A War of Attrition...And Then Some

Yahya Sinwar

In an article for The Free Press, Michael Oren points out that Yahya Sinwar is a betting man. I would agree with that. Sinwar made a couple of strategic bets when it came to wiping Israel off the map.

The first was that once Hamas terrorists broke through the Gaza border fence and began slaughtering Israeli civilians en masse, much of the Muslim world—Iran, Hezbollah, the Houthis, the Shi’ite militias in Syria and Iraq, and the Palestinians living in Judea, Samaria, and in Israel itself—would join in the onslaught. Israel, overwhelmed, would be destroyed.

Sinwar’s second bet was that Israeli society, already torn between those favoring and opposing the government’s judicial reform, would remain unbridgeably divided. Israel would be, in the words of Hezbollah head Hassan Nasrallah, “a spiderweb”—easily swept away.

He did not bet wisely. Neither of those two gambles came to fruition; he was not counting on Israel's response to an existential threat. But he made a third, less obvious bet: he believed in his ability to control the narrative, manipulate the news cycle, and turn the victim into the victimizer. Hold on to that thought for a moment. 

As of this moment, the remaining hostages have been held for 668 days. 20 of those who are still being held are believed to be alive. 30 are thought to be dead. That's how they returned the Bibas family. In body bags. That's how they returned about 57 hostages. Who is their right fucking mind keeps dead bodies? Oh, wait, we know the answer to that. The world saw what they did to dead bodies in the days after October 7th, 2023. And I am sure Hamas treated the bodies they took back with the utmost respect and dignity. NOT.

This past weekend, Hamas released videos of Evyatar David who was taken from the Nova Festival. In the video itself, he is shown digging what appears to be a trench. What he says, however, is 

What I'm doing now is digging my own grave. 

Word is that there are no negotiations for the release of hostages taking place at this time. 

But there is plenty of outrage and anger directed at Israel. Claims of mass starvation and refusal to provide humanitarian aid bounce around the press like ping pong balls. Never you mind that misinformation is spread uncontrolled by The New York Times and the BBC. They publish garbage, make sure it gets picked up by every antisemitic Tik Tok influencer, only to publish retrations so small they are all but invisible. Hate toward all Jews spreads like wildfire: we are child-killers, women-starving, family destroying Nazis bent on cleansing the world of Muslims. Never you mind all the documentation that says otherwise, the millions of tons of food, potable water, electricity, and other services Israel provides the people of Gaza. That is merely inconvenient tale-bearing. If you're interested, Humanitarian Efforts - Israel provides statistics on food air delivery.

HOWEVER....and isn't there always a however...remind me again in which was the party that was attacked provided food and water to keep the enemy alive. I seem to have forgotten which war that was. Is Russia currently providing humanitarian aid to Ukraine? What about the Saudis? Are they providing aid to the Houthis in Yemen? 

But never mind. If Israel is involved, all the rules are different because, after all, most Israelis are Jews and they are all rich and have to pay for everything because they control all the banks, right?

But getting back to Sinwar. He hit big when he figured out there was no terrorist attack too gruesome that would stop Israeli retaliation from being demonized as unnecessary aggression causing suffering to civilian populations. He guessed, rightly so, that Hamas could lob missiles at school yards and send suicide bombers into restaurants and hotels with impunity because the PR machine would call is justifiable resistance. 

So Hamas murders 1200 civilians and somehow, in the public eyes, it is not an act of war or aggression, but a form of legitimate resistance and Israel is blamed for the death of its own citizens. Hamas then uses its own people as shields, embeds itself in a labyrinth of tunnels beneath schools, houses, libraries, and hospitals in order to use them as launch points, but no one sees all those dead Gazans as anything but victims of the IDF.

Case in point, al-Ahli Hospital was hit by a misfired Hamas rocket, but the IDF was blamed... and continues to be blamed.

So here comes the attrition part. People bandy about the phrase "war of attrition," but not as many actually understand what that means. According to Wikipedia:

Attrition warfare is a form of military strategy in which one side attempts to gradually wear down its opponent to the point of collapse by inflicting continuous losses in personnel, materiel, and morale.The term attrition is derived from the Latin word atterere, meaning "to wear down" or "to rub against", reflecting the grinding nature of the strategy.

Israelis are tired. The Israeli government is fractured, There are rallies in the streets demanding the government do this, that, or the other thing. In the world arena, Israel is vilified again and again and again for defending itself.

And all Hamas has to do is sit back and wait. Seriously. 

According to the GOV.UK on July 29th, 2025,  Prime Minister Keir Starmer issued statement, part of which reads,

On the 7th of October 2023 Hamas perpetrated the worst massacre in Israel’s history. Every day since then, the horror has continued. The hostages are still being held today.  

The Palestinian people have endured terrible suffering. Now, in Gaza because of a catastrophic failure of aid, we see starving babies, children too weak to stand: Images that will stay with us for a lifetime. .....

The suffering must end. So today – as part of this process towards peace I can confirm the UK will recognise the state of Palestine by the United Nations General Assembly in September unless the Israeli government takes substantive steps to end the appalling situation in Gaza, agree to a ceasefire and commit to a long-term, sustainable peace, reviving the prospect of a Two State Solution. 

And this includes allowing the UN to restart the supply of aid, and making clear there will be no annexations in the West Bank. 

Meanwhile, our message to the terrorists of Hamas is unchanged and unequivocal. They must immediately release all the hostages, sign up to a ceasefire, disarm and accept that they will play no part in the government of Gaza. 

We will make an assessment in September on how far the parties have met these steps.  

But no one should have a veto on our decision. So this is the way forward. We will keep working with all our international partners to end the suffering, get aid flooding into Gaza and deliver a more stable future for the Middle East.  

Huh? If you follow the link from GOV.UK, you can read the whole statement. What bothers the shite (that's British, you know) outta me is that nowhere in his statement does he hold Hamaes accountable/responsible for the debacle that is Gaza. Nowhere does it mention that they are the ones who put their own people at risk. NOR does it mention that the various governments of Palestine have repeatedly been offered statehood and have refused because they do not want a two-state solution. Their only goal is to wipe Israel off the map. 

The baseline truth at the end is that Hamas has no endgame, no exit strategy that does not include annihilation of Israel and a globalization of intifada. Right now, intifada is directed at Israelis and Jews in general. Will that ultimately expand to include other groups? Who knows....but the Druzim have been under attack in Syria. So far, I don't see anyone protesting those massacres. 

I would be exceptionally surprised if Hamas accepts such an offer with strong guarantees that they will leave Gaza. Oh, a few might take a symbolic exit, but if you think they're just gonna go away, I have a canal to sell you near Suez. 

Oren ends his piece thusly:

The supposed Israeli genocide of the Palestinians is now widely accepted as truth. A June 2025 Leger poll found that more than half of Democratic voters and all Americans under the age of 35 believe Israel is guilty of committing genocide in Gaza, as do a shocking 78 percent of Democratic primary voters in New York.

Typically, the charge has united both radical left and right—Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene with academics like Brown University’s Omer Bartov and lunatics like Candace Owens. Added to the brands of antisemitism I’ve experienced in life, along with deicide, pedocide, and conspiring to destroy civilization, Jews now stand accused of annihilating an entire people. And each day, it seems, more people co-sign this lie.

Yahya Sinwar died last October 16, felled by an Israeli bullet, but indeed his gamble on Jew-hatred continues to pay off. The impending recognition of a Palestinian state by Britain, France, and Canada not only punishes Israel for imperfectly defending itself, but incentivizes terror and strengthens Hamas’s hand in the ceasefire talks. Sinwar’s successors can now walk away from the negotiating table, perpetuate the war with yet more civilian casualties, and further immiserate both Palestinians and Israelis.

What better bet could have assisted the terrorists to obscure their atrocities of October 7? What wager would enable the West to finally cleanse its own genocide guilt by imputing that sin to the Jews? In his grave, Sinwar is still counting his earnings.

The Wifely Person's Tip o'the Week 

Sometimes, pictures actually do speak louder than words. 

This is one such case:

notice the arm hand Evyatar David the can. 

Does that look like food is an issue for a Hamas operative?

 

Still captured from the video released by Hamas