Sinwar's Plan

 A lot of people are trying to guess what Sinwar's plan was. I think lots of those theories are correct. So what was his plan?

First of all, we know his goal. It's to end the Jewish sovereignty of Israel. It's the purest form of anti-Zionism; like he doesn't want the state of Israel to exist as a sovereign entity at all. And he's patient -- he knows it might not happen right away, but it's still his goal.

He knows he can't achieve that with weapons alone, so what can he do? Well first, if enough countries join him in the war then he might have enough weapons. He can join Hizballah, Iran, and the Houthis, who all have the same goal. Thankfully many other Arab nations who used to have that goal, don't anymore. So we're relatively lucky there. But still, it worked for him. They all joined. But as of May they aren't using their full power, so what will it take to make them use all their power against Israel? Maybe the part he didn't anticipate was Biden's "Don't" speech. Biden knew exactly was Sinwar wants and that speech was probably the smartest thing he could do.

*Just to be clear - I think many people around the world thought that Oct 7 was about the Palestinians. We Israelis knew that it was part of a much bigger picture, but it wasn't clear to everyone (it still isn't). So I'm really glad Biden caught on right away.

But say Hamas can't get rid of Israel with war alone, where does the plan go from here? Well to get rid of Israel they'd have to delegitimize the country completely. Turns out there are lots of ways to delegitimize a country, and unfortunately they're all underway.

1. World opinion. Well this one's easy - just show pictures of suffering Gazans on the news. Horrific numbers of civilian deaths. Let social media do the rest. As Netanyahu put it: "for Hamas, civilian deaths aren't a tragedy -- they're a strategy."

2. Legal action. Get Israel leadership to be charged with breaking international law. If the war is unlawful, Israel loses its credibility. Hamas can help further this cause by making sure that civilians die -- they can build bases and offices underneath hospitals, for instance, or stop food and water from getting to refugees.

3. Isolation. This one is on its way too. At first the USA was right here with us, but as time goes on we're losing the support of our biggest ally. Most of Europe is still on our side, but even that won't last forever. At this point there are protests all over American campuses and it looks like the American society is more split than ever. It's only a matter of time until things get violent, and if America has a civil war then it's going to forget about Israel.

4. Israeli civil war. It doesn't even have to be a war, just enough of a divide that the country basically falls apart. Hamas doesn't have to lift a finger, this might happen on its own.

Once they achieve all that, maybe some Iranian nuke can finish us off, and maybe it won't have to.

I think that's where we're going. I want to be optimistic but it's getting really really hard. I know exactly what Sinwar's plan was and it's going even better than he imagined.