Last week, the Islamic Resistance Movement—better known by the Arabic acronym Hamas—held a rally in Gaza City to celebrate the 35th anniversary of its founding. Devorah Margolin surveys the group’s history and observes that it has changed little despite more recent efforts to show off its supposedly more moderate side:

As Hamas has repeatedly noted, two main documents highlight its goals and evolving direction: the 1988 charter, and the May 2017 update to the charter, titled the “Document of General Principles and Policies.” The latter document represented a rhetorical shift, with the group seeking to present itself as a centrist alternative to global jihadist organizations like Islamic State and secular nationalist groups like the PLO. Despite this framing, however, the updated principles and policies also declared that “resistance and jihad for the liberation of Palestine will remain a legitimate right, a duty, and an honor for all the sons and daughters of our people and our umma [global Islamic community].”

Another contradiction can be seen in the group’s framing of Islamization as a “choice” driven by individuals. For example, Hamas has repeatedly argued that while wearing the hijab is a religious obligation, it remains a woman’s choice to do so, not something that can be forced upon her. At the same time, however, the group does not discount acts of violence and pressure to achieve its goals of a “traditional” Islamic society, such as running “virtue” campaigns to discourage “Western” behaviors, excluding male teachers from girls’ schools, segregating classes after age nine, and penalizing male driving instructors who do not have a chaperone for female students.

As Hamas continues to strive for international legitimacy, it will no doubt highlight what it considers to be its most laudable traits. . . . The United States and its allies should not be distracted by this seemingly more moderate approach. Despite its rhetorical embrace of change in certain contexts, Hamas remains committed to its original goal—violent struggle against Israel by any means necessary, with itself at the helm of Palestinian leadership.

Between the explosion of thousands of Hizballah pagers on September 17 and now, Iran’s geopolitical clout has shrunk dramatically: Hizballah, Iran’s most important striking force, has retreated to lick its wounds; Iranian influence in Syria has collapsed; Iran’s attempts to attack Israel via Gaza have proved self-defeating; its missile and drone arsenal have proved impotent; and its territorial defenses have proved useless in the face of Israeli airpower. Edward Luttwak considers what might happen next:

The myth of Iranian power was ironically propagated by the United States itself. Right at the start of his first term, in January 2009, Barack Obama was terrified that he would be maneuvered into fighting a war against Iran. . . . Obama started his tenure by apologizing for America’s erstwhile support for the shah. And beyond showing contrition for the past, the then-president also set a new rule, one that lasted all the way to October 2024: Iran may attack anyone, but none may attack Iran.

[Hayat Tahrir al-Sham’s] variegated fighters, in light trucks and jeeps, could have been stopped by a few hundred well-trained soldiers. But neither Hizballah nor Iran’s own Revolutionary Guards could react. Hizballah no longer has any large units capable of crossing the border to fight rebels in Syria, as they had done so many times before. As for the Revolutionary Guards, they were commandeering civilian airliners to fly troops into Damascus airport to support Assad. But then Israel made clear that it would not allow Iran’s troops so close to its border, and Iran no longer had credible counter-threats.

Now Iran’s population is discovering that it has spent decades in poverty to pay for the massive build-up of the Revolutionary Guards and all their militias. And for what? They have elaborate bases and showy headquarters, but their expensive ballistic missiles can only be used against defenseless Arabs, not Israel with its Arrow interceptors. As for Hizballah, clearly it cannot even defend itself, let alone Iran’s remaining allies in the region. Perhaps, in short, the dictatorship will finally be challenged in the streets of Iran’s cities, at scale and in earnest.