On a great act, sort of – Ben Hubbard and Maria Abi-Habib in NYT:

‘It was necessary to “change the entire equation and not just have a clash,” Khalil al-Hayya, a member of Hamas’s top leadership body, told The New York Times in Doha, Qatar. “We succeeded in putting the Palestinian issue back on the table, and now no one in the region is experiencing calm.” Since the shocking Hamas attack on Oct. 7, in which Israel says about 1,400 people were killed — most of them civilians — and more than 240 others dragged back to Gaza as captives, the group’s leaders have praised the operation, with some hoping it will set off a sustained conflict that ends any pretense of coexistence among Israel, Gaza and the countries around them.
“I hope that the state of war with Israel will become permanent on all the borders, and that the Arab world will stand with us,” Taher El-Nounou, a Hamas media adviser, told The Times.’

(…)

‘The attack ended up being broader and more deadly than even its planners had anticipated, they said, largely because the assailants managed to break through Israel’s vaunted defenses with ease, allowing them to overrun military bases and residential areas with little resistance. As Hamas stormed through a swath of southern Israel, it killed and captured more soldiers and civilians than it expected to, officials said.
The assault was so devastating that it served one of the plotters’ main objectives: It broke a longstanding tension within Hamas about the group’s identity and purpose. Was it mainly a governing body — responsible for managing day-to-day life in the blockaded Gaza Strip — or was it still fundamentally an armed force, unrelentingly committed to destroying Israel and replacing it with an Islamist Palestinian state?’

(…)

‘“What could change the equation was a great act, and without a doubt, it was known that the reaction to this great act would be big,” Mr. al-Hayya said.
But, he added, “We had to tell people that the Palestinian cause would not die.” Some Israeli officials now express deep regret that they so profoundly misjudged Mr. Sinwar and his intentions, one of many security failures that allowed Hamas to pour through the border fence and rampage, largely unimpeded, for hours.
“I will carry the burden of this mistake for the rest of my life,” said one Israeli official.’

(…)

‘Mr. Sinwar helped create the Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s armed wing, which became notorious for dispatching suicide bombers to Israeli cities and firing rockets from Gaza at Israeli towns. He also policed Hamas for suspected spies recruited by Israel, developing a reputation for such brutality toward them that he earned the nickname “the butcher of Khan Younis,” from the Gazan town of his birth.
In 1988, he was detained and later prosecuted for the killing of four Palestinians suspected of collaborating with Israel, according to Israeli court records. He ended up in prison in Israel for more than two decades, an experience he called educational.
“They wanted the prison to be a grave for us. A mill to grind our will, determination and bodies,” he said in 2011. “But, thank God, with our belief in our cause, we turned the prison into sanctuaries of worship and academies for study.” Much of that education was studying his enemy.
He learned Hebrew, giving him a deeper understanding of Israeli society, and he developed a dedication to freeing the thousands of Palestinian prisoners in Israel. Israel has convicted many of them of violent crimes; Palestinians widely consider them to be held unjustly.
In 2011, Mr. Sinwar was released in a prisoner swap that Hamas took as a signature lesson: Israel was willing to pay a high price for its captives.
Hamas traded a single Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, for more than 1,000 Palestinians, including Mr. Sinwar, a prison leader who had been involved in the negotiations. Freeing him was a big prize for Hamas, and he vowed to release more inmates.’

Read the article here.

More successful than expected. The failure of the Israeli intelligence services, of the Israeli military and political establishment is immense, this cannot be stressed enough.
And the repercussions will be severe.

The cause of Hamas, as a revolutionary movement, is permanent war.

Israel and many Western and Arab countries want Hamas to disappear, but in order to free the hostages Israel must talk with Hamas. That’s the dilemma, and it’s strong lifeline for Hamas.

The other question is whether the Palestinian cause is back on the table or rather the cause of American influence in the Middle East. They are slightly connected but they are two different issues.

Also, this cannot be stressed enough, for Iran the Palestinians are pawns and Hamas is merely a knight.

Nobody understands the consequences of October 7 yet.