Israel may well get a few high-profile scalps and proclaim the End of History, but the organizational impact will be minor and temporary. Yassin was assassinated in 2004, a time when the most powerful rocket in the Hamas arsenal had difficulty making it across my living room.
Its successful assassination of Hizballah leader Abbas in Mussawi in 1992 produced Hassan Nasrallah, Israel’s worst nightmare. In 2006, a daring midnight wartime raid in the Bekaa Valley finally captured Hassan Nasrallah.
But there was a minor hiccup: the Mossad, which constantly proclaims itself the greatest and most sophisticated intelligence agency in recorded history, confused the head of Hizballah with a greengrocer bearing the same name.
Similarly, Israel’s assassination campaign against Iranian nuclear scientists has been – to put it mildly – ineffective. Even the 2004 assassination of Yassir Arafat was counterproductive,
as it set the stage for not only the obedient non-entity that is Mahmoud Abbas but also made possible the rise of Hamas as a genuinely national movement.
But I digress. How significantly has Israel weakened Hamas since 7 October? If you listen to Daniel Hagari (the tunnel meme celebrity), Defense Minister Yoav Gallant (who looks like death warmed over when delivering good news), or Netanyahu,
it’s clear there is very little left of the Palestinian movements, their leadership, or infrastructure. Antony Blinken, Jake “All Quiet on the Western Front” Sullivan, and John “Tearstosterone” Kirby,
But once you step outside their echo chamber, reality tells a very different story. A significantly degraded organization would not have been able to uniformly and simultaneously cease firing throughout the Gaza Strip at the very moment a truce went into effect.
Or to continue firing coordinated rocket barrages until moments before. Or to record, edit, and centrally broadcast video footage of its military operations from multiple locations on a nearly daily basis.
Or collect and deliver captives from multiple locations, to multiple locations, during the truce – including deliberately choosing a location in central Gaza City that the Israeli military claimed is under its control.
