Hamas won first round of fighting against ‘Israel’: ex-diplomat

The former British ambassador to the Israeli occupation entity, Tom Phillips, considered that the Palestinian Resistance group Hamas had already won the first round of the fighting with “Israel”.

In an opinion piece published in the Israeli news website Haaretz, Phillips said that Hamas “flipped the script of a militarily invincible Israel and exposed the fragility of its international support, prompting hard questions about its long-term sustainability.”

On the military level, he suggested that the ongoing Israeli war on Gaza may ultimately eliminate Hamas’ military leadership there, but said that it can be argued that the Palestinian group has already won the first round of the conflict.

Phillips said that Hamas’ objectives behind Operation al-Aqsa Flood on October 7 remain unclear, but its minimum goal is presumed to be releasing the largest possible number of Palestinians detained in Israeli prisons and reaffirming itself as a force not to be underestimated.

On both fronts, Hamas has already succeeded, he indicated.

The former British diplomat believed that “Hamas has also already demonstrated that it is a force to be reckoned with,” merely by surviving the Israeli attacks for a longer period than any war “Israel” has ever waged.

In doing so, according to Phillips, the Palestinian Resistance group has “thoroughly dented Israel’s much vaunted deterrent status,” adding that the Israeli occupation military “no longer looks invincible.”

On the regional level, Phillips noted that Hamas has created, at least for the time being, an effective barrier to Saudi-Israeli normalization, raising the price that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman must feel compelled to impose on “Israel” for such a deal to happen.

At least for now, no state in the region is interested in signing normalization accords or anything similar, he added.

Internationally, Phillips continues, and despite the Biden administration’s careful balancing act of supporting “Israel” while facing domestic, regional, and international pressures to end the Israeli war, the crisis has shown the United States’ diminished ability to wield its power.

Additionally, the war on Gaza exerted pressure on US-Israeli relations and created a wave of countries now actively considering whether it is time to recognize a Palestinian state, exposing the fragility of European support for “Israel”, the former British ambassador pointed out.

Phillips concluded his opinion piece in Haaretz by suggesting that the astonishing speed with which “legitimacy” was stripped from “Israel” after October 7 can be seen by many in the world as additional evidence of Hamas’ “victory.”