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Israel Enters Truce with Unfulfilled Goal: Destroying Hamas

(Wall Street Journal) Marcus Walker - As a ceasefire begins in Gaza, Israel hasn't fulfilled its top war aim: to destroy Hamas. Hamas is claiming a win despite its heavy losses, and parading its fighters in the streets of Gaza, because it has reached its own goal of surviving the onslaught. Yet the strategic gains from 15 months of war are almost all on Israel's side. The country has emerged stronger, having cut several of its adversaries down to size. Meanwhile, the Palestinian cause is facing its bleakest prospects for decades. Despite widespread international sympathy, the Palestinians are more divided internally, more isolated in the region, and face an Israel that, after Oct. 7, 2023, is even more firmly against a Palestinian state. "On the Israeli side, there is disappointment and frustration about the war in Gaza," said Michael Milshtein, a former head of Palestinian affairs for Israeli military intelligence. "But Israel has a lot of strategic achievements. It caused severe damage to all its enemies. They are not the same threats that they were on Oct. 7. Israel's deterrence is much improved, and the society demonstrated its resilience." The real defeat for Hamas came on Israel's other fronts, where Hamas's allies in what is known as Iran's axis of resistance suffered a string of setbacks. The all-out regional war on Israel that was dreamed of by Hamas's Gaza chief Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind of Oct. 7, turned into a fiasco. "Hamas lost a lot of fighters and equipment and infrastructure, but what forced it to the negotiating table was the changed regional situation, plus the arrival of Trump," said Ofer Fridman, a former Israeli officer and war-studies scholar at King's College London.
2025-01-21 00:00:00
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