Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar’s death, Israel’s bravery and Joe Biden’s foolishness
Israel has scored another major victory: Yahya Sinwar is dead.
Sinwar was the mastermind behind the war crimes and terrorist butcheries of Oct. 7 before moving up to head Hamas after Ismail Haniyeh’s assassination.
He didn’t last three months; may his successor’s term be even shorter.
Sinwar was a bloody-handed, genocidal butcher, a loyal servant of Iran’s imperialist project responsible for the tragic deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinians.
After all, he could have ended the war whenever he wished by returning the hundreds of hostages he took — including women, children and the elderly.
He did not, instead retreating to Hamas fastnesses beneath Gaza while the people he was allegedly fighting to liberate suffered and died.
The IDF faced huge odds when it came to finding him and killing him, as well as baseless international opprobrium over Israel’s humane and justified counterattack.
The men and women of the IDF deserve great credit for their bravery in staying the course and killing this demon — bringing a small measure of justice to his victims in Israel and among the Palestinians.
Their tenacity and success show that it is beyond time for the United States to abandon its pathetic posture in the conflict, which consists of rushing in to restrain Israel whenever it scores a significant victory.
Again and again, Hamas has shown itself willing to negotiate only when under military duress: When Israel eases up, the group becomes recalcitrant.
Now its evil presiding genius is dead.
There’s no better moment for President Biden to make it clear he backs Israel to the hilt and will work with Jerusalem to crush Hamas to the point the terror group comes to the table ready and is willing to return the hostages — and then to disarm and leave Gaza forever.
That should start (as regional expert Jonathan Schanzer has argued) with the public surrender and subsequent extradition here or to Israel of Khaled Meshal, very likely to be Hamas’ next head and now resident in a nominal US ally, Qatar.
We need to turn every screw to make this happen.
President Biden has shown zero moral leadership on the world stage for the duration of his presidency; the catastrophic results will darken his legacy.
He now faces a moment to redeem himself, quite likely his last.
We hope he has the courage to ignore the Iran thralls and antisemites screaming in his ears and seize it.