Theme
“"Mowing the grass": how the status quo was kept”
Israeli strategists called the recurring Gaza rounds 'mowing the grass': no solution in sight, so degrade the enemy now and then and buy quiet. Palestinians hear the same phrase as the name of a cycle of punishment. Both describe the same years.
Where it's been said
“Against an implacable, well-entrenched, non-state enemy like the Hamas, Israel simply needs to “mow the grass” once in a while in order to degrade enemy capabilities.”
“Indeed, the Israeli regime’s military tactic of “mowing the grass” is well established.”
Why people find it convincing
- The phrase comes from Israeli strategic writing itself. In 2014 two BESA Center scholars wrote that Israel 'simply needs to "mow the grass" once in a while in order to degrade enemy capabilities'.
- Its authors later described it as 'the Israeli rationale behind various rounds of conflict in Gaza': regular rounds against a conflict 'which had no foreseeable resolution and had to be managed'.
- After October 7, 2023, one of the two authors wrote that the strategy had ended: 'Israeli deterrence completely collapsed.'
The picture
What its authors meant.
Efraim Inbar and Eitan Shamir of the BESA Center (Bar-Ilan University) described the logic in July 2014, during the Gaza war. It assumes 'a protracted intractable conflict': Israel cannot 'purge Hamas from Palestinian society, nor is a political solution likely to be achieved'. Force is therefore 'not intended to attain impossible political goals'. It is 'a long-term strategy of attrition designed primarily to debilitate the enemy capabilities'. After a period of restraint, Israel strikes to degrade Hamas's capabilities, 'aiming at achieving a period of quiet'. The authors called the 'cycle of violence' a cliché and said 'there is no solution in sight'. They contrasted this with 'solution-oriented' Western thinking. What is true here: this was an honest statement that the rounds were not meant to end the conflict, only to manage it. That is what the status-quo card calls 'accepting recurring wars as the price'.
Traps here:◆ Which name?
advocacy / viewEfraim Inbar and Eitan Shamir, 'Mowing the Grass in Gaza', BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 255, 20 July 2014 (2014) ✓
Read (2026-09-28). The strategy stated by its authors: 'protracted intractable conflict'; 'nor is a political solution likely to be achieved'; 'a long-term strategy of attrition designed primarily to debilitate the enemy capabilities'; 'aiming at achieving a period of quiet'; 'there is no solution in sight'; 'Israel simply needs to "mow the grass" once in a while in order to degrade enemy capabilities'. Cites over 1,500 rockets in 10 days and Hamas's rejection of the Egyptian ceasefire proposal. The longer journal version: Inbar & Shamir, 'Mowing the Grass: Israel's Strategy for Protracted Intractable Conflict', Journal of Strategic Studies (2014).
How Palestinians hear it.
In Palestinian writing the phrase is used as evidence against the policy. In an August 2022 Al-Shabaka podcast, recorded after Israel's strikes on Islamic Jihad in Gaza, host Yara Hawari called the violence 'cyclical' and 'the Israeli regime's military tactic of "mowing the grass"' 'well established'. She set it against '15 years of a crippling siege'. Her guest, Ibrahim Fraihat of the Doha Institute, called the bombing 'unprovoked'. He noted that Israel called it a preemptive strike tied to the arrest of an Islamic Jihad leader in Jenin, and that such a claim 'can't be verified'. What is true here: the strategy's own authors say the rounds do not aim at a political end. For the people living in Gaza, that means a war every few years with no horizon, whatever each round's trigger.
Traps here:◆ Where does the story start?
advocacy / viewAl-Shabaka, Rethinking Palestine podcast, 'From Jenin to Gaza to Nablus: Palestinian Resistance Under Attack' (Yara Hawari with Ibrahim Fraihat), August 2022 (2022) ✓
Read (transcript, 2026-09-28). Hawari: violence in Gaza 'is cyclical. Indeed, the Israeli regime's military tactic of "mowing the grass" is well established'; '15 years of a crippling siege'. Fraihat: the bombing 'unprovoked'; Israel's stated reason a preemptive strike tied to the arrest of an Islamic Jihad leader in Jenin, which 'can't be verified'.
What both readings leave out.
The Israeli reading leaves out what the 'period of quiet' was like for Gazans: the closure went on between rounds (Hawari's '15 years of a crippling siege'). The Palestinian reading leaves out what set off many rounds: the 2014 paper cites more than 1,500 rockets in ten days and a rejected Egyptian ceasefire. It also leaves out that the armed groups rebuilt in between; the paper's whole logic is to degrade them again when they do. Each side starts the clock at the other's move. Both describe the same mechanism: strike, ceasefire, rebuild, strike again. Both say it went nowhere, one side calling that realism and the other calling it punishment.
Traps here:◆ Where does the story start?◆ The exception as proof
advocacy / viewEfraim Inbar and Eitan Shamir, 'Mowing the Grass in Gaza', BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 255, 20 July 2014 (2014) ✓
Read (2026-09-28). The strategy stated by its authors: 'protracted intractable conflict'; 'nor is a political solution likely to be achieved'; 'a long-term strategy of attrition designed primarily to debilitate the enemy capabilities'; 'aiming at achieving a period of quiet'; 'there is no solution in sight'; 'Israel simply needs to "mow the grass" once in a while in order to degrade enemy capabilities'. Cites over 1,500 rockets in 10 days and Hamas's rejection of the Egyptian ceasefire proposal. The longer journal version: Inbar & Shamir, 'Mowing the Grass: Israel's Strategy for Protracted Intractable Conflict', Journal of Strategic Studies (2014).
advocacy / viewAl-Shabaka, Rethinking Palestine podcast, 'From Jenin to Gaza to Nablus: Palestinian Resistance Under Attack' (Yara Hawari with Ibrahim Fraihat), August 2022 (2022) ✓
Read (transcript, 2026-09-28). Hawari: violence in Gaza 'is cyclical. Indeed, the Israeli regime's military tactic of "mowing the grass" is well established'; '15 years of a crippling siege'. Fraihat: the bombing 'unprovoked'; Israel's stated reason a preemptive strike tied to the arrest of an Islamic Jihad leader in Jenin, which 'can't be verified'.
Where it led.
In October 2023 Eitan Shamir, one of the two authors, wrote that 'Israeli deterrence completely collapsed' on October 7 and that the day marked 'a significant departure from the "Mowing the Grass" strategy'. Israel, he argued, must now 'dismantle the Hamas regime in Gaza'. Deterrence, he added, remained 'the most central and fundamental principle'. In short, the management strategy ended in the war it was meant to prevent, and its author concluded that management was no longer enough. Others, including Thomas Friedman whom he quotes, drew the opposite conclusion: Hamas cannot be uprooted by force either. This is the loop the builder shows as 'If nothing changes': the status quo slides into a shattered calm and then permanent war. The two authors disagree with the Palestinian reading about almost everything except this: the rounds were never a solution.
Traps here:◆ What happened next?
advocacy / viewEitan Shamir, 'The End of Mowing the Grass: If Israel Wants to Continue to Exist, It Must Uproot Hamas from Gaza', BESA Center, October 2023 (2023) ✓
Read (2026-09-28). 'On October 7, 2023, Israeli deterrence completely collapsed'; October 7 marks 'a significant departure from the "Mowing the Grass" strategy'; Israel must 'dismantle the Hamas regime in Gaza'; deterrence remains 'the most central and fundamental principle'. Answers Thomas Friedman (NYT, 16 Oct 2023), who argued Hamas cannot be completely uprooted.
Where this argument points
This argument comes up in the debate about these solutions — for, against or around them: