ere's just no alternative. There's no civil society to take over post-Hamas. Unless Israel had decided to take control of Gaza again – which they clearly had no wish to do – then the return of Hamas after the ceasefire was inevitable. The killings of the Hamas leaders was of symbolic significance, but others will just take their place. The destruction of the tunnels and the Hamas infrastructure? It'll all just get built again.
It's like the Iraq war: the destruction of the Saddam regime was the easy part. Afterwards…nothing…a vacuum which the Iranians were quick to exploit. Syria? There was no possibility of some kind of people's uprising to replace Assad. Civil society had been destroyed. In place of Iran and Russia we now have Turkey and its Islamist proxies calling the shots. Lebanon? Too early to tell, though there are hopeful signs. Maybe there's enough of a civil society left to save the country. Maybe the destruction of Hezbollah is the one positive that emerges from this whole mess. That, and the weakening of Tehran.
Though I suppose, with Trump coming in, matters may change….
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