Last week, one of Hizballah’s highest-ranking military commanders, Mustafa Badreddine, was killed in Damascus under mysterious circumstances. But, writes Clifford May, whether he was brought down by an Israeli airstrike, by rivals within his own organization, or by any of the Lebanese and Syrian organizations that would have liked to see him dead, his demise is good news for Israel and the U.S.:

In 2005, the former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri, a vocal opponent of Bashar al-Assad’s attempts to dominate Lebanon, was assassinated. . . . In 2011, the UN-established special tribunal for Lebanon indicted Badreddine, calling him “the overall controller of the operation.”

Badreddine launched his career in terrorism while still in his teens. Family connections may have helped: his cousin and brother-in-law was Imad Mughniyeh, for years Hizballah’s top military commander. The two worked together to plan the 1983 bombing of the U.S. marine barracks in Beirut that killed 241 servicemen. Additional attacks followed, including at the U.S. and French embassies in Kuwait. . . .

Two years ago, the Iranian foreign minister Javad Zarif, regarded by President Obama as a leading Iranian “moderate,” laid a wreath on Mughniyeh’s grave in Beirut. And on Friday, in a message to Hizballah’s Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah, Zarif expressed his government’s condolences on the death of Badreddine, saying he had died “defending the ideals of Islam.”

For some time, opponents of U.S support for Israel have been urging the White House to end the war in Gaza, or simply calling for a ceasefire. Douglas Feith and Lewis Libby consider what such a result would actually entail:

Ending the war immediately would allow Hamas to survive and retain military and governing power. Leaving it in the area containing the Sinai-Gaza smuggling routes would ensure that Hamas can rearm. This is why Hamas leaders now plead for a ceasefire. A ceasefire will provide some relief for Gazans today, but a prolonged ceasefire will preserve Hamas’s bloody oppression of Gaza and make future wars with Israel inevitable.

For most Gazans, even when there is no hot war, Hamas’s dictatorship is a nightmarish tyranny. Hamas rule features the torture and murder of regime opponents, official corruption, extremist indoctrination of children, and misery for the population in general. Hamas diverts foreign aid and other resources from proper uses; instead of improving life for the mass of the people, it uses the funds to fight against Palestinians and Israelis.

Moreover, a Hamas-affiliated website warned Gazans last month against cooperating with Israel in securing and delivering the truckloads of aid flowing into the Strip. It promised to deal with those who do with “an iron fist.” In other words, if Hamas remains in power, it will begin torturing, imprisoning, or murdering those it deems collaborators the moment the war ends. Thereafter, Hamas will begin planning its next attack on Israel:

Hamas’s goals are to overshadow the Palestinian Authority, win control of the West Bank, and establish Hamas leadership over the Palestinian revolution. Hamas’s ultimate aim is to spark a regional war to obliterate Israel and, as Hamas leaders steadfastly maintain, fulfill a Quranic vision of killing all Jews.

Hamas planned for corpses of Palestinian babies and mothers to serve as the mainspring of its October 7 war plan. Hamas calculated it could survive a war against a superior Israeli force and energize enemies of Israel around the world. The key to both aims was arranging for grievous Palestinian civilian losses. . . . That element of Hamas’s war plan is working impressively.