The pressure on Israel, on Netanyahu, to bring home the hostages is unbearable, as well it should be. If your loved one was taken hostage by a raping, murderous terrorist organization and held for almost 50 days, you would want them back at any price. And Hamas took full advantage of its having done two horrific things. First, the rape and murder of women, children and the elderly, and then second, the kidnapping of around 250 whom they didn’t kill so they had something to trade.
Note for future terrorists. Take some hostages atop your rapes and murders, and they give you huge leverage to stop your victims from coming after you. That, and convincing the useful idiots to march for the sake of the babies you use as shields so you can perpetrate terror but they can’t do anything to stop you.
Who would have ever believed anyone was so foolish, so stupid, to buy this absurd lie? Yet, here we are, with a ceasefire.
The Israeli government and Hamas agreed to a brief cease-fire in Gaza to allow for the release of 50 hostages captured during Hamas’s assault last month on Israel and the release of 150 Palestinian prisoners held in Israel, Qatar said early Wednesday.
Even a lawyer can do this math. The 150 prisoners, tried and convicted of terrorism, murder of riot and attempted murder, will be released in exchange for a fraction of the innocent civilians who survived murder only to be taken as hostages, leaving about another 200 hostages in Hamas captivity. Getting 50 hostages back is a good thing, but holding another 200 is more than enough leverage for Hamas to enjoy the cries of the remaining families, the ones alive at least, to beg for concessions for their future release. With the aid and comfort of those demanding a ceasefire from the side that didn’t break the ceasefire on October 7th.
The hostages will be returned in dribbles over the four days of the ceasefire, assuming it lasts that long. It will give Hamas the chance to regroup, rearm, and seize the humanitarian aid intended for Gazans that Hamas took for itself before its terrorist attack and since.
But a cease-fire wouldn’t spare just civilians. It would spare, and embolden, the main fighting force of Hamas. It would also embolden terrorist allies like Hezbollah. That’s a virtual guarantee for future mass-casualty attacks against Israel, for ever-larger Israeli retaliation, and for deeper misery for the people of Gaza. No Israeli government of any political stripe is going to allow the territory to rebuild so long as Hamas remains in charge.
That gives a second meaning to “Cease-Fire Now”: Either a demand for Israel’s total capitulation, or a recipe for a perpetual cycle of violence between a terrorist group sworn to Israel’s destruction and a Jewish state that refuses to be destroyed. Whatever else one thinks of Israel, no country can be expected to sign its own death warrant by indulging those who, if given the chance, would annihilate it.
By what mental masturbation does one believe that Hamas will suddenly shift its sworn goal of destroying Israel to reaching a peaceful co-existence? Is it because of the horrific harm done Gaza, the deaths of Gazans deliberately placed in the line of fire by Hamas to fool the witless into ignoring reality and crying for the children that Hamas has willingly sacrificed to its cause of Israel’s destruction?
There are good intentions, if also ignorance and shortsightedness, among many of those demanding a cease-fire. But there is also the bottomless cynicism of others who accept, and even celebrate, Hamas as it uses living Gazans as human shields and dead Gazans as propaganda victories. The tragedy of these protests, like so many “antiwar” movements in the past, is that the naïve and earnest are again being manipulated as tools of the cunning and cruel.
In a moderately sane and thoughtful universe, the unduly passionate would grasp that the only way the children of Gaza will survive is for Hamas to return all the hostages, put down its arms and surrender. For Israel to stop defending itself in the only way Hamas has forced upon it is to ask Israel to capitulate in its own annihilation. The passionate wouldn’t have much of a problem with that, since it’s adopted the belief that it’s a settler state engaged in apartheid and genocide, and it deserves to be destroyed.
Oddly, Gazan lives matter. Israeli lives, not so much because they deserve to die for being a Jewish state. The connection there with Jewishness seems not to matter much, even as they indulge in sophistry to differentiate between Zionism and Judaism so they won’t feel like the hypocrites and fools they are.
In five days from now, assuming the ceasefire holds that long, there will still be about 200 innocent Israeli hostages in Gaza and a reinvigorated Hamas prepared to take on Israeli troops from behind the bodies of throw-away Palestinians. Will there be renewed marches and cries for the children behind whom Hamas terrorists hide? Will there be the cries of families of the 200 hostages Hamas has refused to return for their release at any cost?
That’s the price of a few days of peace. And then Hamas will be ready to break the ceasefire again, because that’s the reason Hamas exists. As for the Israeli hostages, they’re just leverage for when Hamas needs more fuel for their ongoing firing of rockets into Israel. As for the Gazan children, they’ll be martyrs as far as Hamas is concerned, a worthy trade off.
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Great and accurate – analysis. Lawyers are sometimes cursed by our ability to see easily what others cannot. This situation is infuriating.
The precise moment that Hamas became fearful that Israel really was positioned to destroy it as a military and political organization is seen as when Hamas agreed to release the 50 hostages (yet to be seen) in return for a cease fire. For Israel to resume its military actions following the release will be problematic given the resentment against it (i. e., antisemitism) around the world and media coverage heavily favoring the pro-Palestinian demonstrations and groups. No doubt Israel could continue its path to elimination of Hamas. But at this point, Israel and Palestinian casualties will be higher with Hamas redeployed and resupplied. One action Israel might continue with which would not seem to be in violation of a ceasefire is destruction of the Hamas tunnel system. Israel should also continue with searching for a replacement of Hamas government of Gaza. Israel losing momentum completely is a major concern relating to the ceasefire.
Antisemitism seems far underrated as a cause of the protests and the attack. Listen to tapes of what the Hamas terrorists said. One said – in a call to his parents — look Mom and Dad, I killed ten JEWS with my own hands. He wanted them to share his pride. Jewish students at US universities are being protected because of threats. Israel, as a country, has Christian, Muslim, and Jewish citizens — it is the only officially Jewish state in the world — it is that which distinguishes it more than anything. (Remember all the Islamic states in the world.). Only the Jewish state is targeted for destruction.
It is time we stopped antisemitism and pretending antisemitism’s underlying influence on the issues here. Root causes you might say. And I am neither Jewish nor religious — agnostic — and it seems clear to me that much of the reaction of the world is antisemitic.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
I’m a little surprised Israel agreed to this. I really thought they’d only agree to a ceasefire in return for all the hostages (or their remains). This only invites Hamas to give an encore raid at some point.
The 150 Palestinian prisoners to be released were not tried and convicted for murder, although some women convicted of attempted murder are on the list. Israel has reasonably refused to release any prisoners convicted of murder. From the Times of Israel:
“ The vast majority, 287 of the 300 security prisoners scheduled for possible release, are males aged 18 and under — most of them held for rioting and rock-throwing in the West Bank or East Jerusalem. The other 13 prisoners are adult women, most of them convicted of attempted terror stabbings.”
Too bad this info wasn’t available when I wrote this post, but I appreciate being accurate. Then again, why do I doubt you did this for accuracy rather than as a Hamas apologist, as if this makes everything better?
I supposed statement of fact makes one an apologist these days.
I suppose you would.
Release of the hostages has always been in conflict with the announced war aim of wiping out Hamas. This “deal” is a tacit acknowledgement by Israel that it can’t accomplish a rescue of the hostages by military means. This also puts in doubt its ability to destroy Hamas. Achievement of that war aim would mean fighting Hamas in the tunnels, at the cost of many soldiers’ lives, as well as the lives of the remaining hostages. This hostage negotiation signifies that Israel is unwilling to pay that cost, and that the war will therefore come down to an expensive failure, with a lot of ordnance expended and a lot of dead Palestinians, but a still-functional Hamas lurking in the ruins.
Over the last few weeks, I have found Netanyahu’s bold and defiant words to be inspiring. Now, it seems he just abruptly decided to smoke some crack, giving us this bizarre and, imho, incongruous about-face. I hope this “deal” falls through, frankly, and that I may once again take a measure of pride in his firmly presented talking points. I enjoy knowing he is a Philly boy; some of us recently found out he graduated Cheltenham High, which is about 25 miles from where I am keyboarding this. Cheers.
All things considered, this would have gone far better for Israel had Netanyahu not been PM and had Likud not been in power. He is a blight on Israel, and I suspect that Hamas’ timing had a lot to do with Netanyahu’s significant vulnerabilities.
He seems from what I’ve read (including well before October) to be the (sadly common) combination of aggressive & incompetent in that aggression. A hawk should want someone competent, a dove should recognize that if you’re going to have someone aggressive, fewer lives (of everyone) are lost with someone competent (at least before this most recent terrorism, my preference as an outsider would have been for a dovish competent leader).
I mean, how stupid do you have to be to not learn from the mistake of one hostage for 1000 Hamas trade he did years ago? Is this somehow better because of the ratio?!
This was never going to be a “short victorious war”. Digging Hamas out of Gaza will take months and cost hundreds or thousands of military casualties. Israel has a weak and feckless ally in the USA and very little support elsewhere, despite the obvious (to us) validity of their desire to simply live without fear of atrocities committed against their citizens. As ill-advised as this seems, it was probably necessary.
An operational pause, however, does not require a return to the status quo ante. A tactical pause gives the opportunity to process intelligence recovered and solidify offensive positions in Gaza. Every hostage returned is a font of intelligence, a slap in the face to those in the international arena who deny that hostages were even taken, and a bit of human life saved. Israel has also not announced that they are withdrawing, or that their determination to stamp out Hamas has a time limit.
Nor, to be honest, is there much of a chance that Hamas will not violate the cease-fire. They will launching additional rockets, try to take additional hostages, or foment terrorism elsewhere. Hamas is who they are.
Ultimately, this seems like Israel’s pause to win or lose. If they remain determined and focused on the goal of eliminating Hamas and their ilk (such as PIJ), this will be seen by the historians as a necessary tactical maneuver and nothing more.
Defeating Hamas in the tunnels by close combat is likely to entail tens of thousands of casualties. If Israel is going to agonize about 50 or 200 lives lost, its political will to fight this fight will collapse.
“tens of thousands” – what a bullshit! Defeating Hamas at any price, or at the price of the life of their israelian hostages, would cost Netanyahu his next election. At least that’s what he fears.
I wish all the best for the nearly 2 million palestinian hostages of Hamas. A ceasefire surely would give them some relieve. But as long as they are not willing and/or not able to defeat their oppressors themselves, any ceasefire will only prolong their own suffering.
The idea that bombing residential buildings is self-defense is easy to sell to right-wingers who believe that Israel must control the middle east so that Jesus can return and take them to heaven, and to those who get their ideas from the NYT. The rest of the world, not so much. Even in the US, many “liberals” and an increasing number of “conservatives” are questioning the morality of Israel’s attacks on civilians. This “ceasefire” is a sign that Israel is beginning to recognize that reality.
May god have mercy on your soul.
SHG –
You must have cramps in your finger from pressing the delete key getting rid of all the stupid comments today.
You have no idea.
“By what mental masturbation does one believe that Hamas will suddenly shift its sworn goal of destroying Israel to reaching a peaceful co-existence?”
They’re human and can change their mind. It’s harder to believe they’re not human.
The larger problem is collective punishment does not work for Hamas nor Israel. At this point, Israel has surpassed Hamas in greater innocent deaths. In the past, whenever a few blacks committed crimes in a white neighborhood, a large white mob would burn down the entire black neighborhood and randomly kill blacks. Decades later, it’s still not justified even when switched.
They can change their mind, but they never have before and there’s absolutely no reason to believe they will now other than self-indulgent contrafactual fantasy. On the other hand, it doesn’t become “collective punishment” rather than self-defense because you want it to be.
” On the other hand, it doesn’t become “collective punishment” rather than self-defense because you want it to be.”
You want to believe Hamas will never change their mind to justify Israel killing more innocent people than them. They are all human and can. Humanity embraced slavery and changed its mind.
Israel didn’t know of the earlier Hamas attack involving thousands of men. Within a month, Israel ridiculously claims to have thousands of targets in Gaza and has destroyed entire city blocks. This is no longer self-defense. The ends don’t justify the means. The world sees this is as collective punishment and there will be significant long-term consequences beyond the hostages.
You have amazing mind reading abilities.
Hamas’ spokesman says Hamas will never change. What apart of that confuses you? The world sees Hamas as terrorists and no serious person believes there is any option here but to eradicate Hamas if there is ever going to be peace for Palestinians, whose lives mean nothing to Hamas. Only true believes like you want to wishcast otherwise.
If only Israel gave Hamas unicorns so they could prance on rainbows, they wouldn’t swear to rape and murder over and over until Israel was destroyed from the river to the sea.