The Spies of Hamas

Old-fashioned intelligence gathering keyed its success

THERE WAS A TIME many years ago that I’d drive past a soccer stadium in South Vietnam looking for a chalk scratch on the wall.  Horizontal meant that my net of spies had reports for me. Posing as farmers, rice peddlers and the like, my spies eyeballed and engaged communist soldiers and units and reported back the essentials: names, numbers, weapons, uni…