Of course I do not mean this literally, but on some level I wish Hamas’ late leader, Yahya Sinwar, were captured alive and fully conscious. Lest I be misunderstood, it was critical that Israel kill the chief planner and executor of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel. He put in place the strategy, the goals, the methods — death, mutilation, rape, kidnapping. His death removed a major terrorist “skill set” and “inspiration” from this world. That is all to the good.
President Biden compared Israel’s elimination of Sinwar to America’s elimination of Bin Laden, executor of the 9/11 evil.
Amen.
But what if Sinwar were still alive?
I ask the question because of Sinwar’s intent. It was not just to inflict damage on Israel. It was not just brutality. It was far larger.
Sinwar wanted to trigger an anti-Israel Armageddon. He wanted to start in Israel’s south. That was just the beginning for him. He wanted to decimate Israel’s south and then move further northward, destroying as he went. He wanted to motivate Hezbollah to join his attack from the south of Israel in its own attack from the north of Israel. He wanted Syria and Iran to be inspired to join a joint, successful Hamas-Hezbollah attack on Israel.
He envisioned all this as a massive pincer movement that would bring an end to Israel.
Sinwar wanted to celebrate one grand destruction.
He wanted this so badly that he jumped his own gun, not coordinating with Hezbollah on his grand strategy. True enough, Hezbollah began firing on Israel the day after Sinwar’s Oct. 7 invasion, but Hezbollah did not launch an all out war against Israel.
Apparently, this deficiency in Sinwar’s plans was, in his perverse mind, beautifully offset by all of the destruction he was able to wreak on Israel; and, doubly perverse, by all of the destruction that Israel wrought on Gaza in self-defense — Israel’s attempt to put an end to Hamas and its terror. To Sinwar, the more destruction in Gaza, the worst Israel’s reputation around the world. “Necessary sacrifices,” Sinwar called the Gazans whom Israel could not help but kill in pursuing Hamas terrorists, who ensconced themselves in hospitals, homes, tunnels, UN facilities and other civilian locales.
All this is what Sinwar saw.
Sinwar was killed by Israel on Oct. 16, 2024.
Therefore, Sinwar did not see what happened afterward, and it is on some level I wish he had.
He did not see Israel’s decimation of much of Hezbollah’s arsenal.
He did not see Lebanon begin to reassert its authority in southern Lebanon.
He did not see the Israelis displaced from their homes by Hezbollah begin to trickle back home.
He did not see Israel open a wedge for peace in Lebanon, though that will take time and is not guaranteed — but it is a possibility, something Sinwar did not foresee.
Sinwar did not see Syria fall in December, 2024 — the mighty Syria! The mighty Assad! The country so much larger than Lebanon, the country that fought Israel in 1948, 1973 and 1982 — the mighty Syria, fallen. Sinwar did not see that.
He did not see 10 living and 18 deceased hostages whom Hamas had kidnapped in October, 2023 return home to Israel in January, 2025.
He did not see Israel attack his ally Iran’s most powerful weapons, its missiles and nuclear sites, on June 13, 2025.
He did not see the US attack Iran’s three major nuclear production sites with stealth bombers and missiles on June 21, 2025.
He did not see Israel and the US humble Hamas’ main weapon supplier, political enabler and ideological champion.
Sinwar did not see all of the critical elements in his big dream decimated, defanged.
He did not see his hate-based, radicalized religious truth validated.
He did not get his grand destruction.
I wish he had seen how false his hope was, how false his means were, how distorted his religious understanding was.
To be truthful with myself, I am not sure why I wish that Sinwar had seen what transpired after Israel got him. I know that other hate-filled “leaders” who harbor the same hopes and seek the same means have not learned, at least at this stage of history, at least in parts of the world, that hate gets you nowhere.
I know that too few have learned what Sinwar should have.
I know that even Sinwar saw the hate-filled boasting of Hezbollah’s Nasrallah and his lieutenants brought to an end about two weeks before his own end, and this did not change Sinwar.
But I have no choice — call it naïve, if you like. I have no choice but to hope that human reason can rule how the human being behaves, at least on a collective level. I still cling to the hope that the defeat of some haters can sway other haters. That murder and kidnapping and mutilation and sexual violence by Hamas and by anyone can be renounced and abandoned, unqualifiedly.
I still hope for a Middle East in which Muslims and Arabs can accept a Jewish state in their midst, and dwell together in peace.
Yes, on some level, I wish Sinwar were alive to see his own vision vanquished, and the ancient, glorious vision of Isaiah brought, perhaps, one step closer, the vision of man lifting up sword no more.
© IJN 2025
