"We have the Israelis right where we want them," Hamas' Gaza chief Yayha Sinwar told his leadership in Qatar. Sinwar certainly has the US and EU where he wants them -- running interference against the Israelis on his behalf. As the Wall Street Journal reports this morning, civilian deaths in Gaza play a large role in Sinwar's strategic calculations.

Not that this will surprise anyone:

For months, Yahya Sinwar has resisted pressure to cut a ceasefire-and-hostages deal with Israel. Behind his decision, messages the Hamas military leader in Gaza has sent to mediators show, is a calculation that more fighting—and more Palestinian civilian deaths—work to his advantage. ...

In dozens of messages—reviewed by The Wall Street Journal—that Sinwar has transmitted to cease-fire negotiators, Hamas compatriots outside Gaza and others, he’s shown a cold disregard for human life and made clear he believes Israel has more to lose from the war than Hamas. The messages were shared by multiple people with differing views of Sinwar.

It's certainly handy to have these as proof, but Sinwar's use of civilians as shields and pawns for terrorist activities hardly comes as a shock. Hamas used billions of dollars in aid to create a labyrinth of tunnels under cities from which to conduct attacks on Israel, both inside and outside of Gaza. For a while, Hamas used that aid to build tunnels into Israel, until the Israelis figured out how to destroy and stop them. In the rare incursions by the IDF, Hamas falls back into these populated areas to force the Israelis into urban-combat theaters that are designed to maximize civilian deaths. All of these are war crimes by Hamas, which the West always overlooks while holding Israel responsible for protecting civilians to a standard which none of the Western nations uses for themselves -- including the US. 

Those efforts preceded Sinwar's ascent to the top of the Hamas leadership clique. However, under his command, Hamas continued to use residential neighborhoods for missile launches aimed at Israeli civilian centers, so as to discourage military counter-attacks. When the IDF did return fire, Hamas would issue 'civilian death tolls' through the 'Gaza health ministry,' which is of course Hamas' propaganda arm.

And the Western press would eat it up. They still do to this day, including the WSJ, much to Scott Johnson's disgust at Power Line:

Only yesterday the Journal reported the number of civilians killed Saturday at 210 — wait, make that 274 — while over on the editorial page the Journal mocked the shtick of the “Gaza Health Ministry” (a/k/a “Palestinian officials” and “health authorities”). Quoting this AP story (links below in original), the Journal editors observed:

“BREAKING: Gaza’s Health Ministry says 274 Palestinians were killed during the Israeli operation,” reports the Associated Press, only 48 hours after it had exposed how the Hamas ministry’s daily death tolls are “at odds with underlying data.” When will the media stop taking the kidnappers at their word?

Good question! For one answer, check out the Journal’s news pages.

If one has to wonder why someone who's hiding in tunnels from the IDF thinks he has the Israelis right where he wants them, that's why. His human-shield strategy is working, and the international pressure on Israel to let Hamas survive the war it started is proof. Sinwar doesn't care about civilian casualties -- he runs a death cult in Gaza. The Gazans have mostly bought into that death cult too, in large part because they see Hamas as indestructible and Israel weak for not finishing them off, but also because the UN has helped indoctrinate generations of Gaza into Hamas' ideology. The UNRWA curricula teaches children despicable values and gives them ambitions of annihilation that supplies Sinwar with willing shields and cannon fodder for his strategies.

 Again, this is a well-known strategy for Sinwar and Hamas generally. That doesn't keep the bien pensants of the West from falling for it every single time, though. Reuters and the US State Department provided yet another dully predictable example of Sinwar's successful manipulations:

Hamas accepts a U.N. resolution backing a plan to end the war with Israel in Gaza and is ready to negotiate details, a senior official of the Palestinian militant group said on Tuesday in what the U.S. Secretary of State called "a hopeful sign".

But Hamas didn't "back" the plan. They offered positive remarks about the UN Security Council resolution, but that's it. They still haven't accepted its terms:

On Tuesday, however, senior Hamas official Sami Abu Zuhri, who is based outside Gaza, said it accepted the ceasefire resolution and was ready to negotiate over the details. It was up to Washington to ensure that Israel abides by it, he added. ...

Blinken said the Hamas statement was "a hopeful sign" but definitive word was still needed from the Hamas leadership inside Israeli-besieged Gaza. "That's what counts, and that's what we don't have yet."

How many times have we already seen this bait-and-switch from Hamas? Just before the launch of the Rafah operation, they claimed to have accepted a nearly identical US proposal that the Israelis already approved. They then claimed that the proposal they accepted had terms that Israel never agreed to include. It was a PR stunt to force the Israelis to delay their Rafah operation, which the Israelis saw through but the American media reported as a major concession for peace.

Today, Antony Blinken admitted that Hamas hadn't actually approved anything, and claimed that Sinwar would be responsible if this deal fell through:

Everyone has agreed to the deal “except Hamas,” he says when asked if he believes the terror group to be leaning toward supporting it.

“If Hamas doesn’t say yes, then this is clearly on them — on them in terms of a vote to continue the war, not end it; on them in terms of the safety, the well-being of hundreds of thousands, millions of Palestinian women, children, and men in Gaza,” he says.

News flash for Blinken: The whole war is on Sinwar and Hamas. They started it and the Gazans participated in it. Israel intends to fight it to a conclusion this time, which should be either complete destruction or full capitulation. Any suggestion that the Israelis are somehow to blame is absurd, and is precisely the thinking that allowed Sinwar to launch the war in the first place. 

But Sinwar knows that the Biden administration and the EU won't ever come to that conclusion. He knows that they have too much invested in their blinkered vision of reality to allow the Israelis to finish what Hamas started. He may or may not have the Israelis where he wants them, but Yahya Sinwar has the West by the balls, and he knows it. 

Also, the latest episode of The Ed Morrissey Show podcast is now up! Today's show features:

•  How will Donald Trump choose his running mate? Andrew Malcolm and I game out the Veepstakes for the GOP, as well as the timing of the decision. 
• We also discuss the Washington Post's woes, where no one seems to know exactly how to climb out of the hole from their collapse. 
• Andrew and I also briefly tackle the White House trial balloon on a deal with Hamas.  

The Ed Morrissey Show is now a fully downloadable and streamable show at  Spotify, Apple Podcasts, the TEMS Podcast YouTube channel, and on Rumble and our own in-house portal at the #TEMS page!