By Weaponizing the Hezbollah Truce Netanyahu Critics Embolden Hamas
BDS (Bibi Derangement Syndrome) strikes again
Hezbollah had not even begun to violate the 60-day truce with Israel when a collective whine was heard:” Why a cease-fire with a potent Hezbollah, but not with a weak, hostage-holding Hamas?
That headline — from Times of Israel founding editor David Horovitz’s op-ed — is not a question but a way to weaponize the truce against Netanyahu’s determination to wipe out Hamas.
Hezbollah has gotten nothing from the truce. Israel has the right to attack if Hezbollah fails to comply with the provisions of the deal for dismantling its bases and disarming its members. Would Hamas release the hostage under a similar arrangement? Indeed, Israel offered a 60-day cease-fire in return for all the hostages in January.
The editor-in-chief of the Times of Israel instead makes this absurd accusation: ”On the Gaza front, indeed, he (Netanyahu) was not prepared even to agree to a 42-day first stage of a deal, during which perhaps 20 or 30 living hostages could have been released.”
Horovitz believes that Netanyahu is deliberately refusing to cut a deal with Hamas to further his coalition partner’s proposal to resettle parts of Gaza:
Like many otherwise intelligent and thoughtful Zionists, he has allowed his BDS (Bibi Derangement Syndrome) to cloud his judgment.
The cease-fire agreement he refers to would have traded the release of a handful of hostages for the complete withdrawal of Israel, ceding control of the Rafah and Philadelphia corridor and the release of hundreds of convicted murderers. That’s the same deal that Horovitz called “sinister” on May 9, 2024. At the time, Horovitz pointed out that it would allow Hamas to “secure further key, immensely far-reaching goals without having to meet the prime Israeli requirement for a deal: the release of all the hostages. Hamas can abrogate the deal, with all of its key goals achieved and then some while continuing to hold almost all of the hostages.”
For all the chatter about Netanyahu lacking a “day after plan,” the only plan that matters is Hama's post-war insistence that it stays in power to control the flow of aid and reconstruction dollars as it has done before. And that means redirecting billions of dollars to reconstituting its military and terrorist operations.
As a recent article in Israel Hayom notes: "The terrorist organization is now fighting crime families and mobs who dare to interfere with what has become Gaza’s primary source of power and revenue – international humanitarian aid. For this battle, crucial to Hama’' survival in Gaza, the organization is willing to divert weapons and fighters despite their severe shortage in the war against the IDF. For this purpose, Hamas established a special unit called ” Saha” (arrow in Arabic), whose formation received favorable coverage in Arab media outlets last week.”
Palestinian media sources state that the unit’s mission is to “confront merchants who inflate prices, swindlers, thugs, and armed criminal gangs.” The unit has been operating for several weeks and has reportedly killed dozens of gang members. This morning alone, two unit members were killed during a raid on a Jargoun area gang compound in Khan Younis, where the gang was trading in smuggled cigarettes. Five gang members were killed in the raid, with footage of the confrontation spreading across social media. Hamas recognizes that whoever controls the flow of aid to Gaza's residents will control the Gaza Strip when the fighting subsides.”
Indeed, as Palestinian Media Watch director Itamar Marcus points out, in the Middle East, cease-fires are viewed as victories by the Palestinians:
“In Lebanon, in exchange for international supervision, Israel is offering a complete withdrawal and a return to many pre-war conditions, allowing villages that previously concealed terror infrastructure and tunnels to be rebuilt and repopulated. The Jewish state has rejected international supervision in Gaza, declaring that it must maintain control of strategic locations such as the Philadelphi Corridor and prevent reconstruction of infrastructures near the border. All of these are positions that Hamas will now have to reject based on the Lebanon precedent – or be dishonored as weaker than Hezbollah.”1
Most importantly, unlike Hezbollah, Hamas has the support of (and has supported) a worldwide movement to demonize and dehumanize Jews and Israel. Hamas believes it has won the war of ideas: Western governments led by the Biden administration have sought to starve Israel of its capacity to achieve victory. It is being bolstered by J Street, Peter Beinart and many other anti-Zionist Jews who are cheerleaders for the terror group’s genocidal agenda. Western governments, NGOs, and the UN continue to fund UNRWA, which serves up the lethal stew of Jihad, Jew-hatred and terrorist complicity that fuels the fiction of a Palestinian state and a Palestinian people.
Will Hamas agree to dismantle its operation, being subject to international inspection of all shipments with real-time reporting to Israel without being conquered? Not at all.
Instead, it is angling for a complete withdrawal and complete control of the dollars and development projects that, with the collaboration of UNRWA, allowed them to build and rebuild their terror network, to hijack schools, nurseries, mosques and homes, to repair and restore their subterranean sewers of death.
Horovitz knows that’s what Hamas is banking on. Yet he is weaponizing the Lebanon truce to demand a Gaza deal Israel cannot accept. Sadly, it’s another case of Bibi Derangement Syndrom leading people to actions and statements that are emboldening Hamas.
Hamas has reframed Sinwar's cowardly death as the consummate act of martyrdom, and it has galvanized and attracted young supporters in the West Bank, Gaza, Arab countries and college campuses around the world.
A senior Arab official granted anonymity due to safety concerns wrote: “Platforms like TikTok and X (formerly Twitter) have turned the conflict into a stream of images showing despair, devastation, and defiance, with Sinwar’s final moments framed as the ultimate act of resistance. This has prompted children and even adults in Gaza and other parts of the region to dress up as Sinwar during his last moments, as they view him as a hero.”