06.12.2024 12:33 PM

“Necessary sacrifices”

CNN — 

The military leader of Hamas has said he believes he has gained the upper hand over Israel and that the spiralling civilian death toll in Gaza would work in the militant group’s favor, according to a report by the Wall Street Journal, citing leaked messages the newspaper said it had seen.

“We have the Israelis right where we want them,” Yahya Sinwar told other Hamas leaders recently, according to one of the messages, the WSJ reported Monday. In another, Sinwar is said to have described civilian deaths as “necessary sacrifices” while citing past independence-related conflicts in countries like Algeria.

9 Comments

  1. Jason says:

    I have no idea why any of this comes as a surprise to anybody. Hamas’ indifference to human suffering within their own borders and Israel’s doctrine of excessive force tactics are about as well-documented as anything in the last 50 years of history. The only remaining catalyst Sinwar needed for this to play out on schedule was for Israel to put a short-sighted, narcissistic, fearmongering, divisive lunatic back in charge. The kind of man who would take every bait, and never put the nation’s interests above his own.

    And they did.

  2. Warren,

    I don’t know why Sinwar says such things, given the fact that the IDF and Mossad intend to blow him away no matter how long it takes. I wouldn’t call that the upper hand. But that’s just me.

    • Jason says:

      If Sinwar’s end goal is to cripple Israel’s support systems, further polarize it’s already fragile political arena, alienating tenuous regional alliances, putting it’s major backers in the US, UK, and EU in doubt, and rendering it vulnerable to Iran with no regard to the cost of said actions?

      • Jason,

        I think that Hamas has grossly miscalculated. Israel is now in the early stages of a dawning realization, and it’s coming into the minds of both the left and the right: in short, no large hostage releases are even remotely possible as long as Netanyahu remains in power. Period.

        So…if the return of the hostages is indeed PRIORITY NUMBER ONE in Israel, across the political spectrum, then both the left and the right realize that no fundamental progress will be made on a mass release unless Netanyahu and Likud are defeated in the Knesset.

        The left will coalesce around their guy, as will the right, but whomever can build a formidable coalition either pre-or post-election will get a kick at that can. To my knowledge, the right has no one in mind who is as “moderate” as Netanyahu, so my money is on the left as regards the formation of any future Knesset governing coalition.

        In one sense, that would be somewhat of a win for Hamas if they regard Netanyahu as their most powerful foe in Israel. They might think that an incoming prime minister would be less ambitious militarily and, of course, they would be wrong. Any new PM would go to hell and back militarily to release the remaining hostages en masse or otherwise if that was possible.

        • Jason says:

          You’re right about all but one thing: Netanyahu is not Hamas’ greatest enemy. He’s their useful idiot. He’s directly responsible for funding Hamas for PR purposes.
          And in this conflict, because of his strategy (or lack thereof), tens of thousands are dead, yet more have taken up the ideals of Hamas than ever before.

          Never forget that Hamas is not a conventional enemy. Human and material cost means nothing to them.

  3. Gilbert says:

    How does Mr. Sinwar manage to avoid capture? Gaza is a small piece of land, but there must be many tunnels. Israel probably regrets saving his life.

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