T. Belman.Vic states emphatically “The deal is a disaster”. I pray that he is not right. “All the security forces, the Shin Bet and the Mossad and also the entire war cabinet are united in favor of the proposal.” They considered the same things and concluded differently. Time will tell. The die has been cast.
One thing is certain. Hamas would never have agreed to this deal if it was not in their interests. They must have figured that the time delay was important for all the reasons Vic gave, some of which I set out.
The government of Israel has agreed to a stupid, shameful deal with Hamas. If the government continues along this path – and it seems almost certain to do so – it will mark the turning point of the war in Gaza. In retrospect, it will be seen as the point at which it became clear that Hamas will retain control of the Gaza strip.
The details of the deal, as I understand them this morning, are that Hamas will return some 50 of the 240 hostages they are holding, women and children. The Red Cross will be allowed to visit the remaining hostages. In return, Hamas will receive a cease-fire of four days, during which Israel agrees not to fly (I presume both drones and manned aircraft are included) over the northern part of Gaza for six hours each day. There will be no flights at all over the southern part. Israel has agreed to extend the cease-fire for an additional day for every ten hostages released. In addition, Israel will release some 150 to 300 Palestinian women and teenagers imprisoned in Israel for offenses less serious than murder. Israel will allow fuel and an increased amount of humanitarian goods to be brought into Gaza.
Not so bad, right? Wrong – it’s a disaster.
The IDF has been rolling up Hamas in Gaza. Another week or two of fighting would be decisive. It would liquidate Hamas’ military capability and civil control. All that would remain would be to mop up. What would happen next is a difficult question, but it will not be relevant if Hamas remains in control or retains significant military capability.
A cease-fire will allow Hamas to resupply its soldiers, to rebuild damaged communications systems, to reestablish the chain of command where key commanders (who were specifically targeted by the IDF) have been killed. It will allow them to reinforce their weak points and those places where they expect the IDF to attack. It will allow them to repair damaged systems for launching rockets. The no-fly restriction will allow them to move remaining hostages to more secure locations and extricate key personnel from areas where they are in danger without being tracked. At least some if not all of the fuel, food, and medicine that will be entering the Strip will be hijacked for Hamas’ purposes. Fuel in particular is needed to operate generators that supply power for ventilation of the tunnels where Hamas operatives live and from which they fight.
In short, a few days of cease-fire translate directly into a much longer extension of the war. From the start of the ground invasion on 27 October and until 20 November, 66 IDF soldiers have been killed in combat in Gaza (this of course is in addition to the 1200 civilians and soldiers killed on 7 October, and the unknown number of hostages who are no longer alive). For every day that the war is extended, IDF soldiers will be lost. And some of the toughest fighting is ahead.
It must be assumed that the international pressure to stop the war before Israel obtains her objectives will not go away; rather, it will probably increase as a result of the cease-fire. The obscene accusations of “genocide” will only become louder. There is concern that the cease-fire will expand, ultimately to become indefinitely long. The pressure on the Biden administration to force Israel to stop fighting will only grow.
The provision to release hostages in groups will present insupportable choices for the government: how will it be able to tell the families that have children or parents still in captivity that their family members will not be redeemed, when others have? Indeed, as long as Hamas has even one captive, their leverage will remain. The well-organized families of the hostages have underlined their – totally understandable, but also tragically wrong – contention that the primary goal of the war should be to return the hostages rather than to defeat Hamas, by blocking the main highway near Tel Aviv on Saturday night.
Indeed, this aspect of the deal is the most dangerous part of it. The first group of hostages will be traded for women and teen-aged terrorists without blood on their hands; but surely there will be more expansive demands made for the next group. The more hostages are freed, the harder it will become for the government to hold out against the pressure to give in to the increasingly severe demands of their captors. And Hamas has already announced that its objective is to obtain the release of all Palestinians held in Israeli prisons, including (especially) the worst of mass murderers.
Ariel Kahane, writing in Israel Hayom today, compared the choices facing the government to those facing the Judenraten in the Nazi-controlled ghettos, who were asked to provide lists of Jews to be deported to death camps, or see the entire ghetto liquidated.
If Hamas is not decisively defeated, it will encourage Hezbollah to increase the pressure in the north, as well as possibly to undertake a hostage-taking operation of its own. It will put the wind in the sails of Hamas and other terrorist factions in Judea and Samaria. It will send a message to Iran, and also to Israel’s hoped-for allies in the Arab world that Israel is weak, unable to stand up to extortion, and unable to defeat a force which is more akin to a terrorist militia than a real army. It will be a massive blow to our honor and therefore our deterrence.
In summary: this deal promises an extension of the war, which will cost Israel in the lives of the best of her young men. It will result in the release of numerous terrorists, most likely ultimately including the worst mass murderers, those who should not even be alive, rather than free to kill again. It will enable the “international community” to put the brakes on the IDF, both in the way it fights and in the time it is allowed to do so. It will, in my estimation, allow Hamas to remain in control of at least part of the Gaza Strip, and perhaps to retain some hostages for further leverage. It will encourage Israel’s enemies and damage her attempts to make allies in the Middle East.
Psychologically, it reinforces the false equivalence between kidnapped hostages and convicted terrorists. It legitimizes terrorism and hostage-taking – consider the absurdity that Israel has agreed to blind her eyes in the sky, because otherwise they might find the hostages and be able to rescue them!
The deal is a disaster, a surrender to the monsters of Hamas that murdered, tortured, and raped our people and who have said that they will do it again if given the chance. It is open-ended in a way that can only lead to even worse acts of appeasement.
Our young soldiers overwhelmed their commanders in their desire to fight; some reserve units didn’t have enough weapons for all of those who volunteered. They are fighting ferociously and heroically. As of yesterday, sixty-six of them will not go home to their families, and many others have been so severely wounded that they will never live normal lives. They were winning, and the decision taken by the government is nothing less than a betrayal.
@Seb, Bibi already has trouble with cigars and champagne you want to add ice cream to the list of woes?
Bibi has announced to the world that Jewish life’s are worth nothing. 150 – 300 pal’s for 50 Jews and some of these 50 will most likely not even be Jewish. Last number I heard was 65 soldiers had died trying to free the hostages. Looks like the IDF is losing this game and the Israeli government is felling the people of Israel. I predicted things would go this way and the next prediction is that the Israeli killed ratio will exceed the release ratio. More Israeli’s and soldier are going to die.
I cannot comprehend the Israeli leadership. It is beyond me how after all of Israeli history and the holocaust, the Jewish nation is still where they are playing games with the nations.
I am beginning to think that the Jews will continue to do this kind of stupid stuff until they set themselves up for the great trap that will leave them completely surrounded by the nations and as the nation’s gather to impose the final solution…. the only hope is if they do complete teshuvah and the almighty comes to save them, otherwise it looks like the Jews will disappear into the dust bend of history along with all the other nations that have gone by the wayside.
Where’s a Leon Trotsky when you need him?
@Bear Start a fund to send Bibi lots of ice cream.
Israeli leaders wanted to save 50 lives. Some hostages have already been found dead. Naturally this is a calculated risk. Clearly Israel must do what Bibi is saying after the 4 day pause in the war, continue the destruction of Hamas.
So easy to comment on deals of life or death. Not too many people are every forced to make such decisions and certainly they must seriously stressful to say the least!
@inna1
They want to convince the Jews of Israel and the Diaspora that “we are helpless and the only solution is the TS(F)S”.
Do they think if the “unthinkable” happens, they will get to use the visaless entry into the US and wave goodbye to the place from the airplane?
I also suspect that both Europe and the US do not suppress and often even encourage the “pro-Palestinian” antisemitic outbursts and rallies because they want to convince the useful idiots that “Israel’s behavior endangers the Diaspora Jews”.
This could be a great opportunity for a great wave of aliyah but this is not what the government wants.
The choice is between freeing a few hostages or none. The war will go on for years anyway. The only solution is to liberate the East Bank from Hashemite occupation and letting the Pals have their own state there.
As I’ve seen in other articles, Israel, where I now live, has slipped back into the same failed actions it has employed in the past. Many of the gains of the past month (+) will be lost and will eventually have to be re-gained.
Victor Rosenthal is absolutely right. It’s a disaster… Betrayal! On Oct. 7, it became clear that the Israeli army is in a bad shape. It was a great surprise for the whole world to see the weakness of Israel. Now, this insane deal… How many more IDF soldiers, the best young people of Israel, will be killed because of this deal? Same generals who destroyed the army and let Oct. 7 massacre happen are now deciding the future of Israel. We remember the results of the Gaza War of 2014. Now, it is getting much worse.
The “world community” wants the TSFS to be the result of this debacle.
And I am not so sure that “Bibi et al.” had to have their arms twisted, I am starting to suspect cooperation at the top for a mutual goal, i.e., we are watching a well written and rehearsed performance on both sides, and I am afraid it started before October 7th.
After all, if Bibi et al. are being blackmailed with non-replenishment of weaponry, why do they have to keep it secret?
This would be a huge problem which would need to be discussed in the Knesset, etc., and a solution would have to be found ASAP – of course, if the true goal of the government is to destroy Hamas and not to make the “dream of the century” come true.
Anyway, why even start such a serious military operation knowing that this situation is likely to occur?
They are not small, gullible, naive children, they have decades of experience but all of a sudden after all the heroic speeches and threats, and the call-up of 360,000 reservists, the PM, the Cabinet, the military brass and all the security services literally decide to scuttle the Gaza invasion and save Hamas’ a$$ because of another major problem “no one expected to happen”, like non-replenishment of weaponry, and because their hearts are bleeding for the 50 hostages out of 240, the country be damned.
Behind the scenes of the intense talks that led to the Israel-Hamas hostage deal.A multilateral group set up by Qatar shortly after Hamas onslaught proves effective, thanks to personal involvement from Biden throughout rollercoaster US-brokered negotiations/ By Jacob Magid in ToI.
This articles shows it was Biden (Obama) who started this process with Qatar leading to a situation where (I believe) Bibi et al had their arms twisted either to accept the deal or not receive replenishment of weaponry.
On today’s Caroline Glick youtube show, she’s very against the deal, but she points out that the American government could have got all the hostages back immediately if Biden had threatened to move the American military base out of Qatar and relocate it to UAE. This is what Trump, DeSantis or Cruz would have done.
Each prisoner exchange that Israeli does encourages its enemies to take more and more hostages in the future. The reason Hamas took 240 hostages was because they saw how profitable was the Shalit exchange. And if the extra refueling that Hamas gets enables it to shoot another volley of rockets on Israeli cities that end up killing more citizens, will the exchange still have been worth it?
This crisis of leadership in israel.mudy be understood as a part of a whole
Every country is denuded of leadership
Israel is no different despite October 7 showing its vicious enemies
Finally it is a simple historical fact that in a number of analyses made from 1937 to July 1940 a month before his assassination Trotsky was approached by Jewish journalists. While Jabonitski was worried about the vulnerability of Jews this was not of the level of Trotsky who had been studying Fascism from the Russian Revolution onwards.
Trotsky warned what capitalism could do and the Jews in Israel almost were ended when the Nazis were in Egypt. See book below Nazi Palestine
But Trotsky is the name not to be spoken on Israpundit except for one other than myself.
Basically Israel cannot fight world Fascism and that is where it is necessary…on a world basis
Only world socialism can save the Jews. And the task of the hour is to have the American people come forward now and totally defend Jews.
https://www.amazon.com/Nazi-Palestine-Plans-Extermination-Jews/dp/1929631936
https://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/1940/xx/jewish.htm
It was a sure thing from the start. Betrayal is the
Obama owned cease fire generals and Netanyahu lai motif. From Netanyahu’s solid support of Disengagement to date.
Hamas could have not built the huge military system without Israeli milintel and security tacit consent.
And the 10/7 murder spree warnings were intentionally ignored.
Now the irrational fueling and feeding as well as pause waiver are added evidence of betrayal.
@EvRe1
Wasn’t he loudly and publicly assuring everyone just a couple of days ago that this was the goal?
He says what everyone wants to hear, puts everyone to sleep, and then does the opposite, or whatever he has planned all along.
We’ll have to REALLY start worrying when he starts loudly proclaiming that the TSS is impossible and never going to happen because it will mean that the UN is getting ready to welcome the new state of “Palestine” (see the Deal of the Century map) as its new member.
See, when Israel caves in, the pressure gets stronger.
See, when Israel caves in, the pressure gets stronger.
Now they say since the hostages will be released gradually, the ceasefire may last as long as 2 weeks.
It is also clear to me that the support of the people of America is of great importance based as it is on the principles of the American Revolution
This needs to be expressed through a modern party. This does not exist.
The American people will aid the Jews willingly and this is never the case with political leaders.
50 hostages released is good. 190 or so still held.
I do not know if Netanyahu had a clear choice. Could he have simply said “no, we will defeat Hamas first and get the hostages out ourselves?”
If he could have said no, and didn’t what would the consequences have been of saying “no” ? Would the US have said “no” to further aid and equipment? Did Netanyahu feel his hands were tied?
How much control over the deal did Bibi have, given the other parties involved in the discussion? Suppose everyone discussing the deal thought it was the best they could get, and only Netanyahu opposed it. Does he have the power to decide against the entire security establishment and those on the war committee? These are things about the functioning of the parliamentary system of government with which I am unfamiliar.
While Israel will not have access to drones and planes over Gaza for 6 hours they will have access to intelligence from drones and planes for the other 18 hours in a day, and they still have satellite intelligence.
They also will get intelligence from the hostages who are released.
Israel will also get time to re-group, re-assess, and refine their efforts for the 2nd phase of their mission in Gaza.
The downsides are serious: all pointed out in this article and in everyone’s comments so far. Prolonging the war is exactly what Hamas wants. That is Hamas’s only hope. They know the longer the war goes on, the more support for Israel will fade.
I just don’t have enough data to understand how (i.e. the process by which) the Israeli government approved this deal and I don’t understand what they feared would result if they didn’t approve this deal.
Since it has been approved, I hope and pray that Israel and the IDF will make the best use of the cease fire time to re-group, re-assess, and focus on completion of the mission.
Madeline, I am with you 100% Ted of course Biden has betrayed Israel, what were you expecting?
My heart sinks with news of this compromise. I agree that it is a disaster. Israel’s weaknesses will be exploited in so many ways going forward. IMO, it would have been better if Netanyahu had been statesman enough to address the families of the hostages that the survival of the country is the greater good, painful as it is to hear that. Yesterday, before the deal was made official, General Keane called it a “victory” for Hamas.youtube.com/watch?v=bbJFGOf8BxI
I watched Amir Avivi of the IDSF in a Zoom conference just now and he said he didn’t like the deal. the IDF was ready to deliver a coup de gras and destroy Hamas in north Gaza.. This deal was cooked up to prevent that from happening.
And now Biden has stabbed us in the back.
As fate would have it Netanyahu made it clear that those in Israel responsible for lapse in security were not him. This is a very important happening. Possibly he feels he will pack it in and he looks tired and weak at times. But he is a patriot and will have to fight on. The progressive side will have to defend him in the inevitable struggles ahead. These are continuing struggles.
@Reader. nothing special about your link. What do you want me to do.. What I have posted already gives the samething as your link.
I think that the real aim here is the TSFS and the rest is just noise to distract the public.
Too bad it has cost 2,000 Jewish lives to date and will cost more as the events unfold.
Of course, it is always good to save a few lives but in this case, a lot more lives will be lost, and will continue to be lost because of this decision than would be if this decision wasn’t made, so the fortunate families of the released hostages should contemplate how many Israelis they will have helped murder by demanding that the release of their nearest and dearest is made the highest priority in this war against evil.
Hard not to say yes to saving 50 lives. Already we have found dead hostages.
It looks like Jewish lives keep losing value.
I also think that the chief aim here is the TSFS and it was so even before the 7th of October attack, the rest of it is information noise to distract the public.
Too bad it has cost 2,000 Jewish lives and will cost even more as the events unfold.
@Ted Belman
I have a comment that could not be displayed.
Could you check?
I tried posting the same comment many times, so 1 copy would be OK – there was only 1 URL there.
It looks like Jewish lives keep losing value.
David Fieldstone agrees with Viuc Rosenthal.