Opinion | In Gaza, Sinwars Death Alone Wont Secure the Peace

The question now is: Can Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel be pressured to declare victory and end the war in Gaza?Netanyahu now can take the best kind of offramp.He can savor the killing of Yahya Sinwar — a terrorist with so much Israeli and Palestinian blood on his hands — while triumphantly declaring that Israel’s war in Gaza has succeeded.

Then he can try to negotiate a cease-fire that would include the release of hostages and eventual normalization of relations with Saudi Arabia and a path to a two-state solution.American officials keep using the word “opportunity,” and they’re right.As Vice President Kamala Harris put it, “This moment gives us an opportunity to finally end the war in Gaza.”I’m sure Biden wants a historic peace deal, but I’m skeptical about how likely that is, unless there’s significantly greater pressure from the United States.

Sinwar will be replaced, perhaps by someone just as hard-line, and Hamas has already said that fighting will continue — just as the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah did not eliminate Hezbollah or end fighting in Lebanon.Any day we may see an Israeli retaliatory strike against Iran that leads to another strike by Tehran and a military escalation that dampens our current sense of “opportunity.”Israel keeps racking up very significant tactical victories, like Sinwar’s elimination, but they don’t add up to a strategy.We still don’t see from Netanyahu a day-after plan for either Gaza or the West Bank.

Avril Haines, the director of national intelligence in the United States, has warned that the Gaza war may stoke a “generational” threat from terrorism.On past visits to Gaza before the war, I would sometimes have heartbreaking interviews with children who had suffered so much that when I asked what they wanted to be when they grew up, they would reply: martyrs.

Palestinian and Israeli extremism feed each other.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enabl...