One highly distressing aspect of Sinwar’s manipulation is the American role. America had full knowledge of Hamas’s revisions but never informed Israel.
Yahya Sinwar has good reason to be pleased with himself. The chances of the Gaza War ending in a stalemate with Hamas able to reconstitute itself as Gaza’s ruling authority grow by the day. For one thing, the Biden administration has made clear that its chief interest is that the war end as soon as possible, not that Hamas’s rule over the citizens of Gaza be ended.
Sinwar’s triumph consists of two parts. First, he has turned Israel into the villain in the eyes of much of the world. The horrors inflicted on Israel on October 7 have either been forgotten or justified. Second, he has reawakened all the divisions in Israeli society that existed prior to October 7, and which for a period of time appeared to be behind us as the nation unified to defeat Hamas.
In both these endeavors, he has been assisted by the United States, whether wittingly or unwittingly, in large part as a consequence of electoral problems that the fighting in Gaza has created for President Biden with young and Arab voters.
Remarkably, the longtime Hamas strategy of ensuring maximum civilian casualties by turning the civilian population of Gaza into human shields has proven successful, and not just on university campuses. According to at least one poll, 50 percent of Americans now believe that Israel is guilty of genocide in Gaza, which does not reflect well on their dictionary skills.
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