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Why Does Hamas Sacrifice the Good of the Palestinian People for Its Genocidal Aims?

Nerdeen Kiswani, founder of WithinOurLifetime (WOL), leading a pro-Hamas demonstration in New York City on August 14, 2024. Photo: Michael Nigro via Reuters Connect
Hamas defined the war it started on October 7, 2023, as a divine victory. Iran and Hezbollah were privy to the planning and scope of the planned attack. Hamas was well aware of the sacrifice that would be required to pull it off, but in all the Hamas protocols seized by the IDF in the ensuing war, the heavy Israeli price tag was hardly mentioned. Palestinian sacrifice, especially the deaths of many Palestinians, was seen as a necessary evil in order to gain independence.
In the official document explaining Operation Tufan Al-Aqsa (Al-Aqsa Flood) that Hamas published on all its websites, several justifications for war with Israel are described, but the immediate reason for the October 7 assault is not mentioned. The reasons cited in the Hamas document include Jewish ascension to the Temple Mount, an ongoing event that has taken place on and off since 1967 under various restrictions; the presence of seven million Palestinian refugees in refugee camps throughout the Middle East; the continuation of the Palestinian problem for about 75 years, the settlements in the West Bank; and the detention by Israel of Palestinian prisoners. None of these reasons is new. No world-changing event obliged Hamas to launch an all-out war on Israel with the support of the entire Iranian resistance axis. So why did it proceed?
An analysis of articles published on Hamas websites shows that the main goal of Tufan al-Aqsa was to prevent a normalization agreement between Israel and Saudi Arabia. This aim was also revealed in the secret seized protocols of Hamas. This goal is a distinct Iranian interest.
Yahya Sinwar was the person most associated with the planning and execution of Operation Tufan al-Aqsa. By virtue of his position as head of the Hamas organization in the Gaza Strip, and as one of the group’s founders and part of its military arm, Sinwar held power on a level unequaled by anyone before him. After the death of Ismail Haniyeh, Sinwar was officially appointed head of the political bureau. He was the first Hamas chief to emerge from the military wing, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, to head the organization’s political bureau as well (he is the fourth leader of the political bureau after Musa Abu Marzouk, Khaled Mashal and Ismail Haniyeh).
Sinwar, as claimed in Al-Sharq Al-Awast, represented the connection between Hamas and Iran. This connection led to the training by Iran of Hamas’s military arm; the supply of armaments, including precision armaments; and tremendous financial support from Iran.
Sinwar’s assassination was described by sources in Hamas as “aqsa dharba,” or an extremely severe blow. Sinwar had charisma and was able to sway people to follow him. His survival, as the man who symbolized the October 7 war for Hamas, was in itself an image of victory over Israel. His elimination constitutes a counter-image of Israeli victory, regardless of how the war ends.
The candidates to replace Sinwar at the head of Hamas are Khalil al-Hayya, Sinwar’s deputy head of the political bureau (al-Hayya is considered less charismatic and pragmatic); Muhammad al-Sinwar, Yahya’s brother, who currently heads the military wing of Hamas in the Gaza Strip (after replacing Mohammed Deif); and Izz ad-Din al-Haddad, head of the North Gaza Brigade and the only senior military commander to have survived thus far. It is likely that Khaled Meshaal will return to lead Hamas as the main leader of the political arm – at least temporarily, until a permanent appointment is made by the Shura Council.
The war Hamas started on October 7 has destroyed the Gaza Strip, killed over 50,000 Palestinians (according to Hamas sources, which do not differentiate between civilians and militants), and wounded over 100,000. Faced with such grim results, Hamas is now trying to explain why it embarked on Operation Tufan al-Aqsa in the first place. The organization is well aware that its support among the Gazan population is at an unprecedented low. The majority of the Palestinian population in the Strip currently believes Hamas’s decision to launch the invasion on October 7, 2023, was based on incorrect assumptions and a strategic mistake. This is despite the degree of Islamization that Palestinian society has undergone since Hamas took over the Gaza Strip.
In an article entitled, “Was Sinwar’s decision [to start the war] correct? “published on the Hamas website on October 10, 2024, the one-year anniversary of the outbreak of Sinwar’s war in Gaza, the war is presented as a “victory of the resistance, steadfastness, faith, patience and sacrifice of the people of Gaza. This is an epic historical resistance that will lead to the liberation of Palestine from the river to the sea.” The author, Monir Shafiq, a Lebanese writer of Christian-Palestinian origin, was active in Fatah, converted to Islam, and over the years came closer to the concept of Islamic Jihad and Hamas. The publication of the article in October 2024 indicates a striking disconnect between the organization’s leadership and the suffering Palestinian civilian population in the Gaza Strip. The article describes Hamas’s indiscriminate murder, torture, rape, and abduction of Jewish men, women and children in the Gaza Envelope as heroic actions justified by the “takeover” of the Al-Aqsa Mosque and the other reasons mentioned above. Israel is described as the “representative of Western civilization (the white race) against the barbarians (the peoples of the world).”
According to this logic, the barbaric attack by Hamas is justified according to international law while Israel’s attempts to protect and defend the lives of its citizens are violations of those laws. According to Hamas, Israel has no right to exist as a state and a sovereign entity in any borders whatsoever (not the 1967 borders, the 1947 borders, or any others). A year after October 7, Hamas is still refusing to take responsibility for the vast destruction it has brought down upon its people, the Gaza Strip, and the peoples of the region. Hamas has expressed no desire to reach a historical reconciliation that will end hostilities between the nations. After Sinwar’s departure, will Hamas realize that the time has come to end the war they started and lost with a settlement that restores the Gaza Strip and establishes regional peace? Or does Hamas prefer to continue serving Iran, even if doing so is directly at odds with the national interest of the Palestinian people?
Dr. (Lt. Col.) Shaul Bartal is a senior researcher at the BESA Center and a research fellow at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at the University of Lisbon. During his military service, he served in various roles in the West Bank. He has also taught in the Department of Middle Eastern Studies and the Department of Political Science. A version of this article was originally published by The BESA Center.
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Jewish Leaders Push US Congress to Bolster Antisemitism Protections Amid Rising Anti-Jewish Violence

German Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul lays flowers in honor of shooting victims Israeli Embassy workers Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim at the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, DC, US, May 28, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
Hundreds of Jewish leaders from across the US gathered in Washington, DC on Wednesday with a clear and urgent message to lawmakers that Jewish communities in the United States are under threat and need stronger federal protection.
Nearly 400 advocates representing more than 100 Jewish communities participated in the two-day United for Security Emergency Leadership Mission in the nation’s capital, holding more than 200 meetings with members of Congress and their staff. The mission, organized by the Jewish Federations of North America and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, comes amid a rise in domestic antisemitism and increased tensions between Israel and Iran over the latter’s nuclear program.
Israel’s Ambassador to the United States Yechiel Leiter urged American officials to take a hard line as talks with Iran are set to resume.
“The basis of any agreement pursued with Iran has to be there is no more attempt to annihilate the Jewish state, the Jewish people,” Leiter said during remarks at the Hilton in Washington.
Much of the mission focused on concerns regarding domestic antisemitism. Organizers say Jewish Americans have faced a surge of threats since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led assault on Israel, amid the ensuing war in Gaza, with attacks and harassment targeting synagogues, schools, and community centers across the country. Data indicates that antisemitic attacks have surged across the US since the Oct. 7 attacks in Israel.
The meeting also comes one month after the fatal shooting of Israeli Embassy staffers Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Milgrim in Washington, D.C. The pair was targeted by a pro-Palestinian activist after exiting an event at the Capital Jewish Museum. Milgrim’s father has suggested that the pair might have been saved had there been more security at the venue.
“Had there been more security at the event where Sarah and Yaron were tragically murdered, had there been more security outside, watching the crowd, I feel that it possibly could have identified the shooter pacing back and forth and possibly disarmed him,” Bob Milgrim told the Jewish delegation on Wednesday.
Advocates are calling on Congress to adopt a six-point federal policy plan that includes raising the Nonprofit Security Grant Program to $1 billion annually, providing support for private security costs, expanding FBI counterterrorism resources, and enhancing federal aid to local law enforcement. The plan also calls for stronger enforcement of hate crime laws and new efforts to regulate online hate speech and violent incitement.
“We are here to speak with one voice,” said Eric Fingerhut, president and CEO of the Jewish Federations of North America. “We know there are many things on the nation’s agenda, but we must insist that the safety and security of the Jewish community and the battle against domestic terror be at the very top.”
“Support for Israel’s security is not a partisan issue. It is a moral imperative, a strategic interest and a Jewish responsibility,” added William Daroff, CEO of the Conference of Presidents. “Support for Israel is not negotiable, Jewish safety in America is not optional, and the silence in the face of antisemitic incitement, whether it comes from Iran’s Ayatollahs or American campuses, is unacceptable.”
The mission brought together more than 50 national organizations in what participants described as an unprecedented show of unity. Organizers said the gathering reflected a growing sense of alarm over the safety of Jewish communities at home and abroad.
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New York Police Arrest Shirtless Man After Wig Theft, Child Attack, Knife Threats Against Jews in Crown Heights

The headquarters of the worldwide Chabad-Lubavitch movement in the Crown Heights neighborhood of Brooklyn, NY. Photo: Wikimedia Commons.
Law enforcement in New York City arrested an unnamed individual alleged to have terrorized multiple Jewish residents in the heavily Jewish neighborhood of Crown Heights in Brooklyn.
Photos from the scene on Wednesday morning showed New York City Police Department (NYPD) officers leading away a skinny, shirtless man whose pants sagged down just above his knees. The images showed him handcuffed with bare feet and a report described him as riding a bicycle.
The man allegedly approached a Jewish mother and her children before stealing her wig (worn for religious observance) and hitting one of her children. He also reportedly yelled antisemitic slurs, punched a Jewish man, and threatened him with a knife before the NYPD and Crown Heights Shmira, a nonprofit Jewish security agency, arrested him.
The attacks came amidst a surge of antisemitic hate crimes in New York City following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas-led terror attacks across southern Israel. Earlier this year, the NYPD released a report showing that for 2024, it counted 641 total hate crimes with 345 targeting Jews — an increase of 7 percent from 2023 and a staggering 54 percent of all hate crimes.
Antisemitic criminals in New York City have often chosen Crown Heights as their hunting ground for harassing or even assaulting Jews.
In November, for example, three men who hid their faces behind hoods and ski masks chose to stalk and rob a Hasidic man. Yaacov Behrman, liaison of Chabad Headquarters and founder of the Jewish Future Alliance (JFA) nonprofit, said following the crime that his organization was “deeply concerned not only about the increase in crime but also the fact that, once again, the perpetrators were wearing masks. We need to reinstate mask laws.”
Other antisemitic attacks against Crown Heights Jews in 2024 included a failed robbery which devolved into a beating instead, an assault on a 13-year-old Jewish boy biking to school, a kidnapping attempt, and a stabbing.
Many of the incidents — including the most recent Wednesday attacks — have been acts of Black-on-Jewish crime, straining cross-cultural relations in the multi-ethnic New York borough. A 2022 report by Americans Against Antisemitism (AAA) identified Orthodox Jews as the group most targeted for hate crimes in the city with 69 percent of their attackers African American.
In an interview about the crime surge, former New York Assemblyman Dov Hikind (D) asked The Algemeiner in November, “Shouldn’t there be a plan for how we’re going to deal with it? What’s the answer? Education? We’ve been educating everybody forever for God’s sake, and things are just getting worse.”
May 25 also saw an antisemitic protest led by an African American activist named Terrell Harper — also known as “Relly Rebel” — described by the Jewish security service Shomrim as “a known antisemitic agitator, accompanied by approximately 30 cohorts.” The group targeted the Chabad-Lubavitch World Headquarters during a ceremony to commemorate the anniversary of the death of Rabbi Moshe Kotlarsky, a prominent Hasidic leader. They waved signs attempting to link the Israel Defense Forces with the 2020 police death of George Floyd and broader indifference to global Black suffering. Law enforcement soon intervened to block off the protesters from the Jews attending the service.
While in previous decades fringe Black nationalist figures such as Nation of Islam head Louis Farrakhan fueled Black-Jewish antisemitism, today such celebrities as rapper and former billionaire Kanye West and his friend, far-right podcaster Candace Owens, have used their much larger platforms to promote radical ideologies and conspiracy theories targeting the Jewish people. In a June 24 interview with Piers Morgan, Owens declared, “I’d want my kids to go to jail before they fought for Israel.”
Another clash between protesters and law enforcement in Crown Heights occurred on April 28. A planned anti-Israel march through the neighborhood inspired a robust police counter-presence with officers dispersed among the activists.
Chabad-Lubavitch spokesperson Rabbi Motti Seligson described on X how others had come out to support their Jewish neighbors. “It was heartening to see scores of people, some Jewish and some not, who came to Crown Heights to protect the residents. These people weren’t looking for a fight. Some gathered in front of the synagogue at 770, others stood at strategic corners. Clearly this was not 1991,” he wrote.
Seligson concluded in reference to the Crown Heights race riot which took place from Aug. 19-21, 1991, and which EJewishPhilanthropy described as “widely considered the worst antisemitic riot in American history.”
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Israel ‘Achieved Its Objectives’ in Iran Operation, Says Leading War Studies Think Tank

Smoke rises following an Israeli attack in Tehran, Iran, June 18, 2025. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
A leading war studies think tank has assessed that Israel “achieved its objectives” in its recent operation against Iran’s nuclear program.
The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) released a report on Tuesday explaining that, in the 12-day operation, “Israel achieved its objectives vis-a-vis the nuclear program by destroying nuclear facilities and enrichment capacity with US support and killing key nuclear scientists who were instrumental in the development and weaponization of the program.”
ISW, in conjunction with the American Enterprise Institute’s Critical Threats Project (CTP), explained the details and implications of the conflict in their daily Iran Update, “which provides insights into Iranian and Iranian-sponsored activities that undermine regional stability and threaten US forces and interests.”
Israel launched a broad preemptive attack on Iran earlier this month, targeting military installations and nuclear sites across the country in what officials described as an effort to neutralize an imminent nuclear threat. Over the next several days, Israeli forces systematically dismantled Iran’s nuclear and ballistic-missile capabilities, destroying much of the infrastructure and killing top military leaders and nuclear scientists.
The US on Saturday night joined Israel’s campaign by bombing three key Iranian nuclear sites, before President Donald Trump announced a ceasefire to the conflict between the two Middle Eastern adversaries that went into effect on Tuesday.
Debate has raged this week over how extensive the damage was to Iran’s nuclear facilities, especially in the wake of the US bombings.
In the immediate aftermath of the strike, Trump declared that the Iranian nuclear facilities were completely destroyed. However, CNN and other media outlets subsequently reported on a leaked preliminary assessment from the US Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the Pentagon’s intelligence arm, which found that key elements of the nuclear program were not destroyed and that the strikes only set the program back a few months.
US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth lambasted the fact that the “top secret report” was leaked, adding that “it was preliminary; it was low confidence.” Trump and other senior administration officials have similarly dismissed the findings of the DIA report, saying that the Iranian nuclear program has been decimated.
ISW indicated it believes the US and Israeli strikes against Iran’s nuclear sites were successful.
“The destruction of the centrifuges and equipment inside does not necessarily require the collapse of the facility itself,” the think tank wrote in its Iran Update published on Wednesday. “The Institute of Science and International Security, a nuclear nonproliferation think tank that has long studied the Iranian nuclear program, assessed that it was very likely the strikes destroyed or damaged most of the centrifuges at Fordow on the basis of the impact locations and the effects of the blast waves.”
The Institute of Science and International Security said in its own report that although there are “non-destroyed parts [of the Iranian nuclear program] … [that] can be used in the future to produce weapon-grade uranium,” the US and Israeli attacks “have effectively destroyed Iran’s centrifuge enrichment program. It will be a long time before Iran comes anywhere near the capability it had before the attack.”
Meanwhile, Israeli assessments found that “significant damage” was done to the nuclear sites. Lt.-Gen. Eyal Zamir, chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), said that based on the assessments of senior military intelligence officers, the damage “is … systemic … severe, broad and deep, and pushed back by years.”
The Israeli Atomic Energy Commission added that “the devastating US strike on [the Iranian nuclear site Fordow] destroyed the site’s critical infrastructure and rendered the enrichment facility inoperable. We assess that the American strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities, combined with Israeli strikes … have set back Iran’s ability to develop nuclear weapons by many years.”
Axios reporter Barak Ravid noted that Israeli officials were reportedly “perplexed by a leaked US intelligence report that suggested otherwise.”
Ravid also reported that an Israeli official with direct knowledge of intelligence on Iran told Axios that “intercepted communications suggest Iranian military officials have been giving false situation reports to the country’s political leadership — downplaying the extent of the damage.”
Then, in a new assessment on Wednesday, CIA Director John Ratcliffe said the strikes had “severely damaged” Iran’s nuclear program. He explained that they had gained additional intelligence since the initial DIA report. “This includes new intelligence from a historically reliable and accurate source/method that several key Iranian nuclear facilities were destroyed and would have to be rebuilt over the course of years,” Ratcliffe wrote.
The central goal of the Israeli campaign, known as Operation Rising Lion, was to disable Iran’s nuclear program, ISW explained. And this main effort was supported “by conducting a campaign designed to prevent Iran from conducting effective retaliatory strikes on Israel by degrading its ballistic missile capabilities.”
“The IDF sought to limit Iran’s ability to respond to Israel at the start of its campaign and continued to destroy Iranian missile launchers and stockpiles throughout the air campaign,” ISW wrote. “Iranian leaders originally planned to launch up to one thousand ballistic missiles at Israel in the immediate aftermath of an Israeli strike, presumably in multiple barrages. The first Iranian missile barrage included about 30 missiles, and Iran never managed to launch over 40 ballistic missiles in a single barrage throughout the 12 days of attacks.”
This aspect of the operation, likewise, was a success. ISW reported that over the entire two-week operation, Iran fired a total of only 543 missiles, of which 89 percent were intercepted (and many that were not intercepted hit open, not residential, areas).
Still, “Iranian ballistic missiles did penetrate Israeli air defenses striking populated areas in some instances, however. Air defense systems are not perfect, and some projectiles will penetrate the system.”
Additionally, the missiles Iran used were not particularly helpful in a military sense. “The relatively poor accuracy of these missiles compared to a precision-guided munition means that even in instances when Iranian missiles struck military targets, they were largely ineffective and caused no casualties and limited damage,” ISW noted.
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