Sinwar’s shadow on peace in West Asia
With Yahya Sinwar as its overlord, Hamas loses its veneer of being a political outfit concerned with democratic processes for the Palestinians and becomes a mere militant organisation
Yahya Sinwar is now Hamas’s sole leader. He was the chief of its military wing, and has now been named its political head as well, after Ismail Haniyeh’s assassination. This was not entirely unexpected, given how Hamas’s leadership bench has shrunk. Haniyeh’s deputy in the politburo, Saleh al-Arouri, was killed by Israel on January 2.
Naming former politburo chair Khaled Meshaal for the post may have been a pragmatic move — Meshaal was at the helm when Hamas won the democratic mandate to govern Gaza, and his status as a leader-in-exile would have given him the cover of being distant from the October 7, 2023 strikes that triggered the ongoing war with Israel. But Iran, which props up Hamas as a proxy in its “offensive deterrence” against Israel, could have vetoed this. Meshaal lost Tehran’s trust after he endorsed the revolt against Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, a key Iranian ally. That cost him Sinwar’s trust, too — and any divergence between the politburo and the military wing, led by Sinwar, would have been disastrous to Hamas’s cause and, indeed, its existence after a war that it is struggling to fight, let alone dominate.
With Sinwar as its overlord, Hamas loses its veneer of being a political outfit concerned with democratic processes for the Palestinians and becomes a mere militant organisation. Even though other leaders were complicit, the October 7 attack had Sinwar’s imprint all over it. This means getting Tel Aviv to the table to talk peace, chances of which had anyway dimmed after Haniyeh’s killing and Iran’s promise of retaliation, may now need moving a mountain.