You wrote: "Instead of direct confrontation, a policy of lawfare targeting the occupation of the West Bank, mixed with appeals to segments of a visibly divided Israeli population, would have been more wise than the path that Hamas took."
Murtaza, surely you know better than this. HAMAS was insistent that the history of Israel had shown it had no intention of honoring any agreements or laws, that force was the only thing that Israel could understand and the only way to get results. The results are before us as Israel has sealed its fate as surely as did South Africa in blood. No military power will take Tel Aviv, but pariah status will shrivel the Jewish State beyond what American donations can counter. Hard as it is to believe at this moment, American support will shrivel as it seeks to put daylight between itself and a repulsive ethnic cleansing operation gone mad with power.
I recall earlier this year Sinwar made a statement that Palestinian life might be the sacrifice that would change things. Of course this was denounced as the words of a monster, but stop to consider it for a moment. All of the Israeli operations starting with Operation Cast Lead in 2009 had absolutely no impact on the outside world. The follow up operations that killed several times the number of people that were killed on Oct 7 also had no impact. It was clear Palestinian lives were worthless to Israelis.
Knowing this, it might be said, led Sinwar and others to believe that only the bloodbath that would come from an attack like Oct 7 would move things, a slaughter so awful, that the world would see the depth of Israeli hatred. So it has happened. The IDF kills with enthusiasm and, as seen on the soldiers' videos, glee.
Things have changed as the clearly maniacal Netanyahu insists on unlimited killing and destruction, be it of Palestinians, Lebanese, Syrians, Houthis, Iranians or, most remarkable of all, Americans that he wants to see die in action against Iran, a nation beyond the IDF's storm-trooper reach.
What was in store for the Palestinians if the Oct 7 attack had not come? Only more of the same prolonged hell that began in 1967, only ramped up with the settler government in the Knesset whose homicidal views are now clear for all to see.
This second holocaust conducted by those who claim to be victims as they slaughter, is in the news daily, horror upon horror piling up. If Sinwar had the idea I have just outlined he is being proven right. Israel is damned in the eyes of the world, there is no hasbara that can cover them as Israel's atrocities make the news. Israel can no longer play the victim. Self-righteousness and arrogance worthy of the Nazis is evident every time Netanyahu speaks, even more so when Smotrich or Ben-Gvir hold forth.
A sea of Palestinian blood is washing away Israel's future. No amount of US hardware and support can bring that future back. The lipstick is off the pig.
PS, yesterday I was picketing with my anti-Israel signboards (in America). Two Zionist women came up to denounce me. I asked them if they knew the number of deaths that had occurred in the last day. They became silent for a moment and said they did not. It turned out they were thinking solely of IDF deaths, not those of the Palestinians. That is the Israeli madness. If there is a part of the human brain that considers the other, in Israelis it is dead, the result of tutoring from early childhood that "they only want to kill us"
In conflicts such as this, you will find that there is plenty of blame to go around when it comes to teaching children caricatured and generalized views of the other. While unfortunately, 10/7 shocked Israeli society into something of a post-9/11 moment and caused even relatively liberal sectors of society to descend into unconscionable dehumanization of Palestinians and approval of collective punishment and even genocide, I guarantee that many Palestinians were raised to believe that there are no Israelis who care about them or sympathize with them, and even now, that is not true, though the percentage who sympathize is at a shameful all-time low. I know for a fact that neither narrative is true--many Palestinians view Israelis and other Jews as humans worthy of respect, and many Israelis and worldwide Jews view Palestinians as humans worthy of utmost respect, concern, dignity, freedom, and self-determination. They all need to meet each other and find this out.
Jordan, thank you for your respectful and thoughtful comment. I agree that children can be raised to hate regardless of what group they are born into, but I have to differ from you on two points.
1 - the situation of Israel is unique in that the state is completely protected from all consequences that might come from what it does by the world's only superpower, effectively making Israel the world's superpower. Protected power leads to terrible abuse and so it has been with Israel since 1967. Having control of the US Congress by way of Zionist wealth in the US, the settler movement (a logical extension of the Zionism seen in action in 1948) went from strength to strength ending in control of the Israeli government today with the incredible statement "it is moral that the 2 million Gazans should starve" by Israeli minister Smotrich. This, along with many similar statements by others in the Israeli government is let pass by the US, the country that in the past proclaimed itself for liberty and justice for all (no longer mentioned by US politicians, the President proudly proclaiming himself a Zionist).
2 - When great injustices occur in societies, it doesn't matter that there are some within the offending group that don't support the injustice, this is always the case for example in Nazi Germany and in the US at the time of the Indian Wars of extermination. In the case of Zionism, the blame is squarely on that movement for taking by the use of force and terror, the land on which the Palestinians were living. Zionism has no use for liberty and justice for all, it is avowedly and unremittingly for ethnic supremacy and sweeping the land free of the natives, wrongfully believing that this is a prerogative allowed to Jews.
Along with the burden of injustice being on Israel, the object of the injustice is the Palestinian people. This makes any comparison between those who don't feel animosity toward the other impossible. An Israeli who has sympathy for the Palestinians, and there are some, is to be commended. A Palestinian who feels sympathy for the Israelis in the light of what has been done by Israel, is a marvel to be wondered at as would be an American Indian who sympathized with the US as the natives were being swept from their land.
Thank you, Murtaza! You are as fine as they come. Please know how much we appreciate your work, and please continue your honest and insightful reporting, together with all of your colleagues at Drop Site News. You help to tear off the masks obscuring the realities of our time.
The wise words of Abraham Lincoln grow in relevance with every passing day.
"You can fool all of the people- some of the time. You can fool some of the people- all of the time. BUT- you cannot fool all of the people all of the time."
One by one, the public in America and the west are coming to realize that the overwhelming majority of human beings on this planet see as we see.
Murtaza, great story, but I had some thoughts; while I appreciate the nuance you brought to your analysis of Sinwar's life, I do find the lack of accountability for Israel in what's happened over the past year to be somewhat glaring. I know from your previous reporting you certainly aren't someone who believes their culpability to be minimal, but I will say I still think it's necessary to get a full picture on this man's life and why, as the Italian reporter mentioned, he was fighting all of his life.
Decades of fruitless negotiation, exemplified by the farce of the Oslo Accords, makes it hard to imagine a people, backed into a corner like the "animals" that Israel's defense minister Yoav Gallant believes them to be, arriving at any conclusion other than violent revolt, although the fact that civilians were caught in the crossfire is certainly unforgivable.
Nonetheless, I thank you for adding an interesting angle to the discourse on this story that I haven't yet seen elsewhere.
Thanks for reading and thoughtful feedback. To be clear nothing that I assess about Sinwar exculpates Israeli government from its genocidal actions, but I’m trying to assess his record in isolation as much as possible given that his character and legacy is likely to endure. This is separate from him as a man but I neglected to mention the fact that Israel had also supported Hamas entrenchment in Gaza for many years for the same strategic reason of sowing division in the Palestinian movement that I mentioned. So there is something in the chain of events and decisions that is objectionable here when it comes to results even if everyone sincerely did what they thought was right.
It was a matter of time before Gaza would face the brunt of Zionist arrogance. If not now, it would have happened in the foreseeable future. As we all know, the Apartheid state was hellbent on ethnically cleansing and annexing Gaza as a part of its long-term plan for a Greater Israel.
In addition, Sinwar's plan was not an emotional outburst. Whatever he did was based on years of confinement in Israeli prisons and a resistance to the occupation that spanned childhood to the last breathe of his life. His decision was based on lifelong experience. As outsiders with no experience in the battlefield, we have no idea what the wiser approach to this occupation would be. Sure, Gaza is down, but I am sure that not too long in the distance future, it will be free too. Only then will we realize the genius of Sinwar who knew to ignore the short-term pain of death and destruction for the long-term recovery from occupation. .
How can you say that Sinwar's decision to attack Israel was on 10/7 was unwise? I've never in my 45 yrs seen the Palestinian issue so front and center, with millions of new protestors who are questioning their Western gov's support of Israel. You can chastise Sinwar all you'd like, but sitting back while Israel and the money hungry Saudis were months away from shoving the Palestinian cause to the back burner for decades. Explain to me how you can rightfully criticize Hamas' actions on and after 10/7?
Because every action that intentionally harms civilians is unwise. There is a tremendous power imbalance between a superpower like Israel and a non-state entity such as Palestinian resistance movements, but intentionally harming civilians who are not directly responsible for the making of misery is a war crime in international law, against the commandments of almost all religions, and terrible strategy, because it inflames conflict. It's illegal, morally wrong, and tactically stupid for Israel to harm civilians and collectively punish, and it's illegal, morally wrong, and tactically stupid for Palestinian resistance to turn to terroristic tactics. While I have many ties to Israel for all kinds of reasons, I freely proclaim that there can be legitimate resistance to the occupation, the blockade, etc. There is no shortage of Palestinian voices affirming that the actions taken on October 7 did not constitute legitimate resistance. And I am even more eager to shout from the hilltops that all Israeli actions that dehumanize and humiliate Palestinians since 1948 are hideously immoral and do not constitute legitimate nation-building or statecraft. These conflicts will only end when everyone owns up to their own wrongdoing and commits to doing better in the future, EVEN when there is an imbalance of power and the blame is not distributed equally.
You wrote: "Instead of direct confrontation, a policy of lawfare targeting the occupation of the West Bank, mixed with appeals to segments of a visibly divided Israeli population, would have been more wise than the path that Hamas took."
Murtaza, surely you know better than this. HAMAS was insistent that the history of Israel had shown it had no intention of honoring any agreements or laws, that force was the only thing that Israel could understand and the only way to get results. The results are before us as Israel has sealed its fate as surely as did South Africa in blood. No military power will take Tel Aviv, but pariah status will shrivel the Jewish State beyond what American donations can counter. Hard as it is to believe at this moment, American support will shrivel as it seeks to put daylight between itself and a repulsive ethnic cleansing operation gone mad with power.
I recall earlier this year Sinwar made a statement that Palestinian life might be the sacrifice that would change things. Of course this was denounced as the words of a monster, but stop to consider it for a moment. All of the Israeli operations starting with Operation Cast Lead in 2009 had absolutely no impact on the outside world. The follow up operations that killed several times the number of people that were killed on Oct 7 also had no impact. It was clear Palestinian lives were worthless to Israelis.
Knowing this, it might be said, led Sinwar and others to believe that only the bloodbath that would come from an attack like Oct 7 would move things, a slaughter so awful, that the world would see the depth of Israeli hatred. So it has happened. The IDF kills with enthusiasm and, as seen on the soldiers' videos, glee.
Things have changed as the clearly maniacal Netanyahu insists on unlimited killing and destruction, be it of Palestinians, Lebanese, Syrians, Houthis, Iranians or, most remarkable of all, Americans that he wants to see die in action against Iran, a nation beyond the IDF's storm-trooper reach.
What was in store for the Palestinians if the Oct 7 attack had not come? Only more of the same prolonged hell that began in 1967, only ramped up with the settler government in the Knesset whose homicidal views are now clear for all to see.
This second holocaust conducted by those who claim to be victims as they slaughter, is in the news daily, horror upon horror piling up. If Sinwar had the idea I have just outlined he is being proven right. Israel is damned in the eyes of the world, there is no hasbara that can cover them as Israel's atrocities make the news. Israel can no longer play the victim. Self-righteousness and arrogance worthy of the Nazis is evident every time Netanyahu speaks, even more so when Smotrich or Ben-Gvir hold forth.
A sea of Palestinian blood is washing away Israel's future. No amount of US hardware and support can bring that future back. The lipstick is off the pig.
PS, yesterday I was picketing with my anti-Israel signboards (in America). Two Zionist women came up to denounce me. I asked them if they knew the number of deaths that had occurred in the last day. They became silent for a moment and said they did not. It turned out they were thinking solely of IDF deaths, not those of the Palestinians. That is the Israeli madness. If there is a part of the human brain that considers the other, in Israelis it is dead, the result of tutoring from early childhood that "they only want to kill us"
In conflicts such as this, you will find that there is plenty of blame to go around when it comes to teaching children caricatured and generalized views of the other. While unfortunately, 10/7 shocked Israeli society into something of a post-9/11 moment and caused even relatively liberal sectors of society to descend into unconscionable dehumanization of Palestinians and approval of collective punishment and even genocide, I guarantee that many Palestinians were raised to believe that there are no Israelis who care about them or sympathize with them, and even now, that is not true, though the percentage who sympathize is at a shameful all-time low. I know for a fact that neither narrative is true--many Palestinians view Israelis and other Jews as humans worthy of respect, and many Israelis and worldwide Jews view Palestinians as humans worthy of utmost respect, concern, dignity, freedom, and self-determination. They all need to meet each other and find this out.
Jordan, thank you for your respectful and thoughtful comment. I agree that children can be raised to hate regardless of what group they are born into, but I have to differ from you on two points.
1 - the situation of Israel is unique in that the state is completely protected from all consequences that might come from what it does by the world's only superpower, effectively making Israel the world's superpower. Protected power leads to terrible abuse and so it has been with Israel since 1967. Having control of the US Congress by way of Zionist wealth in the US, the settler movement (a logical extension of the Zionism seen in action in 1948) went from strength to strength ending in control of the Israeli government today with the incredible statement "it is moral that the 2 million Gazans should starve" by Israeli minister Smotrich. This, along with many similar statements by others in the Israeli government is let pass by the US, the country that in the past proclaimed itself for liberty and justice for all (no longer mentioned by US politicians, the President proudly proclaiming himself a Zionist).
2 - When great injustices occur in societies, it doesn't matter that there are some within the offending group that don't support the injustice, this is always the case for example in Nazi Germany and in the US at the time of the Indian Wars of extermination. In the case of Zionism, the blame is squarely on that movement for taking by the use of force and terror, the land on which the Palestinians were living. Zionism has no use for liberty and justice for all, it is avowedly and unremittingly for ethnic supremacy and sweeping the land free of the natives, wrongfully believing that this is a prerogative allowed to Jews.
Along with the burden of injustice being on Israel, the object of the injustice is the Palestinian people. This makes any comparison between those who don't feel animosity toward the other impossible. An Israeli who has sympathy for the Palestinians, and there are some, is to be commended. A Palestinian who feels sympathy for the Israelis in the light of what has been done by Israel, is a marvel to be wondered at as would be an American Indian who sympathized with the US as the natives were being swept from their land.
Thank you, Murtaza! You are as fine as they come. Please know how much we appreciate your work, and please continue your honest and insightful reporting, together with all of your colleagues at Drop Site News. You help to tear off the masks obscuring the realities of our time.
The wise words of Abraham Lincoln grow in relevance with every passing day.
"You can fool all of the people- some of the time. You can fool some of the people- all of the time. BUT- you cannot fool all of the people all of the time."
One by one, the public in America and the west are coming to realize that the overwhelming majority of human beings on this planet see as we see.
Murtaza, great story, but I had some thoughts; while I appreciate the nuance you brought to your analysis of Sinwar's life, I do find the lack of accountability for Israel in what's happened over the past year to be somewhat glaring. I know from your previous reporting you certainly aren't someone who believes their culpability to be minimal, but I will say I still think it's necessary to get a full picture on this man's life and why, as the Italian reporter mentioned, he was fighting all of his life.
Decades of fruitless negotiation, exemplified by the farce of the Oslo Accords, makes it hard to imagine a people, backed into a corner like the "animals" that Israel's defense minister Yoav Gallant believes them to be, arriving at any conclusion other than violent revolt, although the fact that civilians were caught in the crossfire is certainly unforgivable.
Nonetheless, I thank you for adding an interesting angle to the discourse on this story that I haven't yet seen elsewhere.
Thanks for reading and thoughtful feedback. To be clear nothing that I assess about Sinwar exculpates Israeli government from its genocidal actions, but I’m trying to assess his record in isolation as much as possible given that his character and legacy is likely to endure. This is separate from him as a man but I neglected to mention the fact that Israel had also supported Hamas entrenchment in Gaza for many years for the same strategic reason of sowing division in the Palestinian movement that I mentioned. So there is something in the chain of events and decisions that is objectionable here when it comes to results even if everyone sincerely did what they thought was right.
His death hurt my heart .. can’t shake it.
It was a matter of time before Gaza would face the brunt of Zionist arrogance. If not now, it would have happened in the foreseeable future. As we all know, the Apartheid state was hellbent on ethnically cleansing and annexing Gaza as a part of its long-term plan for a Greater Israel.
In addition, Sinwar's plan was not an emotional outburst. Whatever he did was based on years of confinement in Israeli prisons and a resistance to the occupation that spanned childhood to the last breathe of his life. His decision was based on lifelong experience. As outsiders with no experience in the battlefield, we have no idea what the wiser approach to this occupation would be. Sure, Gaza is down, but I am sure that not too long in the distance future, it will be free too. Only then will we realize the genius of Sinwar who knew to ignore the short-term pain of death and destruction for the long-term recovery from occupation. .
I hope Israel and the US use this as an excuse end this conflict, but the odds of that happening are next to 0.
Yahya Sinwar is Glorious Martyr who by his actions have guaranteed the eventual downfall of the colony know as israel and the end of US world contro.
A lot of people think this yes
Murtaza,
How can you say that Sinwar's decision to attack Israel was on 10/7 was unwise? I've never in my 45 yrs seen the Palestinian issue so front and center, with millions of new protestors who are questioning their Western gov's support of Israel. You can chastise Sinwar all you'd like, but sitting back while Israel and the money hungry Saudis were months away from shoving the Palestinian cause to the back burner for decades. Explain to me how you can rightfully criticize Hamas' actions on and after 10/7?
James
Because every action that intentionally harms civilians is unwise. There is a tremendous power imbalance between a superpower like Israel and a non-state entity such as Palestinian resistance movements, but intentionally harming civilians who are not directly responsible for the making of misery is a war crime in international law, against the commandments of almost all religions, and terrible strategy, because it inflames conflict. It's illegal, morally wrong, and tactically stupid for Israel to harm civilians and collectively punish, and it's illegal, morally wrong, and tactically stupid for Palestinian resistance to turn to terroristic tactics. While I have many ties to Israel for all kinds of reasons, I freely proclaim that there can be legitimate resistance to the occupation, the blockade, etc. There is no shortage of Palestinian voices affirming that the actions taken on October 7 did not constitute legitimate resistance. And I am even more eager to shout from the hilltops that all Israeli actions that dehumanize and humiliate Palestinians since 1948 are hideously immoral and do not constitute legitimate nation-building or statecraft. These conflicts will only end when everyone owns up to their own wrongdoing and commits to doing better in the future, EVEN when there is an imbalance of power and the blame is not distributed equally.
The man who destroyed the US empire with plenty of help from the Israelis and the US.