When doing the right thing goes tragically awry

Sinwar’s survival led to much death. Will his death do the opposite?

Yuval Bitton holds a poster of his deceased nephew; source: allisraelnews

Dr. Yuval Bitton, an Israeli dentist, was working in the Nafcha Prison in 2004 when an inmate complained to him about neck pain and balance issues. Bitton thought the prisoner was suffering from a stroke, so he and a colleague took him to an Israeli hospital, where the man was diagnosed with a brain abscess and quickly operated on.

The prisoner, Yahya Sinwar, was serving four life sentences for murder after killing at least four Palestinians he believed were collaborators. But, after 22 years in prison, he and more than 1,000 others were released in 2011 in a deal for Hamas to free an Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, after five years as a captive. Sinwar promised to repay Bitton for saving his life.

Sinwar, a psychopath who killed some of his victims with his own hands and was known among Palestinians as the Butcher of Khan Younis, found a perverse way to thank Bitton and Israel. He masterminded the terrorist attacks that killed some 1,200 in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, including Bitton’s 38-year-old nephew, Tamir Adar, and the capture of more than 240 hostages.

Of course, Sinwar now is dead, killed by Israeli soldiers in a gun battle in Rafah in southern Gaza. Does this mark the beginning of the end in at least one of Israel’s battlegrounds?

Source: ABC News

“To the Hamas terrorists I say: your leaders are fleeing, and they will be eliminated,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a televised address. Speaking to Palestinians in Gaza, he added: “Hamas will no longer rule Gaza. This is the beginning of the day after Hamas, and this is an opportunity for you, the residents of Gaza, to finally break free from its tyranny.”

But will Gazans take heed? Will they now turn on the rudderless remnant of Hamas hiding among them? Will Palestinian mothers beg their sons to desert? After tens of thousands have been killed, will the nearly 2 million remaining Gazans find ways to seek peace?

As Israeli soldiers comb through the wreckage that is Gaza, will residents disgusted by Hamas tyranny guide them to the many miles of tunnels where, perhaps, thousands of remaining Hamas terrorists hide? Will Gazans guide Israelis to the places where, perhaps, some hostages from the Oct. 7th attacks still survive? Some 97 remain unaccounted for.

Some Gazans have at least turned gunmen away from schools and other shelter areas, according to The New York Times. “We will quickly kick anyone who has a gun or a rifle out of this school,” said Saleh al-Kafarneh, 62, who lives at another government school in Deir al Balah and said he locked the gates at night. “We don’t allow anyone to ruin life here, or cause any strike against those civilians and families.”

As the newspaper reported, Israel has increased the rate of its airstrikes on schools turned shelters to target what it calls Hamas command-and-control centers. It says militants have “cynically exploited” these sensitive sites, including UN areas, as locations for planning operations.

Source: The Washington Institute for Near East Policy

Embedding its fighters in such areas – and thus spawning killings of civilians in scenes broadcast around the world —  fits Sinwar’s sadomasochistic and sociopathic vision. As The Wall Street Journal reported, the terrorist leader infamously pointed to civilian losses as “necessary sacrifices,” mentioning national-liberation conflicts in places such as Algeria, where hundreds of thousands of people died fighting for independence from France.

In an April 11 letter to the now-dead Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh after three of Haniyeh’s adult sons were killed by an Israeli airstrike, Sinwar wrote that their deaths and those of other Palestinians would “infuse life into the veins of this nation, prompting it to rise to its glory and honor.”

One has only to watch cable news coverage – and read much of global print coverage – to see how Sinwar’s views of turning his people into martyrs has turned Israel into a pariah in many quarters. No doubt, the carnage that has taken so many Gazan lives has cost Israel much of the world’s sympathy, with at least 14 condemnatory votes in the UN last year alone. And demonstrators on lots of college campuses, like useful idiots, have fallen in line behind Sinwar’s lead.

In addition to isolating Israel in much of the world, Sinwar triggered a seven-front war with his invasion of the country. Months ago, Netanyahu listed the battlegrounds as IranHamas in GazaHezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, Shia militants in Iraq, militant groups in Syria as well as Palestinian fighters in the West Bank.

This monstrous figure’s legacy is astonishing. But the bloodshed surely will not end with his death alone. Indeed, Netanyahu made this clear in his address:

“The mass murderer who murdered thousands of Israelis and kidnapped hundreds of our citizens was eliminated today by our heroic soldiers,” he said. “And today, as we promised to do, we came to account with him. Today, evil has suffered a heavy blow, but the task before us is not yet complete.” Netanyahu added that the war “is not over yet.”

Certainly, beheading the snake marks a major turn. It could hasten an end to some of the worst fighting — or so some optimists are arguing.

Source: The Boston Globe

“This moment gives us an opportunity to finally end the war in Gaza, and it must end such that Israel is secure, the hostages are released, the suffering in Gaza ends, and the Palestinian people can realize their right to dignity, security, freedom, and self-determination,” Vice President Kamala Harris said. “And it is time for the day after to begin without Hamas in power.”

Just how long this “opportunity” will take to realize, however, is fraught. Much turns now on how Israel and its neighbors react.

“Sinwar’s elimination could provide the Israeli government with several off-ramps and openings to start to end the war in Gaza,” argues Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, a resident senior fellow with the Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative at the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Programs. “The chaos within Hamas following Sinwar’s death may provide a chance to exploit uncertainties and divisions to expedite the release of the remaining Israeli hostages and the implementation of a general stand-down and demobilization within Hamas.”

Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib, source: The Times of Israel

Alkhatib, who grew up in Gaza City and advocates coexistence, offers a few suggestions:

“Israel, Arab nations, and the United States should now offer mass amnesty for remaining Hamas members who lay down their arms and stop fighting. They should also offer financial rewards to those who either turn in Israeli hostages or provide information leading to the whereabouts of remaining abductees,” he contends. “Israel should make clear its intention to pull out of Gaza and avoid the reoccupation of the Strip in the immediate future. And Gaza should be opened up for Arab, international, and Palestinian Authority figures and professionals to come in and begin stabilizing the war-torn Strip to initiate the ‘day after.’”

But he also raises troubling questions, such as: Who can Israel and Arab nations negotiate with when it comes to Gaza and Hamas’s future role (should there be one)? Who within Hamas in Gaza will control the issue of Israeli hostages, and who could command enough authority to make the group’s rank-and-file members release the hostages? Will Hamas splinter into small, disconnected cells inside Gaza, or can an interim leader emerge to keep the organization together?

For now, Sinwar’s death prompted some scattered celebrations in Israel. “Beachgoers in Tel Aviv erupted in cheers,” The Washington Post reported. “Families of soldiers killed in Gaza posted videos of themselves dancing with pictures of their lost relatives. Flag-waving celebrants filled a traffic circle in Carmel.”

But no real celebration can emerge until surviving hostages come home and the fighting ends. Most Israelis crave nothing more than peace and the lengths they go to to save lives are extraordinary at times — both of their countrymen (see Shalit) and of others.

Bitton, the dentist most responsible for saving Sinwar, has said he doesn’t regret saving the former prisoner, even if his death years ago may have spared Israel of so much agony since. Part of that has to do with the obligations every doctor has to save lives, he said.

“Second, these are our values both as Jews and Israelis. We aren’t taught to hate our enemies,” Bitton said. “We don’t desire vengeance. We know the righteousness of our path, why we are here and what we need to do in order to survive.”

He harked back to a visit to Israel by Egyptian President Anwar Sadat in 1979.

“I was a 13-year-old boy,” Bitton said. “I stood by the side of the road waving the Israeli and Egyptian flags together with my entire school. We cheered the person who up until then had been our greatest enemy. This was the man who had said that he was ready to sacrifice a million Egyptian soldiers to destroy Israel. But when he spoke to us in the language of peace, we responded in kind.”

Over several years, Bitton spent hundreds of hours talking with Sinwar. The terrorist used his time in prison to study Israel in depth, often taking courses in areas such as history through an open-studies program. The conversations gave Bitton exceptional insights into the thinking in terrorist groups.

In 2007, Bitton joined the prison service’s intelligence branch.

“I became the intelligence officer of Ketziot Prison, where 3,000 terrorists were being held. The entirety of the Hamas leadership in Yehudah and Shomron was in Ketziot at the time,” Bitton said. “After that, I had a number of other positions including as head of the terror department. I was responsible for the intelligence that was collected from the 12,000 security prisoners in the system. “

In 2015, he was promoted to head the entire intelligence division, a position he held for four and a half years. He left the service in 2022.

 “So, although we don’t hate our enemies, we also know who they are and what they are capable of,” Bitton said.

Sinwar, of course, was capable of astonishing savagery as well as indifference to the sufferings of his own people. He was part of a culture of martydom that has long hobbled Palestinian efforts toward coexistence.

Tragically, Sinwar’s life made an enormous and awful difference. Surely, his death will have a substantial impact. But until and unless his culture’s glorification of death is shattered, his horrific legacy will live on.

About those city resolutions and university administrator statements …

Should mayors, city councils and school chancellors take stances on the war in Gaza?

We are lucky to live high in the mountains of Colorado, a bit over an hour’s drive to Denver, just over three hours flight time to Washington, D.C., and about 14 and a half hours to Jerusalem by plane. Despite the distance, serious issues in these places – matters such as the Israel-Hamas war that trouble people in those cities — trouble us. We care a lot.

But should our local officials take a stand on that war, casting votes that suggest that their views represent the views of most of us? And, beyond sending a message – one way or another– to Washington, D.C., do resolutions at their meetings do anything beyond making proponents feel good? Are they anything more than empty gestures?

In many places around the country, pro-Palestinian organizations have called on local government leaders to back their demand for a ceasefire in Gaza, winning support in at least 48 cities, including Chicago, Detroit, Atlanta and Seattle. By contrast, leaders in at least 20 communities have passed resolutions condemning the Hamas atrocities of Oct. 7th, with a handful more calling more broadly for peace.

Recently, the Denver City Council hosted a heated debate about a proposal to issue a proclamation calling for a ceasefire. Hours of public testimony were logged as citizens loudly made their voices heard. The mid-February proposal failed by an 8-4 vote.

A few days later, the council in Boulder shot down a similar proposal, with only two of the nine members urging it to be put forward. Both councils parted company on the matter with folks in Glenwood Springs, whose council members some days earlier unanimously endorsed a call for a ceasefire, becoming the first city in Colorado to do so.

Now, in today’s local paper, the Summit Daily News, a letter-writer called on officials in our neighborhood to press for a ceasefire. “Ending the killing should be a no-brainer,” writer Birrion Sondahl argued. “The least we can do in Summit County is call for an end to the killing.”

But is international policy and the conduct of other nations – even the actions of officials in Washington, D.C. — really within the purview of people elected to deal with issues such as local development, homelessness, municipal finances and even the proverbial potholes?

Source: Rocky Mountain Peace and Justice Center

As Aaron Brockett, mayor of most-progressive Boulder, argued, don’t councils have enough on their plates already?

“We have so many huge problems right here in our town of Boulder, Colorado, dozens of people living out on our streets, people dying in traffic violence on a regular basis,” Brockett said, as reported by the Boulder Reporting Lab. There are “any number of major local problems and issues where the nine of us can have a very direct and immediate impact. And I feel that that is what we need to focus on as a council.”

Another council member, Matt Benjamin, concurred. “As Mayor Brockett pointed out, we have people dying right now in this community,” Benjamin said. “A lot of them,” he added, before referencing the homeless and formerly homeless people who died in Boulder County last year.

In their stances, the Boulderites agreed with editorialists at The Denver Post, who lambasted the failed local proclamation and others like it. They argued: “All of these resolutions and proclamations are misguided wastes of precious time that would be better spent on the business these legislative bodies can actually change.”Further, the Post writers noted that the war in Gaza has split local residents, saying debating such a proclamation “only deepened those divisions.” They added: “All of this would be worth the public pain and the precious time of our elected officials if it were going to do more good than harm, but this drop in the bucket will neither convince Hamas to release the remaining hostages nor soften Israel’s stance on bombings that have killed thousands of Palestinians.”

Chicagoans demand a ceasefire, source: Scott Olson/Getty Images via Prism

Just how divided are we? In Chicago, the city council vote in January on a resolution calling for a ceasefire was split 23-23 when Mayor Brandon Johnson cast the tie-breaking vote in favor of what Politico oddly called a “nonbinding resolution.” Indeed, who could be bound by it? The status of the resolution shows how impotent and pointless it is.

Such resolutions are reminiscent of the stances leaders of many universities took in the fall, with many condemning Hamas for its atrocities. As The Washington Post reported, Rabbi Ari Berman, president of Yeshiva University in New York, argued that college presidents have a moral obligation to speak out. He circulated a statement about the war, headlined “We stand together with Israel against Hamas.” The statement also expressed solidarity “with the Palestinians who suffer under Hamas’ cruel rule in Gaza and with all people of moral conscience.”

I quite agree with the rabbi’s view of Hamas, a loathsome and murderous organization that needs to be stamped out, and it’s entirely reasonable for the leader of a Jewish university to take such a stance. I applaud him for doing so and I echo his views. Indeed, condemning terrorism is truly a no-brainer (though the Summit Daily News letter-writer pointedly didn’t do so).

But do leaders of public universities or private schools with no religious or community affiliation have such an obligation to offer condemnations (much as they may rightly feel the need to speak out against wanton murder)? Do their comments – one way or the other – do anything beyond alienating some members of their faculty and some students?

It’s one thing for faculty members to write open letters, perhaps differing with other faculty members. Indeed, as teachers and opinion-shapers on their campuses, faculty members should take stances. But it’s another thing for administrators to jump into the fray, pretending to speak for all their university constituents.

New York Times opinion writer Pamela Paul recently cited comments that Diego Zambrano, a professor at Stanford Law School, made at a conference on civil discourse at the California school. “What, he asked, are the benefits of a university taking a position? If it’s to make the students feel good, he said, those feelings are fleeting, and perhaps not even the university’s job. If it’s to change the outcome of political events, even the most self-regarding institutions don’t imagine they will have any impact on a war halfway across the planet. The benefits, he argued, were nonexistent.”

All that such statements do is “fuel the most intemperate speech while chilling moderate and dissenting voices,” Paul wrote in paraphrasing Zambrano. Moreover, “In a world constantly riled up over politics, the task of formally opining on issues would be endless.”

Such statements, she noted “ask university administrators, who are not hired for their moral compasses, to address in a single email thorny subjects that scholars at their own institutions spend years studying. (Some university presidents, such as Michael Schill of Northwestern, have rightly balked.) Inevitably, staking any position weakens the public’s perception of the university as independent.”

Northwestern University President Michael Schill, source: The Daily Northwestern

In October, Schill actually condemned the “abhorrent and horrific actions of Hamas,” saying they were “clearly antithetical to Northwestern’s values — as well as my own,” according to The Daily Northwestern. “Whatever we might feel about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, our shared humanity should lead us all to condemn these barbaric acts.” But he also maintained that in attending a vigil organized by Jewish students to mourn lives lost in the war, he did so as an individual, not on behalf of the University.

In public universities, administrators who take stances on polarizing matters – whether dealing with politics or social issues – could jeopardize their jobs and school funding.

To be sure, it sometimes is necessary and relevant for them to take stances and it takes courage to do so: at the university where I taught for 14 years, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, former Gov. Pete Ricketts and few legislators drove out a superb chancellor, Ronnie D. Green, because of his support of diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. Even so, budget cuts followed, as conservative legislators sought to punish academics there whom they see as too liberal.

As budgets were slashed, Rodney Bennett, who succeeded Green, bowed to the will of his political overseers, moving to cut $800,000 from the school’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion and Office of Academic Success and Intercultural Services, against the will of many on the faculty. Conservative politicians in many states have similarly pressured school officials to quash efforts at expanding diversity, equity and inclusion, a bête noire of the right.

We’re all entitled to our views on such campus affairs, as well as local, national and international matters – and those views will differ. So can the Summit County Board of Commissioners reflect my views on Gaza along with those of the county’s other 31,000 or so residents? And should it try to? I suspect it would fail miserably, and we are awash in plenty of issues it would be better off attending to. Leave global policy issues to those who can make a difference on them and let us each have our own takes on such matters.