Coming on the heels of strikes that killed Hamas military commander Mohammed Deif in Khan Younis and Hezbollah military commander Fuad Shukr in Beirut, the assassination in Tehran of Hamas’s political leader, Ismail Haniyeh, sent clear messages to Hezbollah, Hamas and, most important, Iran. Haniyeh was in Tehran for the inauguration of Iran’s new president, who was elected last month following his predecessor’s death in a May helicopter crash. Iran’s failure to protect a high-level guest at a state event suggests to the world that its security services are deeply penetrated by Israel. This is a devastating demonstration of incompetence for a regime that depends on terror to survive.
In some quarters, Haniyeh is being eulogized as a moderate and Israel’s attack on him condemned as prolonging the war. This is not quite as nonsensical as it sounds. There were hopes in Qatar, Gaza, Turkey and Iran that the U.S. could be bamboozled into supporting a cease-fire leading to a “moderate” Hamas government in a unified West Bank-Gaza Palestinian protostate under Haniyeh’s leadership.
Read the full article in the Wall Street Journal.
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