Why shouldn’t Hamas dig tunnels? What makes a tunnel more “terrorist” than a navy boat firing on fisherman, or less of a security need than unmanned aerial vehicles? Each to his own resources in the arms race.

In Israel, demonstrating vulnerability is a source of power. Next to the tunnel entrance stands little Israel, a bit hysterical and proud that she has such an army with such commanders who have such huge pensions. And the lesson? More security and more officers. And another cushy CEO job for the commander who’s retiring.

Since 1991 Israel has been doing everything it can to disconnect Gaza institutionally and socially from the West Bank (thus foiling the two-state solution). It has tried and succeeded. You wanted a separate state in Gaza? You got it, with the generous assistance of stupid Palestinian politics, whose factional rivalry tends to trump the larger interest of battling the occupation. But like any state, even a pseudo-state likes to feel strong and armed.

Last Thursday, when the discovery of the tunnel running under the Gaza border toward Kibbutz Ein Hashlosha was revealed, the spokesman for Iz al-Din al-Qassam, Hamas’ military wing, boasted that “the resistance” could dig a thousand tunnels. The website Falastin, which published the boast, also reported that 56 percent of Israelis are thinking about leaving the country. With Hamas, a demonstration of power betrays its vulnerability. You’ve got it good with us, the Islamic movement warns the 1.6 million prisoners in Israel’s most sophisticated detention facility (see: pseudo-state), so don’t complain. What the Palestinian website doesn’t tell you is the high ratio of Gaza teens who want to emigrate.

The Israeli commander said with convincing sarcasm that schools could have been built instead of tunnels like these. What an excellent metaphor for the worship of our armed forces. Some NIS 100 million is being cut this year in Israel from the budget for higher education. That’s pennies compared to the average annual addition of NIS 8.5 billion to the defense budget.

Our control over the Palestinians aside, Israel and Hamas are grotesque mirror images of each other. The similarity ought to be reassuring. Spurred by Israel’s closure policy, Hamas is building its religious emirate in the Gaza Strip. It has to curb the nuclear power of the popular loathing, weariness and disgust with life in prison.

In contrast, in the West Bank it’s much more difficult to control the nuclear potential. Israelis are repeating their Oslo mistake when they delude themselves into thinking that the current futile negotiations are buying quiet, and that this quiet is evidence of public support for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas.To Israel’s satisfaction, the PLO chairman’s security apparatus is carrying out waves of arrests in Jenin and Hebron, but is helpless against settler attacks and the Civil Administration. Being identified as subcontractors of the Israel Defense Forces and the Shin Bet security service diminishes their ability to curb the unrest simmering in the refugee camps and villages.

True, since there’s no chance of a revolution of consciousness or diplomacy in Israel and since the required fundamental change in the Palestinian leadership is not on the horizon, Palestinian adults and the middle class in general prefer the status quo. But when unrest erupts again – against poverty, weakness and leadership infighting, the expulsions by the Civil Administration, the IDF raids and arrests, and the Shin Bet harassment – the Palestinian forces will be forced to choose between loyalty to security cooperation and its American sponsor and their Palestinian identity. However they choose, we Israelis will continue to be periodically reminded that our ongoing dictatorship over the Palestinians is not normal and not viable.