Après Sinwar
In some Democratic circles it would be unseemly to celebrate the death of Yahya Sinwar, the military leader of Hamas. But let’s give three cheers for the Israeli soldier who fired the shot that emptied Sinwar’s brain pan. The world is a better place for it.
There is no genocide being committed by Israel in Gaza or anywhere else.
We have to begin our analysis of Sinwar’s death with the fact that both Joe Biden and Kamala Harris repeatedly told the Israelis to not go into the city of Rafah in southern Gaza where the Israeli forces bagged Sinwar.
In March, Harris said, “Any major military operation in Gaza would be a huge mistake … I have studied the maps; there’s nowhere for those folks to go, and we’re looking at about a million and a half people in Rafah who are there because they were told to go there.”
Whether she can read a map without help is questionable but it’s a very good thing that the Israelis are ignoring her and Biden.
The long and short of it is that Sinwar would still be alive — and Hamas preparing to resume its government of Gaza — if Israel had followed Kamala’s advice. She must believe that her genius in tactics and strategy — scratch that; in diplomacy — qualifies her to be our commander-in-chief for the next four years.
The Significance of Sinwar’s Death
The death of Sinwar hasn’t brought about the end of a round of war Hamas started on October 7, 2023, nor will it. It is a tactical achievement, not a strategic one.
That’s easily demonstrated by two statements. First, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, “To the Hamas terrorists I say — your leaders are running away and they will be eliminated. I call on everyone who holds our hostages: whoever lays down his arms and returns our hostages — we will allow him to leave and live. Whoever harms our hostages — there will be blood on his head and we will hold him accountable.”
Netanyahu is not Winston Churchill but he stands in a Churchillian moment. It is only because of his courage that Israel stands against Biden’s and Harris’s absurd cease-fire demands and keeps fighting in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, and against Iran. His courage has sustained Israel in this war: he shows no sign of faltering. Netanyahu’s offer of amnesty to those who aid in releasing hostages may yet help the hostages be released or rescued. All but the most fanatical of Hamas members have to understand the significance of Sinwar’s death.
The second proof (and there are others) was the answer to Netanyahu’s statement by Khalil al-Hayya, reportedly a senior Hamas leader. (They have to be running out of them at this point). He said on Friday, “These prisoners will not return unless the aggression on Gaza stops, the occupiers withdraw, and our heroic prisoners are released from Zionist prisons.” Stop right there.
The people Hamas holds aren’t prisoners, they’re hostages. Hamas, like all the Islamic terrorists, always seeks moral equivalence but there is none. Israel doesn’t take hostages and neither does any civilized country. Hostage-taking is a war crime under the Geneva Conventions. (See Common Article 3 and the Fourth Convention. Hostage-taking is only one of the many war crimes Hamas has committed on and since October 7.)
Al-Hayya may be following the orders of Khaled Mashal, Hamas’s political leader, who is living it up in a luxury hotel in Doha, Qatar. Mashal is obeying the orders he gets from Iran. Mashal should be extradited to the U.S. or Israel or he should join the long list of terrorist leaders the Israelis have whacked in the past couple of months. The former would be a greater spectacle, but you can bet on the latter.
The fact that Sinwar’s death is only a tactical victory is also demonstrated by the fact that Hizballah — Iran’s Lebanese proxy — is still firing missiles at Israeli civilians. There is no letup in the pressure they exert on Israel or on the pressure Israel is putting on Hizballah.
Further demonstrating that fact, either Iran or Hizballah launched a drone attack on Netanyahu’s residence, attempting to kill him and his wife. If the Israelis wanted to, they could launch as strike intended to kill Ayatollah Khamenei. It’s unlikely they would but, for the attempt on Netanyahu and the October missile barrage from Iran, Khamenei is on the long list of targets Israel could strike in retaliation.
Hamas still holds about one hundred hostages out of the 240 taken which included seven Americans. Biden and Harris have done absolutely nothing to get the Americans released. Three of the seven Americans are believed to still be alive. The other four were murdered in captivity by Hamas.
As this column has said several times, the Israeli special forces don’t need — and probably don’t want — help from our Navy SEALs or the Delta Force in rescuing hostages. They’re probably on scene advising the Israelis. The Israelis have been at it for a year now, they know the ground and have mapped most of the tunnels where the hostages are probably being kept. But there is a lot more Biden can do to get our people home.
The Biden-Harris Failure
As I’ve also written before, Biden-Harris never utter a discouraging word to Hamas or Hizballah, both of which are Iranian proxies. It is long past time for Biden-Harris to condemn them in the harshest terms, hold them responsible for the tens of thousands of deaths in Gaza and tell our diplo-dunces to do the same in every place they can go, especially the UN.
But that won’t happen because Harris — and to whatever degree Biden is conscious of the world around him — they are consumed by election politics. According to a Fox News report on Saturday, a panel of Arab-American voters on MSNBC said they refused to vote for Harris. One, who said she’d vote for Trump, added that she would do so because, “my main goal is to get someone who is actively funding a genocide out of office.”
There is no genocide being committed by Israel in Gaza or anywhere else. But if that person votes for Trump and the rest don’t vote for Harris, that would be a good enough result.
READ MORE from Jed Babbin:
One Year Since Oct. 7, Iran Is in Israel’s Crosshairs
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