THE MIDDLE BROTHER
There’s a lot more to the story of Zakaria Sinwar assassination than those dismissive media accounts.
By Sol Salbe
Sometimes trawling through Facebook pays off. As someone who keeps on harping on about Israelis and Diaspora Jews’ dearth of knowledge of the Palestinian people and their culture, I think I found a real treasure here.
On 17 May Israel assassinated (eliminated in the local parlance) Zakaria Sinwar. Yes, he was the middle brother, but his death got little media attention. The Times of Israel described him in a single sentence: “Sinwar had worked as a lecturer at the Islamic University in Gaza.” Ynetnews had three more words: “The brother is a professor of ‘Zionist History’ at the Islamic University in Gaza City.”
But there’s a lot more to the story than those dismissive accounts. Read on (YOU WON’T REGRET IT):
Yedidya Lau (translated)
Last night Israel assassinated Zakaria Sinwar, the middle brother who is reportedly a “modern historian.” I looked into what he studied, and here are the results (the Dar al-Mandumah database is apparently a large academic information repository in the Arab world; unfortunately, the Hebrew University does not have access to articles in it…):
A) The roots of institutional Zionism — Sinwar tried to understand Israeli society from the early stages of its political organisation and studied the Ahdut HaAvoda party on one hand, and the Revisionist [Jabotinsky’s group] perception of Arabs and Muslims on the other. Additionally, he researched pre-1948 Zionist industry and the impact of the economy on the political strengthening of Zionism; Jewish settlement in Jerusalem in the early 20th century; and the impact of British Officer Orde Wingate on the formation of the Jewish military organisation in Palestine. All of this — before the establishment of the state. After the establishment of the state, apparently one important matter marked a major change in his view — the founding of Shas — to which he devoted further research.
B) The conflict — Sinwar reshapes the narrative. He dedicates studies to the importance of oral history compared to written history, arguing that more space should be given to Palestinian testimonies over documented Jewish history. He deals with the Palestinian narrative regarding the expulsion in 1948, the situation of Palestinian female prisoners, Palestinian terror activities (“guerrilla”) from 1967 to 1973, and the Judaisation of the City of David (Silwan).
C) And again Jerusalem — Sinwar returns to Biblical studies and shows how Jerusalem is less important in the Hebrew Bible than it seems, and in another study — challenges the existence of Solomon’s Temple. These claims are woven together to argue that the emphasis on Jerusalem in Judaism is primarily for political rather than religious needs (sounds familiar?).
Alongside his own research, he mentored dozens of master’s students in Gaza, who wrote detailed studies on Ben Gurion, the National Religious Party; Zionism in Poland, Britain, and the USA; the Israeli security doctrine; the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, and much more. Recently, I talked with @Eldar Lau about the works he is writing for his degree that are renewing his understanding of the Israeli politics and its deep currents. How many of us truly understand the roots of our political institutions? Not to mention how well we know and understand Palestinian society. A lot has been written about how [older brother and October 7 architect] Yahya Sinwar understood Israeli society inside and out; it seems that this familiarity was much more intense than we thought, and I only wish that our political and military leadership had someone who understands Palestinian society in such a way.
