So much for all of the fatuous demands from the Biden foreign-policy team for Israel to declare an end to the war. Both Joe Biden and Kamala Harris made remarks yesterday cheering the death of Yahya Sinwar in Rafah, a city that both had warned Israel not to enter at all for most of the winter and spring. Both proclaimed this a great time to declare the conflict over, as did the State Department -- and all aimed at getting Benjamin Netanyahu to stand down:

As both Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris celebrated Sinwar’s death, they also expressed hope that the moment would enable Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to declare victory in Gaza and bring Israeli operations there to a close, finally clearing the way to a hostage deal and easing the daily drumbeat of grim headlines: civilian casualties in Gaza, ongoing Israeli operations against Hezbollah in Lebanon, and a looming Israeli strike against Iran.

Biden's statement made even less sense than Harris', which at least sounded coherent. I clipped this strange remark from Biden in the Final Word post last night, but it's worth considering here as well:

“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.”

Ahem. Did the death of Osama bin Laden end the war waged by al-Qaeda against the US? No, it didn't, and neither did Barack Obama's decision to withdraw from Iraq in 2012, ahead of the election. We ended up redeploying to fight the AQ-linked ISIS in Iraq and Syria two years later, a group that started out as "al-Qaeda in Iraq." We're still in Syria fighting the remnants of that group ten years later, in fact, because a decision by one party to stop fighting doesn't end a war unless the other warring party agrees to cease hostilities. 

Besides, Biden advised against hitting bin Laden before that strike. Perhaps Biden doesn't remember too much about that, either. 

Netanyahu isn't the problem; Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran are the belligerents that started this war. And all three have declared that they intend to keep fighting it even after the deaths of the leadership in both Iranian proxies. Hamas confirmed Sinwar's death and reiterated his position that they would not negotiate on hostages until Israel withdraws from Gaza and pledges not to return:

Israeli hostages in Gaza will not return until "the aggression" on the besieged Palestinian enclave stops and Israeli forces withdraw, Khalil Al-Hayya, deputy Gaza Hamas chief and the group's chief negotiator, said on Friday.

Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar was killed by the IDF, Hamas official Basem Naim confirmed on Friday, Israeli media reported. ...

"Israel seems to believe that killing our leaders means the end of our movement and the struggle of the Palestinian people. They can believe what they want, and this is not the first time they have said that," he added.

Israel doesn't believe that for a second. Biden and Harris are delusional enough to believe it, but not Netanyahu, which is why he's not treating Sinwar's death as the end of the war. And really, Biden and Harris don't actually believe this either; they're just pandering to their pro-Hamas base and to feckless Western leaders who want to throw Israel under the bus. If they really believed it, we'd hear about a US withdrawal after this announcement:

Iraqi Security Forces, Partnered With CJTF-OIR, Conducted Targeted Strike that Killed ISIS Senior Leader pic.twitter.com/la04r3nbKT

— U.S. Central Command (@CENTCOM) October 18, 2024

Netanyahu didn't treat Hassan Nasrallah's death as the end of the war with Hezbollah either. Taking out Nasrallah and the entire Hezbollah command structure was a strategy to fragment and disrupt command and control operations, so that the IDF can crush their forces with greater ease and fewer casualties. Even if Netanyahu was inclined to declare victory and leave the field, Hezbollah has already pledged to escalate to avenge Sinwar's death. Iran also announced that they would continue to support the proxy wars on Israel:

Iran’s mission to the United Nations said Thursday that the killing of Hamas terror group leader Yahya Sinwar would lead to the strengthening of “resistance” in the region, hours after Israel confirmed it had killed the terror chief, while Lebanon’s Hezbollah declared a “transition to a new and escalatory phase” in the war. ...

Sinwar “will become a model for the youth and children who will carry forward his path toward the liberation of Palestine. As long as occupation and aggression exist, resistance will endure, for the martyr remains alive and a source of inspiration,” the Iranian mission said. ...

Lebanon’s Hezbollah terror group, meanwhile, said it was launching a new phase in its war against Israel, saying it has used precision-guided missiles to target troops.

In a statement late Wednesday, Iran-backed Hezbollah announced “the transition to a new and escalatory phase in the confrontation with the Israeli enemy,” adding that precision-guided missiles “are being used for the first time.”

The only real prospect for peace on Israel's borders is for Netanyahu to destroy these proxies and give the native populations enough breathing room to make better choices. They have spent decades playing along with Western sensibilities and political pusillanimity in dealing with radical jihadi terrorist networks, and they got October 7 as a result. This time, Netanyahu means to put the teeth back into "Never Again."

The only prospect for long-term peace in the region is regime change in Tehran. The US had better wake up to that fact rather than appease the radical mullahcracy funding these wars, because terrorists throughout the region have read that as weakness rather than temperance. That was Israel's mistake too, and they aren't going to repeat it -- especially not for the benefit of Kamala Harris' electoral prospects.