When Sinwar's day comes – and it is only a matter of time before Israel catches up with him – he will take with him to his grave the answer to a question that has accompanied us since Black Sabbath: what went through his mind, that is, what he hoped to achieve, when he ordered his men to carry out the terrorist attacks and murders of October 7.
Did he think that this attack would lead to a new intifada in Judea and Samaria, which would also be joined by Israeli Arabs, and that Hezbollah and Iran would also join him and start a war? Or perhaps he thought that, like previous rounds of conflict, Israel would respond with a limited response and refrain from embarking on all-out war, instead seeking to reach a deal with him that would keep him and his organization in control of Gaza? What is clear is that Sinwar was surprised by the strength and cohesion shown by Israeli society and by IDF fighters, who set out to strike the enemy with determination and adherence to a mission that we do not remember since the Six-Day War and the Yom Kippur War that followed.
However, it is important to recognize that the mindset and logic, distorted as it may be, that underpinned Hamas' murderous attack is shared not only by psychopathic murderers such as Yahya Sinwar and his colleagues in the Hamas leadership, but also by the Palestinian leadership over the years, dating back to the days of Yasser Arafat. In fact, this distorted logic also guides Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in his dealings with Israel.
Their vision is one of violence and terror that will make the lives of Israelis intolerable, break their spirit and motivate them to flee Israel for their lives, thus achieving their goal of eliminating the State of Israel. Needless to say, for them, any territory that Israel relinquishes – whether southern Lebanon, from which it withdrew in May 2000, or areas in the West Bank and Gaza, which it ceded to the Palestinians as part of the Oslo Accords – is intended to serve as a base for continued terrorist activity against Israel, and not, as we have mistakenly thought, a space in which they will act to ensure the welfare of the residents living there.
These very words were made by PLO leader Yasser Arafat after signing the Oslo Accords in a closed meeting he held with Arab diplomats in Stockholm in January 1996.
Arafat explained that bringing millions of Palestinians to the West Bank and massive natural growth would make the lives of Israelis unbearable: "We in the PLO will act, through psychological warfare, to bring about division and division within Israeli society... Within five years, 6 to 7 million Arabs will settle in the West Bank and Jerusalem. Israelis will not want to live among us, the Arabs, and then we Palestinians will take over everything, including Jerusalem... And they will give up their homes and immigrate to the United States... I don't need Jews here."
Arafat explained that bringing millions of Palestinians to the West Bank and massive natural growth would make the lives of Israelis unbearable: "We in the PLO will act, through psychological warfare, to bring about division and division within Israeli society..."
This was, therefore, Arafat's logic in the years after Oslo, when he spoke peace with Israel, but in practice it is possible to turn Judea and Samaria and Gaza into a bubble of terror, which burst in our faces with the outbreak of the second intifada. This is also the logic of Hassan Nasrallah, who believed that a "winning combination" of psychological warfare and terrorism would lead Israel to bleed to death. After all, "it is nothing but a cobweb that fades with the first gust of wind." And this is also the logic that guided Sinwar when he sought to turn Gaza into a base for terrorist activity against Israel, hoping to make our lives – both in the Gaza envelope and deep inside Israel – intolerable, and thus, down the road, achieve the desired victory.
What Arafat thought, therefore, was actually implementing Sinwar – terrorists from two different habitats, connected by the desire to destroy Israel. And so did Nasrallah, in his own dose and pace. But Arafat in 2000, as well as Sinwar and Nasrallah today, realize that they were wrong, and that Israelis are not a frightened immigrant society, lacking roots and staying power.
And as always, it is the residents of Gaza who are paying the price for the mistake and disaster they have brought on their heads – and in the future the residents of Lebanon will pay the same for it.
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