Thursday's Final Word

AP Photo/Adel Hana, File

Perhaps a little more 'final' than others this time ... 

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“This is a good day for Israel, for the United States, and for the world,” Biden said in a statement.

“To my Israeli friends, this is no doubt a day of relief and reminiscence, similar to the scenes witnessed throughout the United States after President Obama ordered the raid to kill Osama Bin Laden in 2011.”

Ed: That's an odd claim to make, given that Biden advised against that strike when Barack Obama ordered it. Of course, Biden also advised the Israelis not to go into Rafah and claimed evacuating its citizens would be impossible. 

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“I wish he rots in hell. He is responsible for all this destruction,” said Fadia, a 42-year-old teacher from Jabaliya, who didn’t want her last name published for fear of retribution from Hamas. “I am actually relieved he is gone. This should mean the war is coming to an end now, I hope.”

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Since weeks after 10/7, the pressure on Israel from the Democratic Party, Europe, the UN, the media, the western foreign policy and political establishment, etc, to cut a deal, to agree to a "ceasefire," to surrender, has been unrelenting and enormous. And for a full year, the leader of a tiny and vulnerable country has resisted and outmaneuvered the pressure to stop fighting. It's a remarkable achievement, and it's the real reason Sinwar is dead.

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“Your leaders are fleeing and they will be eliminated.”

Those who lay down their “weapon and return our hostages” would be allowed to “leave and live,” Netanyahu said. His words hinted at a plan that would allow those captors to be exiled in exchange for the release of the hostages.

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Netanyahu also issued a stern warning to the captors: “Whoever harms our hostages – their blood on his head. We will settle accounts with him.["]

Ed: So much for prisoner swaps now. With Sinwar out of the way, Netanyahu means to put an end to the market for hostaging, and to do so emphatically. And by killing Sinwar, those holding the hostages know that the IDF will not stop until they kill every last terrorist that chooses to fight. 

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Netanyahu also said Sinwar "ran away in fear from our soldiers" prior to being killed.

"He told you he was a lion, but in reality, he was hiding in a dark den - and he was killed when he fled in a panic from our soldiers," he said in a televised message

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Yohanan Plesner, president of the Israel Democracy Institute, said the event was a major milestone in Israel’s fight in Gaza, and could change the dynamics around cease-fire talks and military strategy. Sinwar’s death — and the graphic pictures of his body that flooded social media — would provide Israel with a crucial “victory image,” he said.

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“It would have been very difficult to declare an end to the war with Sinwar still in Gaza running Hamas,” Plesner said. “No one thinks Hamas is going to vanish. But this could bring the war on the southern front, if not to an end, at least much closer to an end.”

Ed: Then what? It had better not be a flood of unregulated billions managed by the UN. And with Netanyahu in command, I rather doubt it will be. 

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Ed Morrissey 10:00 PM | November 20, 2024
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