by Steve Hendrix and Hazem Balousha at The Washington Post
From the beginning, Hamas vowed to destroy Israel and, in his 2009 campaign, Netanyahu vowed to destroy Hamas. What happened instead was a decade and a half of uneasy coexistence, during which Netanyahu’s serial governments and Hamas’s leaders found each other useful for their own purposes.
The odd symbiosis endured — through years of escalations and accommodations, hopes of calm and periods of chaos — until now, when both Hamas and Netanyahu face a possible end to their hold on power.
Hamas leaders, after directing the attack that killed at least 1,200 Israelis on Oct. 7, are being bombed and hunted by an Israeli military that has pledged the group will never rule in Gaza again. In the midst of devastating attacks that have killed more than 11,000 people in Gaza, according to Palestinian officials, even some Gazans have taken the rare step of publicly criticizing Hamas for the October attack and leaving civilians exposed to military onslaught.
Netanyahu, who agreed last month to share emergency war powers with his chief political rival, is facing unprecedented public rage for his failure to prevent the October attack and a disordered government response in its aftermath. Polls show 75 percent of Israelis calling for him to resign now or be replaced when the fighting stops.
“It’s a strange alliance that has run its course,” said…