While the world focuses on the brewing cycle of Israel-Iran retaliation, the war in Gaza lingers on. In fact, it's becoming increasingly clear that Hamas is dictating ceasefire terms from beneath the rubble of Gaza and the bodies of its own people.
The terrorist group has rejected the most recent plan worked out by international negotiators. Hamas is insisting on returning only half the hostages proposed and other terms it knows are unpalatable to even an Israeli government under domestic and international pressure.
In the wake of the Oct. 7 rampage by Hamas, which left 1,200 people dead in Israel and more than 230 Israelis taken as hostages to Gaza, Israel has conquered much of the small strip of land where Hamas has been in power for most of two decades. The price in Palestinian lives has been brutal.
Tens of thousands have likely been killed, including fighters, women, and children. Palestinians are reported to be facing famine. Israel's quest to root out Hamas underground has destroyed a vast number of buildings where Gaza's people had lived and worked. But this is a cost in civilian lives and misery that Hamas is quite willing to bear.
Normally the losers of a war surrender to end the death and devastation afflicting their people. Not so for Hamas. The reason for this stupefying defiance of all wartime norms of victory and defeat is simple: so far, Hamas has been winning.
No, the group cannot defeat Israel on the battlefield above ground. But by provoking a war that has captured the world's attention unlike other tragedies, they have found another way to win. There is a new effort in the United Nations to recognize "Palestine" an independent state, even though one has never existed.
Protests around the world call for a Palestinian nation that spans "from the river to the sea." That would leave no room for the Jewish state. Antisemitism is spreading from the grimmest of European streets to the green of Ivy League college campuses. A congressional hearing this week revealed the fears of Jewish students at Columbia, who are afraid to walk around areas of campus I blithely strolled through as a graduate student.
Across the United States bridges and airports are being blocked, while students are performatively starving themselves for a "Palestine" they couldn't find on a map. Cities across America that can't stop crime, weigh in on the Middle East. Support is growing in Congress, especially among Democrats, to place conditions on military supplies to Israel at a time when it faces threats across the region. Protesters who don't understand the term, hound President Joe Biden as "Genocide Joe" and have Democratic politicians in a tizzy about a 2024 protest vote.
To further seal this propaganda victory, in comes China-owned TikTok. With cyber assists from Russia and Hamas-patron Iran, it promotes videos of Gaza devastation, calling for "days of rage" and protests on Hamas' behalf.
Why should Hamas deign to negotiate in good faith under these circumstances?
Hamas leaders willingly "martyr" thousands of Palestinians, including their own children and grandchildren, for the cause of killing and evicting Jews from all of Israel.
The heartbreaking deaths of World Central Kitchen aid workers in an Israeli strike is a tragic example of an ugly Middle East equation in Gaza: Hamas wins when Israel's deadly reactions harm civilians.
Israel accepted blame for the killings and began adjusting military and aid policy within hours, in no small part thanks to Biden's demands of an often intransigent Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Still, the killing might have stopped long before these pointless deaths if Hamas had agreed to a deal that would have left any rational actors satisfied.
Hamas is living the terrorist dream after its barbaric Oct. 7 civilian slaughter. The world condemns Israel, both rightly and wrongly, but still largely ignores Hamas' responsibility. If the current situation continues, Hamas' atrocities provoking this deadly Israeli response will go down as a historic triumph in terrorist playbooks.
At anti-Israel campus protests, there are few ribbons for hostages, but plenty of Palestinian keffiyehs and Hamas cosplay apparel. "Anti-Zionists" question the right of Israel to exist at all, rhetorically joining hands with American neo-Nazis.
"Free Palestine" rings out everywhere from city council meetings to Saturday Night Live.
Yet there's little discussion of freeing "Palestine" from Hamas; and certainly no understanding that they are the ones who rejecting the ceasefire that protesters around the world vociferously demand.
Long forgotten is the fact that Hamas' sneak attack worked as designed to thwart a regional Israeli-Arab peace deal.
After 9/11, America had the rallying cry, 'Don't let the terrorists win.'
But over the suffering of their people in Gaza, the free world is handing the terrorists of Hamas their cruel victory.
Lee Michael Katz is an award-winning journalist, analyst and author. Currently a freelance writer, Katz is the former senior diplomatic correspondent of USA Today and international editor of UPI News Service.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
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