The tragedy of premature reckoning: Hamas and the curse of peaking too soon

In the long march of liberation, timing is not a luxury; it is survival. Movements rise and collapse not solely on the justice of their cause but on their capacity for discipline, patience, and long-range vision. Revolutions do not perish for lack of zeal. They die when zeal outruns strategy, when emotion blinds leadership to the slow and brutal mathematics of power. On 7 October 2023, Hamas broke through the Gaza perimeter and, for that moment, turned the geometry of the conflict on its head. Their coordinated, and shockingly effective breach sent tremors through Israel’s vaunted security establishment as intelligence failures unravelled, generals fumbled for explanations, and the aura of Israeli invincibility forever cracked. Hamas believed it had reshaped the […]