The death of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar on Wednesday sparked wildly different reactions across the world. While Israel and its allies celebrated the demise of the “mastermind” of the October 7, 2023, attacks, Palestinians, Arabs and others mourned him as a heroic figure.
Correctly assessing Sinwar’s role in the Palestinian struggle and what he and Hamas actually represent in political terms is critical as we seem to draw closer to a devastating regional conflagration.
Over the past year, Israel sought to establish a narrative about Hamas’s leaders as cowardly men hiding in tunnels underground, using Israeli captives as human shields and hoarding food, water and money.
The videos and details of Sinwar’s last moments that surfaced in the media, however, refuted this narrative. Instead, most people in the Middle East saw the Hamas leader as bravely fighting until the end despite suffering from injuries and being surrounded by Israeli forces.
This perception is reflected in the words of deputy chairman of Hamas’s political bureau, Khalil al-Hayya: “[Sinwar] met his end standing brave with his head held high, holding his firearm, firing until the last breath, until the last moment of his life.”
The narrative of a heroic death is bound to solidify Sinwar’s legacy within the Palestinian struggle. As Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs Abbas Araghchi noted: “His fate – beautifully pictured in his last image – is not a deterrent but a source of inspiration for resistance fighters across the region, Palestinian and non-Palestinian.”
By contrast, Israel’s Western allies saw Sinwar’s death as a victory over Hamas that could be exploited to reorder Palestine and the region to Israel’s advantage. United States President Joe........