't see this coming.
"Their intelligence is excellent. I mean, Gaza is right on the border," Smith said. "And so I think that's a big part of the story here is the sort of the failures, and is there are going to be repercussions. There's no question failures. How did this happen?"
Smith said he can't imagine that this crisis would push things in a positive direction. Ultimately, he said, it looks like it will follow the thrust of his latest book, "Human Rights and War through Civilian Eyes."
Ordinary Palestinians, he said, are going to be caught in the middle.
The attack has also put the Tampa Bay Jewish community on higher alert.
Jonathon Ellis, chairman of the Tampa Jewish Community Relations Council, says the Hillsborough County Sheriff's office and the Tampa police department have reached out to offer higher security in the wake of the attacks.
"We will make more patrols and surveillance available to Jewish institutions within the Jewish community," Ellis said. "It's a shame it boils down to something happens in the Middle East. And you have to worry about Jewish institutions and your safety within the state of Florida, or within the Tampa Bay area."
Ellis points to local demonstrations in support of Palestinians as a source of concern for Tampa Jewish organizations.
He also said the heartfelt sympathy seen and heard on the news is not a Jewish community feeling but a feeling of people throughout the world.
However, he says, Jews, obviously, have a deeper connection with the tragic events in Israel.
"Many of the people in the Jewish community have been to Israel, they have friends in Israel, a number of family members in Israel, people dealt with Israelis as they've come here," Ellis said. "So there really is sort of a feeling of a real sort of what I would call connection between the state of Israel and Jews, not only in the Tampa Bay area, but in the United States as a whole."
