The famous leader of the Palestinian freedom struggle has cornered Netanyahu

By Iqbal Jassat

Corrupt war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu is facing the biggest nightmare of his political career. He is constantly reminded of how Yahya Sinwar was released on October 18, 2011 along with over a thousand Palestinian prisoners in exchange for Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit.

Shalit was captured in a daring raid by Hamas resistance fighters on his military base in the occupied territories. After lengthy negotiations in which Hamas gained the upper hand, Netanyahu relented and signed the deal, which his partners considered “one-sided.”

In a cruel twist of irony, Sinwar, who was sentenced to four life terms and spent 22 years behind bars, is now the head of Hamas and leads the resistance to Netanyahu's genocide in the Gaza Strip.

And as fate would have it, Netanyahu faces great embarrassment and disgrace, knowing that his sworn enemy, whom he actually wanted to eliminate, is on the other side of the current ceasefire negotiations and is in full control of the Hamas narrative, the just and legitimate narrative.

An Israeli journalist underlined Netanyahu's shame and obvious humiliation, saying Netanyahu would have had fewer problems with an agreement if Sinwar “was not still on the run in the Gaza underworld.”

In other words, after ten horrific months of relentless cruelty that cost over 40,000 Palestinian lives – mostly women, children and the elderly – Netanyahu and his criminal gang of warlords have failed miserably to achieve their political or military goals, apart from the destruction of the civilian population and the entire Gaza Strip.

This is truly a PR disaster for the settler-colonial apartheid regime, as it has been completely exposed that the decades-long investment in profiling its image as a “caring nation” with the “most moral army in the world” has been victorious.

The much-vaunted “total victory” achieved through the “defeat of Hamas” and the “liberation of the hostages” was an unrealistic and unattainable military goal, as the resilience of the resistance led by Sinwar proves.

Far from being wrongly portrayed as a “monster” by Israeli “Hasbarists” (propagandists), Sinwar enjoys the status of an iconic revolutionary leader among the Arab masses and many social justice activists around the world.

David Remnick, editor of the New Yorker, wrote in a commentary on Sinwar's life that he viewed Israeli prisons as an “academy,” a place to learn the language, psychology and history of the enemy.

He added that Sinwar, like many other “security prisoners,” spoke fluent Hebrew and consumed Israeli newspapers and radio programs, as well as books about Zionist theorists, politicians and intelligence chiefs.

Despite the long period of imprisonment, he prepared for his release and the resumption of armed resistance against the Zionist occupation.

Sinwar was born in 1962 and grew up in a large family in the Khan Younis refugee camp in the south of the Gaza Strip.

Just as Nelson Mandela's biography was written in secret during his imprisonment on Robben Island and the hidden pages were smuggled out, Sinwar's life in the fight against Zionism is found in an autobiographical novel that he wrote in 2004 while still in prison. It is entitled “Al-Shawk wa'l Qurunful“ (translated as “The Thorn and the Carnation”).

The preface states that his fellow prisoners “worked like ants” to smuggle his manuscript out and “bring it to light.”

As is common among hypocritical corporations fearing blackmail as “anti-Semitic,” Sinwar’s highly sought-after novel has been withdrawn from bookstores in English translation.

In his detailed article, Remnick pointed out that Amazon had the English version on offer until last December, but then removed it after “several pro-Israel groups took offense and warned Jeff Bezos that selling this version could violate British and US anti-terrorism laws…”

Operation Storm Al-Aqsa is considered the most devastating attack on the Zionist entity since the 1967 war. It not only deeply shocked the occupiers and forced thousands upon thousands to flee, but also aroused worldwide solidarity for the Palestinian freedom struggle in an unprecedented way.

Hamas “remains steadfast on the battlefield and in politics,” Osama Hamdan, the group's spokesman, was recently quoted as saying. “The person who takes the lead today is the one who led the fighting for more than 305 days and who is still steadfast in the field.”

Iqbal Jassat is a board member of the Media Review Network, Johannesburg, South Africa.

(The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of Press TV.)