Sheket was the dream: pay Hamas enough and they might choose prosperity over pogroms. The suitcases rolled in. October 7 rolled out. Having awakened from that particular slumber, Israel is now politely asked to watch Washington cut the same deal with a bloodied Iran. Old illusions, new luggage.

For years, Israeli governments stuck with this strategy. Quiet was the national craving. If only the right amount of Qatari cash could be funneled to Hamas, the thinking went, the rockets might fall silent and the ideology of annihilation might soften into something manageable. The suitcases arrived monthly from 2018: $15 million at a time, negotiated with Israeli approval, delivered in theatrical bundles. Prosperity would tame the beast. Or so the illusion ran.

The illusion died screaming on October 7, 2023. Hamas, fattened on those very funds and the taxation rackets they enabled, unleashed the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust. The group had not been domesticated; it had been subsidized. The funds, far from purchasing moderation, sustained tunnels, rockets, and an apparatus built for one purpose.

Then something remarkable happened. Israel woke up.

The old strategy of managed calm was retired with brutal clarity. In Gaza, the IDF dismantled Hamas as an organization, killed thousands of its fighters including much of its senior military leadership, and carved out buffer zones that made another October 7-style breach far harder. Hezbollah, Iran’s most potent proxy, was brought to its knees. The pager operation, Israel’s masterpiece of supply-chain subversion, maimed and killed hundreds of........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)