Marc Champion: Hamas leader's death is both victory and opportunity for Israel

Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar would have celebrated his death, were he alive to see it, and the world should do the same — if for very different reasons.

Israel confirmed the 62-year-old terrorist’s killing through DNA tests on Thursday, after he was shot, together with two other men, in an encounter with Israeli soldiers in southern Gaza. Sinwar had seen himself as a modern-day Saladin — the leader who united a fractious Arab world and recaptured Jerusalem from Christian crusaders in 1187 — as well as a willing “martyr” to the Palestinian cause.

Yet Saladin was everything Sinwar was not: a judicious military commander and chivalrous statesman, who was respectful of human life and religious difference. Far from a Saladin or any kind of savior, Sinwar brought catastrophe on his own people in a calculated act that used their mass suffering as a catalyst to spark a regional war against Israel. He was no martyr. He was a monster.

Sinwar’s passing can be turned into an opportunity for Palestinians. He spent years diverting vast sums of aid money to build tunnels, deep under Gaza’s overcrowded cities, in preparation for the war he precipitated with last October’s terrorist attack on Israelis. Palestinian civilians were not invited to shelter in his tunnels from the bombardment he knew would follow. Their role was to die above ground.

His followers can now put an end to that insanity by releasing the remaining Israeli hostages they hold, and negotiating what would amount to clemency in surrender, and exile. They shared a cause with Sinwar and followed him to the darkest of places. Yet this was, ultimately, his war. He was its architect and reportedly did not share details of its planning or timing with either Hamas’ then political leadership in Qatar, or his sponsors in Iran.

There would be a precedent for such a change of heart, should Hamas now sue for peace. While in an Israeli prison for killing alleged collaborators, Sinwar famously held out so long against a 2011 deal to free more than 1,000 Palestinians — including himself — for a single Israel soldier, that the prison put him in solitary confinement to allow negotiations to conclude, which they did with less intransigent Hamas leaders. (Sinwar had wanted even those found guilty of the worst terror attacks on Israelis to be added to the swap.) Palestinians in Gaza will only thank Sinwar’s successors if they follow suit and get a cease-fire deal agreed now that he’s gone.

Sinwar’s death is equally a huge win for Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and one he should bank quickly. The risk of revenge killing against the remaining hostages that Hamas holds is high.

Israel should signal to Hamas and Gaza’s bruised cease-fire mediators that it sees Sinwar’s removal as a chance to end the fighting. Netanyahu can declare victory. He can then follow up by calling on Hezbollah to honor its claim that it would stop attacking Israel should a cease-fire be reached in Gaza. He could offer to withdraw Israeli forces from southern Lebanon, so long as Hezbollah does the same — as a UN resolution ordered this vast, unofficial armed militia to do back in 2006.

The net result would be that Netanyahu achieves his stated war aims on both fronts — returning the hostages from Gaza, creating conditions for evacuated Israelis to return home in the North, and wreaking unprecedented damage to both terrorist groups.

Sadly, this isn’t the most likely outcome. It’s impossible to know what the state of mind among Sinwar’s successors will be, but some will surely argue for slaughtering the hostages and fighting on. Netanyahu, meanwhile, could use Sinwar’s death as evidence that his bare-knuckled use of force to impose a new order on the region is working. The reality is that Israel won’t be able to achieve the permanent security it craves until it has settled its Palestinian question one way or another — but it’s by now clear that isn’t a limitation Netanyahu accepts.

Rather than deescalate, he may choose to double down on Israel’s military efforts in Gaza, Lebanon and against Iran. None of these wars offer an easy exit, promising lengthy occupations and potentially severe loss of life and prosperity for Israel. Indeed, he would risk ultimately failing in all those war aims in the attempt to make them absolute.

If that’s the path Netanyahu chooses, he will give Sinwar, in death, the war that he was unable to secure in life.

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This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Marc Champion is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Europe, Russia and the Middle East. He was previously Istanbul bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal.