August 12, 2024
The political editor wrote
- Those who decided to assassinate Hamas Political Bureau Chief Ismail Haniyeh did not anticipate that Yahya Sinwar would succeed him as the head of the movement. The decision to eliminate Haniyeh in Tehran cannot be attributed solely to Tel Aviv, as engaging in a confrontation with Iran requires prior American approval. This is evident from the Iranian response and the complete Israeli reliance on American support, which led President Joe Biden to tell the Israelis that without our protection, the result of the Iranian strike would have been the complete destruction of Israel.
- Had anyone other than Yahya Sinwar been appointed as Hamas’s leader, Tel Aviv might have leveraged this to boast about deterrence, claim a victory narrative, and explore alternative negotiation strategies, even if only in public statements.
However, Sinwar’s selection has had the opposite effect. Within the occupying entity, the assassination is seen as creating a double bind. On one hand, negotiations will now be with Sinwar, entrenched in Gaza’s tunnels where neither Egypt, Qatar, nor any party Washington could leverage has influence. On the other hand, the entity is now exposed to a likely Iranian retaliation, which may not be alleviated by American military presence, thus complicating efforts to mitigate the impending risks.
- Hamas demonstrated its strategic acumen once again by appointing Sinwar in response to the assassination of Haniyeh. The message to the perpetrators is unequivocal: you remove Haniyeh, and we present you with Sinwar as both leader and negotiator. Sinwar – Hamas’s President and leader of the resistance- now bears the weight of Haniyeh’s blood, and the responsibility for making it imperative for the perpetrators to pay for their actions through clarifying that there will be no concessions beyond the negotiating terms set by Haniyeh and, secondly, upholding the negotiating terms set by Haniyeh indicates that additional discussions are unnecessary there may be no need for further negotiations.
- The one-line statement issued by Hamas in response to the upcoming Thursday negotiation invitation, as announced in the presidential statement signed by the U.S. President, the Emir of Qatar, and the Egyptian President, came days after the invitation. It stated that the movement sees no need for new negotiations but rather for an “plan to implement what Hamas agreed to on July 2nd, instead of engaging in new talks.”
- What the statement did not communicate to Benjamin Netanyahu is that, despite his pledge to send a delegation to negotiate the terms and framework of the agreement rather than the implementation plan as outlined in the tripartite statement, he must first reach an agreement on these terms with the mediators. Only after this agreement is reached can discussions on the implementation plan commence. Until then, the days, nights, and the field remain under our control.
