Plus, are the polls showing another false red wave?
I’m Isaac Saul, and this is Tangle: an independent, nonpartisan, subscriber-supported politics newsletter that summarizes the best arguments from across the political spectrum on the news of the day — then “my take.”
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Today's read: 13 minutes.
My predictions.
On Friday, I shared my predictions for the 2024 election: Who would win the presidential race, who would win which states, how the Senate and House races would play out, and what else we can expect leading up to and after Election Day. It’s a members-only post, but you can read it here.
Quick hits.
- The United States is investigating a leak of classified documents assessing an Israeli plan to attack Iran posted on the messaging app Telegram. (The investigation)
- Seven people were killed and six were critically injured after a ferry dock partially collapsed in Sapelo Island, Georgia, during a cultural festival. (The incident) Separately, Cuba’s power grid collapsed twice over the weekend, leaving over 10 million people without power. (The blackout)
- An Israeli airstrike on the town of Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza killed 87 people, according to the Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry. Israel said it is investigating reports on the strike, which it says hit a Hamas target. (The strike) Separately, Israel said a drone targeted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's house on Saturday. No one was injured, and Hezbollah is suspected of being behind the attack, though it has not claimed responsibility. (The latest)
- Boeing machinists will vote on a new contract proposal on Wednesday that could end the union’s prolonged strike. The new proposal includes 35% wage increases over four years. (The proposal)
- Elon Musk said he plans to award $1 million a day until the election to a randomly selected registered voter in a swing state who has signed his petition pledging to uphold the rights to free speech and to bear arms. (The prize)
Today's topic.
Yahya Sinwar’s death. On Thursday, the Israeli military announced it had killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in an operation in southern Gaza the day prior. Sinwar was one of the primary architects of Hamas’s Oct. 7 attack on Israel and was believed to have been hiding in Gaza’s tunnel system since the attack. Despite Sinwar’s death, both sides have resisted engaging in renewed ceasefire talks.
Back up: Sinwar, whose family was forced from a town north of Gaza in 1948, was born in a refugee camp in 1962 in Khan Younis, Gaza, and joined Hamas’s military wing when the group was founded in 1987. Two years later, he was sentenced to multiple life terms in Israeli prison after being convicted of killing four Palestinians suspected of spying on Hamas for Israel and coordinating the abduction and killing of two Israeli soldiers. After being treated by Israeli doctors for brain cancer, he was released in a 2011 prisoner exchange and returned to Gaza, becoming Hamas’s leader in Gaza in 2017. Sinwar, designated as a terrorist by the United States, was reportedly motivated to plan the Oct. 7 attack in part by a desire to disrupt efforts to normalize relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia.
What happened: On Wednesday, an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) unit encountered a group of Hamas militants during a routine patrol in the southern Gaza Strip. After exchanging fire with the militants and destroying part of the building where they had taken cover, the IDF soldiers recovered a body that bore a resemblance to Sinwar. Dental records, fingerprints, and DNA testing later confirmed his identity, and the autopsy showed Sinwar was killed by a gunshot to the head. The nature of the encounter that led to Sinwar’s death surprised many in the Israeli military, who believed he was hiding underground in Gaza. Israeli officials also said the encounter was coincidental and not directed by intelligence.
President Joe Biden called Sinwar’s death an “opportunity for a ‘day after’ in Gaza without Hamas in power, and for a political settlement that provides a better future for Israelis and Palestinians alike.” Biden also said “Hamas is no longer capable of carrying out another October 7.”
Despite renewed optimism from some Western leaders about a ceasefire deal, the two sides remain at an impasse. On Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that while Sinwar’s death achieved a top military priority, “our war is not yet ended.” Netanyahu added that the war could end “tomorrow” if Hamas lays down its arms and returns the hostages taken on Oct. 7. Meanwhile, Hamas deputy chairman Khalil al-Hayya praised Sinwar for his leadership of the group and vowed to fight in Gaza until Israeli forces withdraw. Hamas has not named Sinwar’s successor, but al-Hayya is viewed as a leading candidate.
Today, we’ll share perspectives from the right, left, and Middle Eastern writers about the impact of Sinwar’s death on the war. Then, my take.
What the right is saying.
- The right views Sinwar’s death as a major victory for Israel that validates their strategy in the war.
- Some say his death shows Hamas is in disarray.
National Review’s editors called Sinwar’s death “justice in Gaza.”
“The killing of Sinwar is a major victory for Israel, both operationally and symbolically. As long as Sinwar was alive and defiantly leading Hamas, it was difficult for Israel to view its costly war in Gaza as a success,” the editors wrote. “His death follows a string of major successes by Israel — the killing of Hamas’s political leader Ismail Haniyeh, of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, and of dozens of other high-ranking leaders of both terrorist groups. Coupled with the overall campaign, Israel has dealt a significant blow to the proxies of Iran as it contemplates retaliatory steps against Iran itself.
“The news also serves as a severe indictment of the judgment of President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris, who spent months warning Israel against an invasion of Rafah, where Sinwar was killed,” the editors said. “While the usual suspects are now using Sinwar’s death as yet another way to pressure Israel into immediately ending the war, the job in Gaza will not be done as long as the roughly 100 hostages (both alive and dead) remain in captivity and Hamas is still in control of the territory and in a position to rebuild.”
In Newsweek, John Spencer wrote about “what Yayha Sinwar's death revealed about Hamas's waning capabilities.”
“Like the death of Osama bin Laden 10 years after 9-11, Sinwar's death gives strategic closure to many people in Israel; Sinwar was the mastermind and commander of the deadliest massacre against Jews since the Holocaust, and the atrocities of October 7 caused deep psychological trauma for Jews, along with a loss of personal security that will be felt for a long time,” Spencer said. “But there's also poetic justice in the facts surrounding who killed Sinwar, when, and where. Sinwar was not killed by Israeli Special Forces acting on information collected by their elite intelligence organizations. He was killed by regular Israeli soldiers with tanks from the IDF's Gaza division.”
“The details of Sinwar's death also tell us a lot about the state of Hamas. Much like when U.S. forces discovered Saddam Hussein cowering in a hole, the myth about Sinwar has been busted. He was not found looking defiant and capable, surrounded by an elite bodyguard force in one of the luxury bunkers discovered in areas of Gaza like Khan Yunis. Sinwar was killed looking desperate, dirty, and disheveled, living in fear,” Spencer wrote. “This could be the beginning of the end, though there is still a lot that must happen. If Hamas refuses to let the remaining 101 hostages go, the war will continue. If Hamas still has the guns and coercive power to include primary control of humanitarian aid distribution in Gaza, the war will continue. If Hamas believes they can survive as a political or military power in Gaza the war will continue.”
What the left is saying.
- The left hopes Sinwar’s death can bring about an end to the war in Gaza.
- Some say his death is unlikely to change the war's trajectory given the leaders' motivations on each side.
In The New York Times, Matthew Duss said “Sinwar’s death can end this war.”
“While Mr. Sinwar was far from alone in resisting an agreement — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel has repeatedly and openly undermined cease-fire efforts for months — his death can and must create new momentum to end this catastrophic and steadily widening war,” Duss wrote. “A majority of Hamas’s senior leadership now resides outside of Gaza, mostly in Doha, Qatar, making it potentially easier to strike a deal. But for such a deal to be durable, it would need to really end the war, not simply start a new chapter of an Israeli military presence in Gaza.
“If Mr. Sinwar truly was the obstacle to a cease-fire agreement that U.S. officials — including President Biden — have claimed, that obstacle is now gone. The United States and its partners have a window to halt the downward spiral to regional conflagration. The Biden administration must press the Netanyahu government and remaining Hamas officials to end the war in Gaza, return hostages to their families, surge humanitarian aid into the territory and urgently take other steps to ensure that Gazans have adequate shelter, supplies and security as winter approaches.”
In The Atlantic, Hussein Ibish wrote “Sinwar’s death changes nothing.”
Sinwar’s death “offers a golden opportunity for Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to declare victory and begin pulling troops out of Gaza. But that is not going to happen. Most likely, nothing will change, because neither Netanyahu nor Hamas wants it to,” Ibish said. “Netanyahu’s calculation is no mystery. Should he leave political office, he faces a criminal-corruption trial and a probable inquiry into the security meltdown on October 7. He has apparently concluded that the best way to stay out of prison is to stay in power, and the best way to stay in power is to keep the war going.”
“Hamas, for its part, seems to think it can hold out in the short term, and gain in the long term. An insurgency requires little sophistication by way of organizational structure or weaponry—only automatic rifles, crude IEDs, and fighters who are prepared to die,” Ibish wrote. “The Hamas insurgency was gaining momentum before Sinwar’s death, and Israel was poised to impose a draconian siege on northern Gaza in response. Nothing suggests that Israeli leaders are closer to recognizing what a counterinsurgency campaign will really entail—and that such efforts tend to become quagmires, because they don’t usually yield a decisive victory, and withdrawing without one will look like capitulation, whether it happens now or in several years.”
What writers in the Middle East are saying.
- Israeli writers praise the IDF for its success in eliminating Hamas’s leadership but say now is the time to secure a deal to bring the hostages home.
- Writers in the Arab world say Sinwar’s death will galvanize Hamas in the long run.
The Jerusalem Post editorial board said “the 'day after' the Israel-Hamas war is now.”
“Putting aside, for now, the question of how to react to the fall of our enemies, Israel, and its leadership are faced with an even bigger, more pressing question: What to do next? What is the day-after plan,” the board wrote. “This is a golden opportunity to use the pressure of the leadership vacuum in Gaza to secure a deal. But, it will have to include a diplomatic solution… Israel must use this opportunity to establish a stable governing force in Gaza, whether that’s Palestinian-led, backed by moderate Arab allies, or both. This kind of forward-looking approach must be part of the conversation.”
“In May, when the IDF began its invasion of Rafah, the resistance was massive. Yet it was where Sinwar was killed and what IDF chief spokesman R.-Adm. Daniel Hagari said Saturday night was the defense establishment’s prediction, that he was wandering between Khan Yunis and Rafah to survive,” the board said. “The IDF must be able to do what it needs. It knows what it is doing and is doing so methodically. Everyone opposed the invasion back then, but it brought results. Now is the time to push the diplomatic pedal; military might won’t be enough, it never is.”
In Middle East Eye, Azzam Tamimi wrote “Yahya Sinwar died fighting Israel. His death will not defeat Hamas.”
“Although the killing of Sinwar will be seen as another major blow to Hamas, it is highly unlikely that it will affect its long-term strategy. Israel succeeded many times before in almost decapitating the movement. Yet, it has not managed to weaken its resolve, let alone crush it,” Tamimi said. “The resilience of the movement derives from two factors. First, Hamas stands for an idea, and the idea is that the Palestinians once had a homeland that was taken away from them to make way for the creation of a Jewish homeland deemed a century ago to be the perfect solution to Europe’s Jewish problem.”
“The second factor is that Hamas is an institutional movement with an elected leadership. It has no personality cult, and leaders who perish are immediately and smoothly replaced,” Tamimi added. “Finally, despite the loss, martyrdom has always been a powerful recruitment tool. In Palestinian — as in the Islamic — culture, martyrdom is not a loss but a gain. Sinwar, like all his predecessors who were assassinated by Israel, will be celebrated by many people as a great martyr who perished fighting invaders.”
My take.
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- Sinwar’s death, and the death of other Hamas and Hezbollah leaders, is the best argument that Israel's war is a success.
- He was an obvious impediment to any possibility of peace, and the future for Palestinians and Israelis should be better without him.
- Still, the pessimistic voice in my head says the same history is being repeated over and over, with and only more violence to come.
Since March, I've been making the argument for a ceasefire in Gaza. I've shared the best arguments that I was wrong, the realities on the ground we need to grapple with, and your responses to those pieces.
So I’ll start by acknowledging the elephant in the room: If Israel's war cabinet had done what I suggested, they probably wouldn’t have killed Yahya Sinwar, Ismail Haniyeh, Hassan Nasrallah, or Mohammed Deif (if Deif has actually been killed — Hamas is still not confirming Deif’s death).
I think a lot of people who disagreed with me would argue that these deaths are the crowning achievements of Israel's war, and show precisely why I was wrong to advocate for a ceasefire. Sinwar wasn't loathed and feared just by Israelis, but by many Palestinians, too. He earned the name "Butcher of Khan Younis" for killing Palestinians he believed were collaborating with Israel, and it is likely he only became a "leader" in Hamas by killing his internal opposition.
It was an odd thing to see some American leftists on X idolizing Sinwar’s "iconic" death while simultaneously seeing Palestinians quoted in Israeli or U.S. newspapers celebrating the fact he was gone. Saying Sinwar was an "impediment to peace" would be like saying Vladimir Putin is not an ally of Ukraine. Sinwar knowingly and willfully invited violence upon the Palestinian people, and for most of the last year avoided that violence himself.
“He humiliated us, started the war, scattered us and made us displaced, without water, food or money,” one Palestinian told The New York Times. “He is the one who made Israel do this.”
"They controlled everything, Sinwar especially," another told Haaretz. "There are people in Gaza who are glad that he died and hope that the war will end and that this will be the end of Hamas in Gaza."
These perspectives are not hard to find in Gaza, on social media, or in the Arabic-speaking world. But, of course, they in no way represent all of Gaza — or even the majority of Gazans. Many Palestinians idolize Sinwar as a brave freedom fighter. What his death represents and what it means will only truly be understood with more time.
An optimistic way to look at Sinwar’s death is that Hamas's leadership has been effectively decapitated. Israel is winning the war in the traditional sense that wars are won; they are killing the enemy's leadership and exercising enough force across Gaza and the region that their enemies’ military capabilities will take years to rebuild. This is the clearest and most straightforward argument that the war was and remains worth the immense cost, and could open the door to a new era. Perhaps, with Sinwar gone and Hamas debilitated, whatever future is left for Palestinians in Gaza can begin to come to fruition — and Israel can participate in the process knowing it is safer than it was a year ago.
The pessimistic way to look at his death is a view that, unsurprisingly, more closely represents my own: This cycle is not new; Israel has assassinated so many Hamas leaders that it's hard to keep count. New leaders replace the old ones, and the organization lives on. In the past, these killings were not part of a full-court press to topple Hamas as an organization, so one could argue that this time might be different — but there’s no reason to believe the current power vacuum will not also be filled. Just look at how quickly the brief glimmer of hope that Sinwar’s death could lead to a final hostage deal and the end of the war faded with both sides promising to fight on and speculation about Sinwar’s replacement quickly spreading.
A few readers wrote to me to ask if I would "give Netanyahu credit" for this. My answer, unambiguously, is of course not.
Netanyahu is the same leader who released Sinwar from prison. Netanyahu encouraged Qatar to fund Hamas, emboldening and sustaining the organization. Netanyahu trusted Sinwar, he helped Hamas become what it is today, and he helped it secure its power in the Gaza Strip. He apparently underestimated Sinwar so much (or was so distracted by his own legal troubles) that October 7 happened in the first place. Netanyahu has failed to get the hostages home. The IDF was only able to kill Sinwar after a year of devastating, blunt-force violence across the entire Gaza strip, and now it appears to be settling in for a long-term insurgency. The hostages are still hostages and the war rages on, having spread to seven fronts (as Netanyahu himself says).
Even now, with all the talk of how much Sinwar’s death will "deter" future attacks on Israel, the latest from the ground is that Hezbollah is sending drones to Netanyahu's home while we all wait for another expected Israeli attack on Iran. Times are as dangerous and unsettled as they ever have been — with or without Sinwar.
So, no, I don't "give him credit" for killing a leader he supported in order to topple an organization that his policies helped embolden. I credit Netanyahu with a failed strategy to fund Hamas, a massive national security failure that allowed October 7, and the failures of war and diplomacy that have put Israel in the position it is in now.
Obviously, I acknowledge that Sinwar’s death is a positive development for the long-term future of this conflict. His death should not be valorized. He is not a martyr for any great cause; he is a failed, corrupt, maniacal leader who brought untold horror to the Gazan people and Palestinians writ large, who set any potential peace process back for generations, and who invited this war against Palestinians because he didn't want Israel to step into the future as allies of Saudi Arabia and other Arab nations. He was willing to sacrifice his people's lives for that.
Sinwar’s death creates a possible path towards peace, but only if it’s seized — not just by Israel, but by the remaining leaders of Hamas. Using this moment to release the remaining hostages (or their bodies) and lay down their arms is the only way to take that path.
Yet, we have no signs that Hamas will move first, which means the ball is once again in Israel's court (and the United States's). Another door has opened to end the war and begin whatever comes after this — generations of reconciliation, rebuilding Gaza, and advancing diplomacy across the region and the Arab world. It's unclear to me how many more opportunities we'll get, but I suspect there won’t be many.
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Your questions, answered.
Q: Are the polls showing a false red wave like they did in 2022?
— Nate from California
Tangle: Well, for starters, I don’t think any polls are showing a red wave; at best, they are showing a very close election with a slight Republican advantage. This is different from 2022.
Last month, we published a Friday edition about how to read polls — how to look into crosstabs, what kind of context and information voters react to, and how polls are constructed. One of the things we got into was the difference between polling and forecasting. Simply put, polls can at best show an accurate sample of the electorate in their area; what they can’t do is predict who will show up on Election Day. Of course, every pollster wants their polling results to reflect the electorate’s decisions, but it’s really really hard to construct a sample of people that accurately represents the electorate.
That’s where forecasters come in. Places like Pew survey a sample of voters and put out their results, and then election forecasters all analyze them and add election fundamentals and historical trends — including recent history — to make predictions. So when you see polls that show Republicans gaining advantages in swing states and think about the 2022 midterm where Democrats beat polling expectations, forecasters are thinking the same thing.
And what are the forecasters saying? Nate Silver forecasts a 53% chance of Trump winning. FiveThirtyEight forecasts a 53% chance of Trump winning. I’m not a professional forecaster, but I predicted a narrow Trump victory based on what we know today.
But that doesn’t mean all forecasters are making the same interpretation. Legendary election forecaster Allan Lichtman thinks Harris will win. Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg (who accurately predicted the 2022 midterms) thinks the polling averages are skewed, and Logan Phillips (another successful and knowledgeable forecaster) gives Harris a 50.5% chance.
I’ll end with how I started: The polls this year don’t show the same Republican advantage as they did in 2022. The election is extremely close — both at the presidential level and in key House and Senate races — with a slight advantage for Republicans.
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Under the radar.
Last week, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced a new rule aimed at helping consumers cancel unwanted subscriptions. The “click to cancel” rule will require companies to make canceling a subscription or service as easy as signing up for one, as well as mandating that sellers provide important information to consumers before obtaining their billing information and charging them. For example, any online subscription sign-up must be cancellable with a single click, while an in-person sign-up must be cancellable either online or by phone. "Too often, businesses make people jump through endless hoops just to cancel a subscription. The FTC's rule will end these tricks and traps," FTC chair Lina Khan said. Axios has the story.
Numbers.
- 22. The number of years Yayha Sinwar spent in Israeli prison before his release in a 2011 prisoner swap.
- 70%. The percentage of Palestinians in the West Bank who said they were satisfied with Sinwar’s performance managing the war in Gaza, according to a September 2024 poll by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research.
- 76%. The percentage of Palestinians in the West Bank who said they were satisfied with Sinwar’s performance in June 2024.
- 29%. The percentage of Palestinians in Gaza who said they were satisfied with Sinwar’s performance in September 2024.
- 50%. The percentage of Palestinians in Gaza who said they were satisfied with Sinwar’s performance in June 2024.
- 9. The number of Hamas leaders believed to have been killed by Israel in the past year (including Sinwar).
- 101. The number of hostages being held in Gaza, including four people taken hostage in 2014 and 2015, according to Israeli estimates.
The extras.
- One year ago today we had just written about the explosion at a Gaza hospital.
- The most clicked link in Thursday’s newsletter was the coverage of Kamala Harris’s Fox News interview.
- Nothing to do with politics: The top-trending Halloween costumes for 2024.
- Thursday’s survey: 373 readers responded to our survey asking where Republican candidates would win in several key Senate races with 85% saying Rick Scott would retain his seat in Florida. “I live in Florida. While the GOP candidates at all levels leave much to be desired, the Dems can't seem to find anybody who is any better,” one respondent said.
Have a nice day.
About 660,000 new cases of cervical cancer are reported in women globally each year, according to the World Health Organization. A recent study led by the University College London looked to see if a short course of induction chemotherapy prior to chemoradiation could prove more effective than other treatment methods. The study, as measured by a trial of 500 women, resulted in a 40% reduction in the risk of death. “I’ve been cancer-free for over nine years now,” said Abbie Halls, one woman who received the treatment, “I hope [this research] is going to save the lives of many more women in years to come.” The Guardian has the story.
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