Top Hamas leader says he regrets endorsing October 7th attacks.

 

Hamas stands in Gaza. New York Post/AP.

A top Hamas leader says he regrets endorsing October 7th. New York Post. Mousa Abu Marzouk, the head of the groups foreign relations office in Qatar, said that had he knew the consequences of the attack, he would have never supported it. In response to the attack, that killed civilians and lead to the kidnapping of hundreds, Israel has largely destroyed Gaza, with thousands dead and around 70% of buildings destroyed or damaged. As many as 48,000 Gazans were destroyed in the conflict. Marzouk said that upper Hamas brass was mislead about the goals of the terror attack, not knowing that the targets were civilians. Marzouk also said it was clear that Hamas had lost the war. Hazem Qassem, a Hamas spokesman, condemned the comments and said that the words were taken out of context. 

My Comment:

Marzouk stating the obvious. The October 7th attack was one of the biggest mistakes that Hamas had ever made and is a good example of a group winning a major battle but losing the war because of it. The attack was an amazing victory but the backlash and consequences it caused far outweighed any accomplishments it made. 

I don't buy for a second that the upper brass of Hamas didn't know the specifics of what was going to happen in October 7th. That seems like a very obvious lie and an attempt to try and "sanewash" their decision making. Had only a few civilians been captured or killed, you could write it off as the troops being out of control. But they specifically targeted civilian areas, like the rave in the desert, even when it made little military sense to do so. And I can't imagine that a decision of that much political importance was left to commanders on the ground. 

It also is very obvious that the cost Hamas paid was not anywhere near worth what they paid. Not only is Gaza mostly destroyed and a lot of their people are dead, they also see their allies greatly diminished by the war. Syria is no longer there and Iran lost most of their proxies in the battles with Israel. Hezbollah is pretty much gone now and so are the pro-Iran militias in Syria. 

The only real victory they had is that they somehow got supporters in the west. This never made any sense to me, there are reasons to criticize Israel, but nothing in recent history makes me have any sympathy for the Palestinian cause whatsoever. They lost every war they have fought against Israel and their behavior in both warfare and peace has been deplorable. 

But for whatever reason a lot of folks in the west make excuses for Hamas and Gaza. Some of it is the deluded "colonialism" narrative that makes zero sense, Israel was won through conquest, not colonization. Most of it is folks just hating the Jews, but even then, I don't understand how that lends any sympathy to Hamas. 

Regardless, it's also clear that Marzouk's statements aren't universal among Hamas. Hamas says that he was taken out of context, and considering that the statements were made to the New York Times, that's certainly possible. But if there are any truth to the statements at all, then it's possible that this is a sign of a power struggle within Hamas itself. 

I do think that Hamas did lose the war in Gaza. Israel didn't accomplish all of its goals, there are still Hamas fighters still alive of course, but Hamas was defeated on the battlefield and Gaza has mostly been destroyed. That's not even a moral victory for Hamas, they pretty much completely failed at their goals and paid an extremely high cost.