Ismail Haniyeh was a diligent student of Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. If we were to split Palestinian political Islamists into moderate and hardline camps, Ismail Haniyeh would be classified as a moderate. Even his opponents see him as part of the solution, be it for intra-Palestinian division or overcoming the impediments to a ceasefire and prisoner exchange deal in Gaza. Indeed, many have suggested that he had not been aware of the October 7 operation and had been involved in the decision to carry it out.
Whenever Hamas needed to show flexibility on a particular issue, it could find no one better than Ismail Haniyeh to push in that direction. In polls asking Palestinians whom they would want as their next president, Haniyeh consistently came in second place behind Marwan Barghouti, who has held the top spot since he was imprisoned.
The timing: Haniyeh’s assassination followed an assassination and attack in the southern suburb of Beirut, a key stronghold for Hezbollah and its supporters from all Resistance Axis factions. The timing was calculated.
Taking such actions in Beirut and Tehran was the only way to counterbalance the frustration and disappointment in Israel after the Majdal Shams massacre and the Beit Lid incident, which exposed Israel’s flagrant political and military institutional shortcomings. Moreover, there had been a growing sense, both within and outside of Israel, that Israel’s ability to deter its enemies had been waning.
Those who expressed this view were answered using every means at Israel's disposal as it sought to demonstrate that its deterrence is as robust as ever. Israel’s attack on Hodeidah, which involved dozens of Israeli bombers and fighter jets, projected this image more emphatically than any other operation. When we weigh this display of military strength against the real need for deterrence, it becomes clear that one or two planes would have been enough to set the fuel tankers in Hodeidah alight.
Place: Tehran is the capital of the notorious Middle Eastern camp referred to as the Axis of Resistance. It is the nerve center of octopus’ long tentacles that can reach any site in the Middle East - and, some say, on the planet - including via a direct route from Tehran and the Negev.
Israel’s political leadership chose the capitals of Tehran and Beirut to convince the home front that “those who attack us” are not safe anywhere and that no leader or official involved in the war is beyond reach. Netanyahu considers this capacity to liquidate his enemies to be existential.
The political leadership and its military chose these locations to raise the challenge to its adversary to the highest possible level by hitting the enemy in its home base. Additionally, the shortest path from the current status quo on every front to drawing the United States in and stretching the conflict, even as far as a regional war, is striking Iran directly and provoking a response that justifies broadening the conflict, if not turning it into a regional war, and direct US intervention.
The questions...
Some of these questions are obvious. What will the response look like? Who will retaliate? Others have not been answered: what is the trajectory of the ongoing American, Qatari, and Egyptian efforts to secure a negotiated ceasefire and an exchange deal, even on the narrowest scale?
Will the vicious cycle continue; will we continue to run in circles, even secretly? Is it still logical to await Netanyahu’s envoys, amendments, and comments as assassinations through drones and F-35s are being orchestrated?
There are many of these kinds of questions that even the most seasoned fortune-tellers cannot answer. Only the battlefield can provide definitive answers, and it brings us new surprises every day and every hour. Here in the Middle East, we are in an era in which surprises are more consequential than calculated considerations.
