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Hamas Is Not Invincible

(UnHerd) Reuel Marc Gerecht - It has become conventional wisdom in Washington that Hamas will survive no matter how hard it is pummeled by Israel. Yet Islamic history is littered with failed insurgencies and vanquished militants. Oct. 7 mastermind Yahya Sinwar envisioned an imminent triumph over Israel in a holy war to drive the Jews from Palestine. This is the kind of delusional hope that once powered al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. For most Palestinians in Gaza, Hamas's rule has been hell. Hamas, like Hizbullah in Lebanon, didn't moderate once in power. Hamas's creed promised young men not just martyrdom but victory. But as the Islamic State can attest, when Islamists start to lose wars, the faithful soon lose heart. Asking young men to kill themselves for the cause can be alluring. But such fanaticism always fades when the death toll gets too high, and the promised conquest fails to materialize. Hamas's future now depends on whether young men who have been part of it - and, more importantly, the far larger number who have not - want to support a movement that has done its part to make most Gazans homeless. Whatever comes next likely won't have the spiritual allure - the promise that comes with past or expected success - that made Hamas a redoubtable insurgent movement. For supporters of Hamas, Oct. 7 was a modern re-enactment of the Prophet Muhammad's slaughter of the Jewish tribe of Khaybar, which ended Jewish resistance to the Prophet's call. Yet the "glory" of Oct. 7 is unlikely to sustain Hamas's young men - and the Palestinian population more broadly - through the years of misery that lie ahead for all of Gaza. The writer, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, is a former Iranian-targets officer in the CIA.
2024-12-03 00:00:00
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