Hamas leader unleashed his own destruction by attacking Israel | Opinion
Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar didn’t scheme to eliminate the Jewish people. Still, he certainly believed he could spark the destruction of the Jewish state, but like Napoleon long before him, Sinwar might have chewed off more than he could handle.
Sinwar, 61, mastermind of the attack on Israel that shocked the world, had unleashed a still-widening catastrophe with no end in sight.
In Gaza, no figure loomed larger in determining the war’s trajectory than the Hamas leader, known to be obsessive, disciplined and dictatorial.
Sinwar was killed by Israeli troops almost a year to the day of the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks.
The truth is that the ill-advised Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s policy of placating and “containing” Hamas in recent years, echoing the appeasement policy before the Second World War, led Sinwar to believe that Israel had softened.
Then came the mass rallies in 2023, protesting against the blatant attempt of Netanyahu’s government to turn Israel’s democracy into an authoritarian regime.
Sinwar failed to understand that these were not signs of weakness, but rather manifestations of a vibrant democracy, rising against its enemies within. Then, as a shrewd tactician, Sinwar launched, on Oct. 7, 2023, a surprise attack that shocked Israel.
In theory, Sinwar was more than just a tactician; he had a strategy.According to his grand plan, Hezbollah was supposed to join in the fighting from Lebanon, and with its two proxies engaged in the battle with Israel, Iran would eventually be dragged in as well.
If this was not enough, then Sinwar also envisaged an action by the pro-Iranian militias in Syria, and an uprising of the Palestinians in the West Bank.
All this, he figured, would bring the besieged Israel to its knees.
With more than a year of hindsight, the magnitude of Sinwar’s blunder is astounding.
Quickly recovering from the initial and shocking surprise, Israel reacted in an unprecedented fury. The result is that Gaza is in rabbles, and tens of thousands of Gazans are dead, including Sinwar and his aides.
Hamas is decimated, and it might lose any significant role in post-war Gaza. The heinous crimes of Hamas on Oct. 7 also made many decent Sunni Muslims all around the world quietly turn their back on Hamas, equating it with ISIS and Al-Qaeda.
In the north of Israel, Hezbollah has been clobbered, its leader Nasrallah and its top echelon are all dead, and many in Lebanon are now rising up to the opportunity of breaking the yoke of this vicious Shiite terror organization in this God-forsaken country.
The biggest loser is Iran: not only did it lose its two strongholds in Gaza and Lebanon, but in yielding to Sinwar’s crazy scheme, Iran, for the first time, engaged in a direct military confrontation with Israel.
This exposed the fact that Iran’s capability of harming Israel was minimal (no less due to the telling participation of the US and moderate
Sunni countries in the region in curbing Iran’s missile attack on Israel). Furthermore, Israel’s counterattack took out most of Iran’s anti-aircraft defense, which opened the way for an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities by Israel, the US or both.
Finally, the shock waves that Sinwar had sent throughout the region rocked Syria, and Iran has just lost another asset in its campaign against Israel.
In sum, contrary to what Sinwar was scheming, Israel came out stronger than ever by the weakening of all its enemies.
In a sinister way, though, Sinwar might have contributed something positive to the Palestinian cause. The Palestinian Authority might take over Gaza again.
With President-elect Donald Trump’s efforts to add Saudi Arabia to the Abraham Accords, the option of a Palestinian state might be revived.
If and when this happens, Yahya Sinwar should get the credit.
Uri Dromi was the spokesman of the Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres governments from 1992-1996.
This story was originally published December 17, 2024 at 2:31 PM.