The war has lasted a month. Far longer than the Six Day or the Yom Kippur wars that made modern Middle Eastern history. And, at least for the Palestinians, far more destructive in terms of death and displacement than even the failed Arab invasion at the birth of Israel in 1948. That aimed at expulsion of the Jews, or worse, and resulted in what is known universally in Arabic as the Nakba, or catastrophe — Palestinian refugee statelessness. At this point, we can begin on their own terms to assess who is winning. And the answer is up until recently one might have said Hamas. But not anymore.
Hamas, as it began operations on that dazzling October morning, had a theory of victory. Not once, even in 1948, had Palestinian forces, unlike Egyptian or Jordanian ones, overrun a Jewish community. Their commanders believed that if this could be achieved at scale — occupying, at least temporarily, the farming kibbutzim which envelop the strip — the myth of Israeli invincibility would be shattered and their national cause, fading away, would be put back on the agenda. In this, from the very first hours, they succeeded brilliantly.
