Was It Worth It?

Victory In Death...

Three years ago, Hamas leader Yahah Sinwar said, "The greatest gift the enemy can give me is to kill me." He apparently wasn't in a rush to accept that gift, as he didn't participate in the October 7th raid he orchestrated last year, but this week, Israel finally gave it to him. 

After news broke that Sinwar was killed by an Israeli reservist in Gaza, a number of Hamas-supporting leftists posted thoughts similar to those of Dan Cohen below (i know that some of you who support Hamas don't consider yourself to be leftists, but Westerners who support Hamas publicly, under their real names, tend to be leftists). 

Or Did He Take The L? 

Rumble streamer Nick Fuentes--no fan of Israel (or Jews for that matter)--was unconvinced: 

At that point, you just have to kind of admit, you weren't equipped for the fight. I think at that point, you need to take the L. At a certain point, you kind of just become a sore loser, right? When they're like, 'Oh now he throws a piece of wood' [...] Time to take the L on that one. 

Swann Marcus made a similar point on X.

Was It Worth It For The Palestinians Of Gaza? 

Many of them cheered (and some even joined in) when Sinwar's raid last year killed 1,200 people in Israel and took another 250 hostage. But a year later, Gaza is strewn with rubble and more than 40,000 Palestinians may be dead. Was it worth it? 

"They Had To Fight The Occupation"

That's what some of you are thinking now, right? That's what Dan Cohen said in that X post above. Did you know that Israel wasn't occupying Gaza on October 6th of last year? Did you know that Israel forcibly removed the last of its settlers from Gaza in 2005, 18 years before Hamas launched its October 7th attack? 

Before you claim that Israel was still oppressing Gaza after 2005 by maintaining a border around it and responding to periodic rocket attacks from it, check some of the videos on YouTube from Gaza during those 18 years. Here’s one, by a Palestinian who leads off talking about the “siege”, so you know it’s not Zionist propaganda.

Judging by videos like that, and Trip Advisor reviews prior to October 7th of last year, Gazans had pretty high living standards for Arabs–it wasn’t Dubai, but it compared favorably with lots of places in Gaza’s former owner, Egypt (Recall that Israel captured Gaza from Egypt, not Palestine, in 1967).

And they squandered it all to kill 1,200 people and capture a few hundred more. I hope no American tax dollars go to rebuilding Gaza, but they probably will.

One Winner After The Death Of Sinwar So Far

Gold hit a new all-time high on Friday. Given its recent strength, that may have happened anyway, but some suggested its value as a geopolitical hedge may have been part of Friday's move, in the wake of the Gaza news. One gold name did even better though: The gold miner IAMGOLD (IAG 16.52%↑) spiked nearly 17% on Friday. 

IAG was one of our top ten names last week.. 

In the trade alert below, we bought call options on it. 

We exited half of those call options on Friday for a 100% gain, and we're letting the other half ride. 

If you want a heads up when we place our next trade, you can subscribe to our trading Substack/occasional email below. 

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