Last Thursday, Hamas carried out a failed launch attempt from Gaza, and this is how the reports looked: "After Hamas rocket fire, the IDF struck in the northern Strip," "Our aircraft are currently attacking the Gaza Strip in response to this morning's rocket launch," "The IDF struck the launcher in a rapid close-the-loop operation." Honestly, hand on heart, does this not sound like the headlines from before October 7?
The headlines themselves are not the point here, of course, but rather the policy they reflect. And with all due respect to the expectations and hopes for the fall of the murderous Iranian regime, there is a growing concern that the meaning of Hamas remaining in our midst is beginning to be somewhat forgotten.
Let it be said immediately that this is not an argument that the ungoing developments Iran are not of decisive importance. For nearly two weeks now, eyes have been fixed on what is happening in Iran, with the hope that maybe, just maybe, this time it will finally happen and we will witness the fall of this terrorist and murderous regime, which is responsible for the entire ring of terror surrounding Israel. There is no need to explain how intolerable a threat a dark fundamentalist regime on the verge of acquiring nuclear weapons is from Israel's perspective.
And yet, what is happening with Hamas right now, and the question of the organization's future status, is no less critical. Many commentators almost always point to the fact that Iran is an existential issue, certainly if it is assumed that it could obtain nuclear weapons, while Hamas does not come close to being an existential problem, especially after the blows it has suffered.
Indeed, anyone who focuses on counting weapons, their power and assessments of military capabilities cannot avoid concluding that there is a vast gap between the potential Iranian threat and the threat from Hamas. But that is far too narrow a viewpoint, overly focused on the short and immediate term. Any military equation concerned with the ability to harm Israel must include cultural, symbolic and identity dimensions.
On October 7, Hamas carried out its barbaric massacre while humiliating Israel as a sovereign state and casting it, or more precisely plunging it into darkness, as one unable to protect its citizens from the worst atrocities imaginable. The massacre quickly triggered antisemitism on a massive scale and in its darkest forms. Israel did recover rapidly from its grave failures, struck Hamas and the entire Gaza Strip hard, and in doing so fundamentally changed the balance of power in the Middle East.
But the balance of power, important as it is, is not the balance of identity in its deepest sense. Since October 7, a question has been hovering in the Arab and Islamic world: what will really happen to those who dared to do this to Israel? Until that day, very few believed that such a massacre was even possible. After it happened, there is no more important question than what will happen not only to the direct perpetrators of the massacre, but also to its planners in the wider circles, to its leaders and to its various support networks.
Gradually, Israel moved from explicit statements in the spirit of "Remember what Amalek did to you" to softer formulations, such as promises that Hamas would be disarmed but could apparently remain in some organizational form without weapons. Or statements that Hamas would not remain a governing authority, which leaves vague the possibility that it might remain in some non-governing capacity. But across the Muslim world, from Morocco to Pakistan, the waiting to see what will happen to Hamas has not stopped for a moment.
This is one of the critical questions, if not the most critical question, for the long term. Therefore, Israel must return to speaking in very clear terms about the destruction of Hamas. Yes. Destruction. Hamas' existence means that anything can be done to Jews and that it is allowed. There is no doubt that Israel will face various international pressures, threats from The Hague and similar constraints that it will have to take into account. But Israel must not, for a single moment, abandon the principled policy of destroying Hamas. In practical terms, the score must remain unsettled, everyone must know that it remains unsettled, and when the day comes and circumstances allow, the score will be settled.
We will not forget.
