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How Hamas Can Still Win. Yes, Really.
Hamas fighters on Feb. 22, 2025. Photo: Majdi Fathi via Reuters Connect
The Hamas terror organization has a weapon that can snatch victory from the jaws of defeat: the fact that Western democracies want the illusion of success, but will never follow through on what is required to achieve it. That’s what’s happening right now at the United Nations.
The UN Security Council is preparing to vote this month on the future of Gaza, a plan that requires Hamas to disarm.
The terror organization is “cooperating” by declaring it will give up “offensive” weapons, but not “defensive” weapons — whatever that means. Hamas knows it’s not truly fooling the Security Council. Rather it’s giving Western democracies the opportunity to say to their constituents, “we’ve disarmed Hamas,” without actually disarming it.
The Security Council’s plan involves international stabilization forces, meant to oversee Gaza’s reconstruction and political future.
Hamas is already arranging to quietly choose the stabilization force’s leadership, thus maintaining its power regardless of who pretends to take charge. The West just might accept this, in order to avoid a bloody conflict between stabilization forces and a still armed and active Hamas. The only other option would be the hard and dangerous work of true disarmament, which Western democracies tend to avoid.
Hamas’ strategy works because Western democracies relish the opportunity to declare “success,” knowing that if and when an arrangement falls apart, it will be after the next election cycle, and somebody else’s problem.
When I was a child, the neighborhood kids had a slang expression for bad ideas: “let’s not, and say we did.” For example, your immature friend might say, “hey let’s go throw rocks at pigeons,” and you’d respond, “let’s not, and say we did.”
This is exactly the philosophy that Hamas is proposing to the Western world: let’s not disarm, let’s not rebuild, let’s not stabilize — but say we did.
Winston Churchill famously said, “democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.” Indeed, life under democracy beats dictatorships and terror regimes any day of the week, but there’s a downside that occurs when democratic “leaders” follow the whims of a largely uninformed public, even on complex questions that require real expertise. The time horizon for “success” is sometimes no longer than the next midterms, and many decisions are therefore not only short term, but superficial and dangerous, like covering up a crumbling foundation with a fresh coat of paint.
This thinking characterized the JCPOA, also known as the 2015 Iran “Nuclear Deal.” The Nuclear Deal gave the Islamic Republic of Iran access to significant cash and time, which it used to advance the very nuclear program it was supposed to give up. The same resources also helped Iran fund its terror proxies throughout the Middle East.
This philosophy also motivated a bizarre idea in the 1990s to essentially pay North Korea to not develop nuclear weapons. Pyongyang, predictably, accepted billions of dollars in aid and sanctions relief, and then successfully tested its first nuclear bomb just a few years later.
How is it possible for such an obvious game to fool the West?
The key is to present a seductive (and dishonest) narrative that the public wants to believe.
North Korea, for example, sold the idea that its push for nuclear weapons had resulted from poverty and desperation. The poverty was real, the logic was not. The West enthusiastically jumped on the idea that it could resolve everything by giving North Korea aid, fuel, and sanctions relief. The “solution” was meant to look easy, elegant, and most of all, to sound great in the next State of the Union address. And it did — though it required utterly ignoring North Korea’s openly stated goal to “blast the United States from the face of the Earth.”
Similarly, Iran claimed to seek nuclear capacity only for “peaceful purposes,” and objected to Western “bullying,” thus tapping into the West’s aversion to war and its adulation of negotiations and diplomacy.
This narrative worked not because it fooled most experts, but primarily because much of the voting public wanted to believe it. Much like in the case of North Korea, this delusion required ignoring routine chants of “Death to America” in the Iranian parliament, not to mention that Iran’s “peaceful” nuclear program was, suspiciously, hidden under a mountain.
Even Israel, a country typically more savvy than most (out of existential necessity) is not entirely immune.
For decades, terror groups including Hamas, sold the idea that terrorism is the result of poverty and desperation rather than ideology: the old North Korea trick. The “solution”? Flood Gaza with aid, including Qatari cash. According to non-public sources in Israel’s COGAT unit (which handles coordination with the Palestinian territories), Hamas modulated its terror activity up and down in response to how much cash came into Gaza — thus reinforcing the narrative.
Even entrepreneur-turned-politician Naftali Bennett, Israel’s loudest critic of sending Hamas “suitcases full of cash,” did essentially the same thing once he became Prime Minister himself.
The terror group’s publicly declared raison d’être (annihilating Israel and wiping out all Jews) was minimized or ignored. The narrative was just too seductive, and the alternative (all out war) was unacceptable to much of the Israeli public. In the end, all out war happened anyway: beginning in the most horrific possible way, with Hamas’ massacre on October 7, 2023.
In fairness to Israel, the relative quiet before October 7 filled a deep social and emotional need for the war-weary Israeli people, and enabled the country to build significant prosperity and resources — which proved vital to Israel’s economic resilience during its two year “combat marathon,” which continues even now.
Despite some conspiracy theories to the contrary, Israel’s mistakes do not “cause” Hamas’ violence, any more than America “caused” Iran or North Korea’s hatred and nuclear ambitions. To the contrary, the entire Western world tries constantly to balance the need for day-to-day quiet and prosperity against the need for long-term safety. Both priorities are important, yet when the West blunders in trying to achieve this balance, its enemies are quick to take advantage.
In a recent article, I discussed why Israel and Hamas are likely to resume combat. In summary: every element of peace, including international stabilization forces and reconstruction, is impossible until Hamas disarms and dismantles its power structure; but Hamas is ideologically incapable of doing so voluntarily. (The article is a thorough deep dive, and well worth checking out!)
Israel is now raising concerns about the proposed UN framework – in short, the plan appears to encapsulate the principle of “let’s not, and say we did”: let’s not disarm Hamas, let’s not make a meaningful change in Gaza, let’s not make the world any more peaceful or any more safe — but say we did.
Yet there is hope.
Last April, US President Donald Trump gave Iran 60 days to negotiate the dismantling of its nuclear program. Israelis saw this as a mistake, fearing that Trump had fallen into the same trap that seduced former Presidents Obama and Biden: allowing Iran to play for time as it races toward “the Bomb.” Yet immediately after the deadline, rather than allowing extensions, Trump and Israel coordinated a devastating attack on Iran’s nuclear program, achieving in 12 days what years of negotiations had not.
Two years ago, Israel learned the real cost of willful blindness in the most painful possible way, and now insists on nothing less than true safety. For his part, Trump learned last June that negotiation can sometimes be useless and dangerous, whereas appropriate military action can be both limited and effective.
Between Israel’s hard-won wisdom, and Trump’s recent history of learning from prior mistakes, the world just may stand a chance of defeating Hamas after all. Yet if Hamas wins (and it very well might), the philosophy of “let’s not, and say we did” will be the reason why.
Daniel Pomerantz is the CEO of RealityCheck, an organization dedicated to deepening public conversation through robust research studies and public speaking.
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Majority of House Democrats vote to defeat Lebanon war powers measure
(JTA) — A House resolution aimed at preventing U.S. involvement in hostilities in Lebanon failed Thursday.
Rep. Rashida Tlaib, a Michigan Democrat and fierce critic of Israel, forced a vote on the House floor Thursday. It was defeated 324 to 92, with 91 Democrats voting in favor. The sole Republican vote came from Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie, who will be departing Congress next year after losing his primary.
The resolution, which would have ordered President Donald Trump to remove U.S. troops from Lebanon within seven days, was defeated after Democratic Party leaders noted in a joint statement that there are “no U.S. servicemembers involved in combat operations or hostilities in Lebanon.”
The statement issued by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, Minority Whip Katherine Clark and Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar continued: “We stand with the Lebanese people, the government of Lebanon and the Lebanese Armed Forces in their efforts to live peacefully and defeat Hezbollah, a violent terrorist organization that is a sworn enemy of the United States.”
Jewish Democratic Reps. Jerrold Nadler and Dan Goldman of New York also voted “no” on the resolution, writing in a joint press release that their opposition “should not be taken as an approval of Prime Minister Netanyahu’s prosecution of Israel’s military action in Lebanon.”
“To the extent that American armed forces are present in Lebanon, it is to support the current Lebanese government, which deserves our assistance,” the statement continued.
But Tlaib defended her resolution in a post on X Thursday ahead of the vote. “The people of Lebanon can’t wait another month for Congress to act,” Tlaib wrote. “Every day that we do nothing, 11 more Lebanese children are killed or injured by the Israeli military in this U.S.-supported invasion. Congress must pass today’s Lebanon War Powers Resolution.”
Tlaib was citing a UNICEF report of data from Lebanon’s Ministry of Public Health last month that found 77 children in Lebanon had been killed over the course of a week as Israeli strikes continued to pummel the country.
Some of those who opposed Tlaib’s resolution, including Nadler and Goldman, said they would vote for an alternative version of the resolution that would preserve cooperation with the Lebanese Armed Forces in their fight against Hezbollah.
The defeat of the resolution came the same day that Hezbollah rejected the latest ceasefire agreement brokered between Israel and Lebanon, as fighting between the Iranian proxy and Israel has intensified in recent weeks.
On Wednesday, the House narrowly passed a resolution for the first time that would limit President Donald Trump’s power to continue the war in Iran. While the development was largely symbolic, it marked a rebuke of the president’s increasingly unpopular strategy in Iran.
On Friday, 85 members of Congress also signed onto a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio calling on the Trump administration to “use every available diplomatic tool to halt imminent settlement construction in the E-1 area of the West Bank,” a corridor east of Jerusalem.
Citing Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich’s orders to demolish a Palestinian Bedouin village in the West Bank last month, the letter, which was led by Democratic Reps. Mark Pocan and Jan Schakowsky, who is Jewish, argued that the issue of settlements in the area had reached a “critical and final inflection point.”
“The window for meaningful diplomatic intervention is closing rapidly, and we believe it is not too late for the United States to act,” read the letter, which was also signed by Nadler and Jewish Tennessee Rep. Steve Cohen.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post Majority of House Democrats vote to defeat Lebanon war powers measure appeared first on The Forward.
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After years of hostile relations with Israel, Slovenia’s new prime minister signals diplomatic reset
(JTA) — Less than an hour after Slovenia’s newly elected prime minister, Janez Janša, was sworn into office by the country’s parliament, he had the Palestinian flag lowered from a government building.
The move marked the first step in a sharp reorientation of Slovenia’s posture towards Israel under Janša. The right-leaning prime minister, who previously held office in 2022, replaced a prime minister for the liberal Freedom Movement party.
Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar announced on Thursday that Israel would open its first-ever embassy in Ljubljana, Slovenia’s capital, writing in a post on X that the move was a statement of “friendship, dialogue, and a shared belief in freedom, democracy, and security.”
“The election of Prime Minister @JJansaSDS marks a new chapter in relations between Israel and Slovenia,” Saar wrote. “After years of the hostility of the previous government- we now have an opportunity to rebuild, strengthen, and deepen a real partnership.”
Saar wrote in another post on X that he had spoken with Tone Kajzer, who was appointed as Slovenia’s minister of foreign affairs under the new administration, and that he had “pledged all the assistance necessary” to ensure the “swift establishment” of the embassy.
Janša replied to Saar’s post Thursday, writing, “Welcome to Ljubljana. 🇸🇮🇮🇱Looking forward to a new era in Slovenia-Israel relations.”
Under Slovenia’s outgoing prime minister, Robert Golob, the country voted to recognize a Palestinian state in June 2024 and became one of the few European Union countries to label Israel’s war in Gaza a “genocide,” a charge Israel firmly rejects. It was one of five nations to boycott the Eurovision song contest this year over Israel’s participation.
Last year, Slovenia also became the first EU country to impose a travel ban on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as well as far-right ministers Itamar Ben Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich.
For the country’s Jewish population, which numbers just 100, the spate of anti-Israel measures adopted by the former government contributed to a growing sense of isolation in the country.
But now, Janša, an admirer of President Donald Trump and an ally of former Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, appears eager to reset relations with Israel.
On Friday, days after an Israeli passenger plane was denied entry to the country by Slovenian authorities in a protest against the Israeli government, Slovenian politician Jernej Vrtovec announced that the airline Israir had “once again been granted authorization to operate flights between Tel Aviv and Ljubljana.”
“The time has come for a responsible Slovenian 🇸🇮foreign policy based on facts, Slovenian national interests and international law,” Janša wrote in a post on X. He added that the “politically and economically harmful period of government support for activist anti-Semitism” had ended.
This article originally appeared on JTA.org.
The post After years of hostile relations with Israel, Slovenia’s new prime minister signals diplomatic reset appeared first on The Forward.
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Israel gives in to the politics of debasement
A small episode this week crystallized the broader pathology of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netayahu more clearly than any grand speech or ideological argument ever could: the Knesset vote for state comptroller, one of the most sensitive institutional positions in Israeli public life.
In Israel, the 120 members of the Knesset elect the comptroller by secret ballot. The office audits government ministries, investigates failures of governance, oversees public integrity, and possesses enormous influence over public accountability. In the aftermath of the Hamas attack of Oct. 7, 2023, and the Gaza war, the role carries even greater significance. The comptroller may shape future investigations into catastrophic national failures and wartime decision-making.
This week — in a move straight out of United States President Donald Trump’s playbook — Netanyahu nominated his longtime personal lawyer, Michael Rabello, for the role.
Historically, the comptroller’s office has been occupied by senior judges, jurists, or respected public servants with reputations for independence. Figures such as Miriam Ben-Porat, Eliezer Goldberg, and Micha Lindenstrauss embodied a certain ethos: they were stern institutional guardians standing somewhat above partisan warfare.
The idea of placing the prime minister’s own attorney into the country’s central oversight institution struck many Israelis as grotesquely inappropriate.
Yet the truly astonishing part came during the voting itself, in which the opposition candidate was a former justice on the Supreme Court — an institution Netanyahu’s coalition has long vilified. The first round reportedly revealed substantial defections among Netanyahu’s coalition. His preferred candidate fell short. Panic spread.
Suddenly, allegations and reports emerged that coalition lawmakers were being encouraged to photograph or film their ballots in order to prove their loyalty. There was a pause in the proceedings as the Knesset speaker, Likud’s Amir Ohana, received legal advice to not allow phones in the voting area. He restarted the vote anyway. Israeli media filled with coalition lawmakers posting images of themselves voting the right way. The images and reports were the excruciating stuff of banana republics.
I cannot recall ever seeing a similar scene in a functioning democracy. Rabello was elected.
Secret ballots exist precisely because democracies understand that free voting collapses when superiors can verify obedience. The entire purpose of ballot secrecy is to protect individuals from coercion, intimidation, retaliation and patronage systems.
Modern democracies adopted secret ballots in the nineteenth century to break the power of bosses, landlords, oligarchs, and political machines that demanded proof of loyalty.
The blatant violation of these norms by Netanyahu’s coalition helps explain why so many Israelis react to him not merely with opposition, but with exhaustion, fury, and moral revulsion.
It’s not just the corruption trials, the permanent manipulation, the serial falsehoods, the failed strategic assumptions about Hamas, the relentless cultivation of tribal resentment, the attacks on state institutions, the politics of personal loyalty and the transformation of every disagreement into an existential struggle between patriots and traitors. It’s the cumulative exhaustion of watching every institutional norm eventually be subordinated to the most vulgar politics imaginable.
The episode revealed something larger than one parliamentary scandal: the culture Netanyahu has spent years cultivating. It is a system organized increasingly around personal allegiance rather than institutional responsibility. A political environment in which independent judgment becomes suspicious, dissent becomes betrayal, and every institution gradually bends toward one man’s political ambition.
So we have here a prime minister under criminal indictment pushing his own lawyer into a top civil service oversight role.
Opposition leaders Naftali Bennett and Yair Lapid plan to appeal Rabello’s election to the Supreme Court, calling the vote “tainted.” Even that might not work. Several government ministers, including the justice minister, have suggested in recent months that they no longer consider court decisions binding.
And that is what outsiders often miss about Netanyahu fatigue in Israel. The anger does not emerge from one scandal, one trial, one war, or one speech. It comes from the constant sense of humiliation. This week, inside Knesset voting booths that were meant to be hidden from view, Israelis saw the whole story compressed into a single degrading scene.
The post Israel gives in to the politics of debasement appeared first on The Forward.
