Gary Willigis a veteran member of the Arutz Sheva news staff.
The month from September 17 through October 16 2024 may well be the most fateful and impactful month in Israeli history since its War of Independence 76 years ago.
This 30-day period began with the explosion of thousands of pagers used by the Hezbollah terrorist organization, saw the elimination of nearly the entire Hezbollah leadership, including Hassan Nasrallah, and ended with the elimination of Yahya Sinwar, the leader of the Hamas terrorist organization and mastermind of the the genocidal attack that started this entire war, the October 7 massacre.
The geopolitical map of the entire Middle East has become unrecognizable compared to what it was just one month ago. Hamas and Hezbollah are reeling as they never have before, having lost so much of their leadership, their manpower, and their resources. Their masters in Tehran are finally on the backfoot, seeing their proxies destroyed before their eyes and fearful of Israel’s expected retaliation for their own attack two weeks ago with 181 ballistic missiles.
If there was ever a man over whose death it would be appropriate to celebrate, that man would be Yahya Sinwar. Known as the “butcher of Khan Yunis” for the brutal murders of Gazan Arabs accused of collaborating with Israel, Sinwar dedicated his life to the extermination of the very people who saved his life from brain cancer when he was in an Israeli prison for the murders he had committed in his younger years.
Alas, no doctor can cure the cancer of the soul that is the hatred of the Jewish people.
Given a chance to lead Gaza into a prosperous future and actually do something for the people living under his oppressive thumb, Sinwar chose to attempt to become a 21st Century version of Adolf Hitler, plotting what became the largest massacre of Jews since the days of the Third Reich in the hopes that it would be the beginning of a second and more complete Holocaust.
In that, Sinwar fatally miscalculated. Hezbollah, though quick to join in the fighting by launching thousands of rockets into Israel every day starting from October 8, did not commit ground forces or attempt to open up a true second front until nearly a year later, once Hamas had been weakened to the point that Israel felt it could recommit more forces to the threat from the north.
And unlike Hamas, which was able to exploit Israel’s attention being elsewhere on October 7, Hezbollah was well and truly compromised by Israeli intelligence, allowing the IDF to foil Hezbollah’s plans to recreate October 7 in northern Israel in its tracks.
Sinwar miscalculated in his overestimation of his Iranian masters. Twice Iran felt compelled to launch massive missile attacks against Israel, and both times only confirmed Iran’s technological inferiority. The Ayatollahs have found themselves unable to save their proxies and frightened of pushing Israel too far and meeting the same fate as Sinwar and Nasrallah.
And -
Sinwar miscalculated in his underestimation of Israeli resolve and courage. He thought global pressure on Israel would allow him and his terrorist army to survive and claim victory and to prepare for the next October 7. He thought, based on his own release along with over a thousand other terrorists in 2011, that with his hostages he could force the Israeli people into falling over themselves to surrender to him.
He did not foresee how forcing Israelis into a war for their very survival and existence would enable them to weather the international criticism and hatred they receive on a daily basis for refusing to just lie down and die. Perhaps at some point, he realized how self-defeating it was to continue to refuse to release the hostages and to reject every ceasefire the Americans tried to hand him, but he was a man who was addicted to death and murder, an addiction he could not break and which ultimately killed him.
Like the Pharoah of the Exodus, Sinwar’s heart was hardened and his hatred outweighed what would have been best for him and his people.
What comes next?
The war is not over. Hamas, for all its losses, continues to exist and has some strength left. But it is a shell of its former self. Half of the fighters it possessed in October 2023 are dead. Thousands more are injured or captured. Its battalions are shattered. Its leaders are dead. Its supplies of weapons are dwindling by the day. Its tunnel system, the advantage that allowed it to survive this long against the IDF, is also shrinking day by day as more and more tunnel shafts are discovered and destroyed.
Is this the moment a new leader, someone more concerned about self-preservation than a futile war against the Jews, makes the bold choice to unconditionally surrender, release the hostages, and abdicate as the ruler of Gaza? That would be wonderful, but it would be foolish to count on such a thing happening. Hamas was a genocidal death cult before Sinwar rose up its ranks.
What is rational to a normal person is very different from what is rational to those who worship death with a love that transcends their love for anything else on this planet.
A Ceasefire
It must also be remembered that all of the good that has been accomplished in the last month never would have happened if a ceasefire had been reached beforehand.
- Sinwar and Nasrallah would still be alive.
- Gaza would be doomed to remain under Sinwar and Hamas’ thumb.
- Hamas would already be rebuilding its war losses and preparing for the next October 7.
- Hezbollah would still be at full strength, with the majority of its leaders alive and ready to plan their own October 7.
- Iran’s ring of fire around Israel would have been rescued from the brink of destruction.
- And while many more hostages would have been released, the hostage crisis would not have ended under a ceasefire with Sinwar, who would never release them all because they were his only bargaining chip and seemingly the only guarantor of his survival.
The world would have been a far more dangerous place, not only for Israelis and Jews, but for the West and freedom-loving people everywhere, if ceasefire efforts had been successful before September 17.
Does this mean that Israel should reject new ceasefire proposals? Not necessarily.
If the ceasefire proposals of the post-Sinwar and post-Nasrallah age amount to offers of surrender by Hamas and Hezbollah, then accepting them would mean achieving victory, bringing home all of the hostages, and avoiding further casualties.
But it does mean that Israel must recognize the position of strength it is in and ensure that it will only accept a ceasefire that reflects that position of strength. It means that Israel must recognize the dangers of the sort of ceasefire that would have saved Sinwar and could still save Hezbollah, which retains much of its military strength and rocket arsenal even now.
A ceasefire before October 16 would have saved Sinwar and guaranteed another war.
The wrong kind of ceasefire could still doom Israel, Gaza, and Lebanon to more fighting and bloodshed.