On October 23, the former president Barack Obama issued a statement about the Israel-Hamas war, which sidelined anti-Semitism, ignored Iran’s role in supporting Hamas, and in other ways offset its nobler sentiments. He recently elaborated further on the subject in a public appearance hosted by a group of his former aids, emphasizing the “complexity” of the situation. In other words, he went on, “what Hamas did was horrific, and there is no justification for it. And what is also true is that the occupation, and what’s happening to Palestinians, is unbearable.” Tellingly, his audience applauded after the first part of that statement, but not after the second. Abe Greenwald comments:

Barack Obama hasn’t commented on many serious matters since he left the White House. . . . But he’s now got a message that he needs to get out. Obama is concerned that we don’t forget about supposed Israeli cruelty to Palestinians just because Hamas massacred nearly 1,500 innocents in Israel. . . Never mind that Israel doesn’t occupy Gaza and pulled out in 2005.

Obama speaks in stentorian generalities because details expose truth. And in this case, the truth is simple: it’s Hamas’s fault. All of it, the terrorism, the Palestinian trauma, the current war, and the deaths to come.

But Obama doesn’t do details. He’s fancies himself a big-idea kinda guy. And his big idea is that we’re all to blame. “You have to admit that nobody’s hands are clean,” he said, “that all of us are complicit to some degree.” . . . Self-congratulation as self-doubt is also vintage Obama.

It’s big of him to shoulder the blame along with the rest of us. And in repayment for his generosity, I offer a few words to help him out in his soul searching on this issue: President Obama, perhaps you shouldn’t have chosen as the crowning goal of your foreign policy the enrichment and legitimization of Iran, Hamas’s chief benefactor.

Ron Ben-Yishai, reporting from a visit to IDF forces in the Gaza Strip, analyzes the state of the fighting, and “the persistent challenge of eradicating an entrenched enemy in a complex urban terrain.”

Hamas, sensing the war’s end, is mounting a final effort to inflict casualties. The IDF now controls 65 percent of Gaza’s territory operationally, with observation, fire dominance, and relative freedom of movement, alongside systematic tunnel destruction. . . . Major P, a reserve company commander, says, “It’s frustrating to hear at home that we’re stagnating. The public doesn’t get that if we stop, Hamas will recover.”

Senior IDF officers cite two reasons for the slow progress: meticulous care to protect hostages, requiring cautious movement and constant intelligence gathering, and avoiding heavy losses, with 22 soldiers killed since June.

Two-and-a-half of Hamas’s five brigades have been dismantled, yet a new hostage deal and IDF withdrawal could allow Hamas to regroup. . . . Hamas is at its lowest military and governing point since its founding, reduced to a fragmented guerrilla force. Yet, without complete disarmament and infrastructure destruction, it could resurge as a threat in years.

At the same time, Ben-Yishai observes, not everything hangs on the IDF:

According to the Southern Command chief Major General Yaron Finkelman, the IDF is close to completing its objectives. In classical military terms, “defeat” means the enemy surrenders—but with a jihadist organization, the benchmark is its ability to operate against Israel.

Despite [the IDF’s] battlefield successes, the broader strategic outcome—especially regarding the hostages—now hinges on decisions from the political leadership. “We’ve done our part,” said a senior officer. “We’ve reached a crossroads where the government must decide where it wants to go—both on the hostage issue and on Gaza’s future.”