Since October 7, Israel’s war is no longer about Hamas alone. It is about dismantling Gaza’s role as a hub of transnational jihad. For decades, Hamas has been more than a local “resistance” group—it has been a bedrock of global jihad, linked to Al-Qaeda in the 1990s and echoing ISIS after the Arab Spring. Gaza became the frontline of an ideology that insists the war against Israel must continue “until the Day of Judgment.”

Israel’s definition of victory must therefore go beyond military containment. Victory means severing Gaza from the ideological arteries that connect it to Turkey, Qatar, and the wider jihadist movement. Victory means transforming Gazans from “raw material” for endless holy war into citizens of a future not dictated by Islamist doctrine.

The U.S. has quietly introduced a mechanism that reflects this ideological battle: two Gaza “executive bodies.” The duplication of names is not a bureaucratic accident—it is deliberate.

This second body is designed in my opinion to have the real power. It is meant........

© The Times of Israel (Blogs)