Netanyahu Is Winning

One recalls that Tommy Friedman, foreign affairs columnist with the New York Times, has blamed everything that is going wrong with the Middle East on-- Benjamin Netanyahu.

No surprise there. In truth, Friedman, like many other Democratic Party hacks, needs to salvage the reputation of the inept Biden administration, by shifting the blame to a foreign leader.

By Tommy’s account, every other party in the conflict has agreed to all the terms of a cease fire and hostage return. The only obstacle is the obdurate and obstinate prime minister. Now that Hamas and the Palestinian Authority are more firmly allied, we should naturally want to trust them to negotiate a final peace deal. If only the Israelis would stop their military offensive and let Hamas live.

That this passes for serious foreign policy thinking beggars credulity.

But these jejune reflections precede yesterday’s actions. Namely, the Israeli government took out Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran and also murdered Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr, the man responsible for murdering Druse children in Northern Israel.

To top it off, today we learned that Israel had eliminated a top Hamas military commander Mohammed Deif in a July airstrike. Deif had planned the October 7 attacks and had been targeted for decades.

In the aftermath of these actions, a different view of Netanyahu emerges. Jake Wallis Simons explains it in the London Telegraph:

Since October 7, Israel has had one geostrategic imperative: to reinstate deterrence. In the Middle East – and increasingly in Ukraine and further afield – states live or die on the strength of their ability to cow their enemies, and none more so than the Jewish one.

This morning, as the dust settles over the former safe house in Tehran in which the Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh, was living in luxury until death came upon him from the skies, that deterrent is well on the way to being restored.

Apparently, all of Kamala Harris’s whining about civilian casualties has done little to restore deterrence.

In Jerusalem, however, there will be a sense of quiet satisfaction that the name Netanyahu strikes fear into the heart of the Ayatollah once again.

Of course, it’s all about the humiliation suffered by Iran. It could not have happened to a more deserving group. Simons explained:

The humiliation suffered by the Iranians is profound. The paranoia spreading through the upper echelons of the regime is tangible. If Israel – Jerusalem has not claimed responsibility but let us work on that assumption – can reach a figure like Haniyeh in a place like Tehran, nowhere and nobody is safe.

Iranians can only respect Netanyahu, a man who is under considerable pressure, both within and without his country, can still pull off an extraordinarily successful operation in the heart of Iran.

The issue now is retaliation. For those who are trembling at the chance that Iran might try to retaliate, Simons offers this speculation:

These same voices – including, apparently, that of Masoud Pezeshkian, the new president, who set aside the “moderate” mask that fooled the west by vowing to “make the terrorist occupiers regret their cowardly act” – will be urging the Ayatollah to hit back hard. This may yet unfold, but today it seems more unlikely than likely. In the old world, when Trump was in office and the deterrent was strong, even the killing of Qasem Soleimani in 2020 was met with no escalation from Iran. 

Despite the war in Gaza, the memory of that dynamic will be conjured today. There will inevitably be some retaliation from the regime, but, as Aarabi told me, this is more likely to take the form of a terror attack on an Israeli embassy overseas than another night of rocket fire on Israel.

David Goldman also downplays the chance for retaliation:

Although Iran will fulminate over the killing of a Hamas leader visiting Tehran for the inauguration of its new president, the Shiite regime in Tehran will not risk important assets to avenge a Sunni troublemaker.

Finally, Daniel Pipes offers a cogent analysis of the situation at hand. He suggests that Netanyahu has been pursuing two policies at once. He was trying to destroy Hamas and to negotiate a deal that would return the hostages.

Writing in the Wall Street Journal, Pipes offers:

Israel followed two opposite policies toward Hamas since Oct. 7: destroy the organization and make a deal with it. This unfortunate two-track approach resulted in many costs to Israel. The killing of Ismail Haniyeh Wednesday perhaps marks the end of this protracted indecision.

With the assassination of Haniyeh Netanyahu seems to have abandoned the chance to negotiate a hostage release and has gone back to the policy of destroying Hamas:

But Mr. Netanyahu also pursues the latter policy: negotiate with Hamas and permit it to survive in exchange for the release of Israeli hostages. In agreeing to haggle with Hamas, Mr. Netanyahu heeds the demands of two powerful lobbies. Western and many Arab governments want a hostage deal, which they see as the best way to prevent a regional conflagration. Fighting already includes Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Gaza, the Red Sea and Yemen; governments fear that further expansion would drag in their forces.

Of course, it was not just Netanyahu who was equivocating between victory and hostages. The Biden administration has been speaking out of both sides of its mouth on the issue. And it has been backing up its language by withholding armaments.

Pipes writes:

For nearly 10 months, Mr. Netanyahu equivocated between victory and hostages. He ordered a military assault on Gaza that much reduced Hamas’s capabilities even as he sent emissaries to foreign cities to hash out a deal with it. He spoke of “total victory” while trying not to provoke his foreign allies or domestic foes. Indecision also staved off the possibility of the governing coalition collapsing during wartime. Mr. Netanyahu postponed difficult choices.

So, Netanyahu resolved his indecision:

The drama and chutzpah of killing Haniyeh on a ceremonial visit to Iran appears to end the indecision. Mr. Netanyahu has thrown down the gauntlet, indicating that Israel intends to crush Hamas and win rather than negotiate with it and permit it to survive.

As ever, victory requires greater bravery and sacrifices, making it the more difficult choice. As ever, it alone offers success.

Evidently, Netanyahu is ignoring the counsel of despair and surrender offered by the Biden administration.

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