The Hostage Agreement

Where to, Now?

Israel and Hamas have agreed to extend the original 4 day cease fire for two more days in order to get 20 more hostages released.   Was the original deal a good one?   Is the extension a good idea?

These are the issues that we need to deal with in judging the deal – the first is did Israel get the best deal it could?  The second is, will Israel continue the fight to the end or will it fall for the Hamas trap tempting Israel to an endless series of cease fires and did this deal increase or decrease the IDF’s chances of defeating Hamas at an acceptable cost? Can it get the hostages back by military means?

Amos Harel from Haaretz (the paper that is the NY Times on steroids) is quoted in  The Tablet’s “Scroll” as saying that the IDF wants a longer break in order to refresh the forces and prepare for the next phase.   Harel is a longtime military correspondent who represents the establishment view on just about everything.    But I know for sure that most of the Brigade and Battalion commanders on the ground are upset at the long break in fighting. For them, the ones actually fighting and commanding troops in Gaza, the cease fire came at the absolute wrong time.  Israel was systematically destroying the Hamas presence in the northern part of Gaza and they are mapping and destroying the extensive tunnel network.  The morale of the troops and the momentum of the operation are clearly in Israel’s favor.  Harel’s assessment that Israel needs to ‘refresh’ the troops is a fallacy as many brigades are still outside of Gaza waiting to go in and supplement or rotate out the troops that have been fighting from the start. 

Also, around 1 million of so Gazan civilians have moved to the south and those that are left are either Hamas terrorists, Hamas members or their families.   Only the Hamas “true believers” have followed their call to stay in their homes and become human shields for the terrorists and their leaders who are below ground.    Proof of this is the story of the Russian-Israeli man released (at the behest of Putin).   He was being held in a building that was bombed by Israel.   He took advantage of the chaos to escape and wandered for four days looking for the border, before he was recaptured – not by Hamas fighters, but by the Gazan civilians who are, according to all reports “non-combatants”.    These innocent non-combatants knew exactly where Hamas was and returned him to them.

Amongst Hamas fighters, morale was low and they were being worn down. Just a few days before the cease fire 100 Hamas fighters surrendered to the IDF.   From what has been heard from the released hostages, food was running low – not just for them, but for their captors, too.

A second aspect of the military issue is the release of imprisoned terrorists to their homes – nearly all in the West Bank and Jerusalem.  We have been fighting fiercely in the West Bank since October 7 in order to capture or kill known terrorists in the West Bank.  This terrorist buildup has been going on for years as the PA turns a blind eye, Iran smuggles weapons through Jordan and the Israeli government and military continued their quest for “quiet”.  By some estimates we have captured over 2,000 terrorists and killed around 100 and have confiscated many tons of armaments.  We have now released 150 terrorists and another 60 will be released over the next two days.   These are not women and “minors” that were picked up in some mass incarceration but 150 people convicted of crimes of terror.  Sending them all to Gaza to face the fate of their Gazan Hamas brothers would not have a negative effect on security,  but releasing them back to their West Bank and Jerusalem homes means they are now terrorists on the loose.

But politicians, being civilian leaders, need to make decisions based on many factors and the national trauma of children as Hamas hostages is a legitimate reason to agree to a temporary cease fire. Also, there is the influence of a well funded campaign by the families forum, but actually controlled by people who do not have family members as hostages.  The head of the Campaign is an ex-Labor party politician, owns a PR firm and was instrumental in the anti—judicial reform protests that overtook the country in the Spring.  Many family members oppose the pressure on the government but they are silenced by the media.  The now famous slogan/hashtag “Bring them Home” says it all – putting the onus on the Israeli government to bring them home when a proper slogan ought to have been directed toward Hamas and read “Send them Home”.  

Putting that campaign aside, we are all moved by and relieved to see our children and their mothers and grandmothers free.    So too, the Thai, Nepali and other guest workers who were caught up and made to pay for Hamas barbarism and years of Israeli appeasement of Hamas and Western appeasement of Iran.  They were massacred like their Jewish employers and kidnapped along with them.   The scene in Kibbutz Alumim of 14 dead Thai worker’s bodies in a pile, was as much witness to the utter human cruelty of Hamas as were the other horrors we have seen.

I must admit I move back and forth on the correctness of the deal as the scenes of reunited families play on my emotions and contrast with the fear that we will be caught in a trap by Hamas and the pressure that will come from the West not to continue the war.   This fear is not relieved by the firm assurance by our political leaders that nothing will stop us from continuing to the final goal of the destruction of Hamas and an end to the threat to Israel that has come from Gaza.  They have all been known to capitulate to international pressure and to the demagogues that run our media.  

More than that though is the gnawing feeling that we have been played once again by Hamas and their allies.   Did we get the best possible deal?   Did we have the best negotiators?  

The negotiators we had were the head of the Mossad and an ex-general.  The head of the CIA joined them.   When did our top spies become diplomats?  When did it happen that people trained to spy on enemies and kill them be the ones who run our diplomatic efforts?   I don’t have a lot of confidence that they were able to get the best deal out of Hamas and Qatar.  The moronic statement at the start of the war by Tzachi Hanegbi, the head of Israel’s National Security Agency, praising Qatar for helping in the negotiations shows that we still don’t understand who our enemies are.    If the original rumors were true and that Hamas demanded one day cease fire for 10 hostages released, then they did not budge one inch.  The fact that they first said “all hostages for all imprisoned terrorists”  does not mean that they have now compromised.   Bombastic public statements are the bread and butter of the Arab world in general and their terrorist groups in particular.

I don’t believe we got the best deal possible, and I do believe time was on our side.  But as I wrote – it is difficult, after the fact, to argue with a deal that returned most of the children. 

We are now at the end of the original four day cease fire and into overtime.  Two more days for Hamas to regroup, resupply, re-arm and most importantly re-think their defensive strategy.  Much as we believed our own intelligence leaders that Hamas is deterred, it seems that Hamas believed the Israeli media that told them that the IDF could not enter Gaza and win.   I think they knew there would be massive destruction from the air and maybe were ready for a limited ground incursion like the one in 2014 but I doubt they understood the resolve of the Israeli people to destroy them.   

Now they know.   Now they can prepare a better defense than the one they have put up until now. This will endanger Israeli troops as well as Gazan civilians.  This can be countered by Israel if the tactics it uses in the south (mostly it will be in the Khan Yunis camp) are different than those used in the north. We need to change tactics and surprise them again with even heavier fire and more chaos.  Giora Eiland, a retired general (left the IDF in 2003) and ex-head of the Planning and Operations Division of the IDF has suggested this more aggressive bombing of the Khan Yunis camp that was done in the Gazan north.    He has compared Gaza to Nazi Germany and believes that Gaza has to be put into a situation of desperation that will force the end of Hamas and the freedom for whichever hostages are still alive.

For those who tell us that we moved the Gazans to the south and now we can’t attack  - I have two things to say.  First, they can now leave Khan Unis and go to the west.  Yes, it will be crowded, but this is a war zone.  Second – Egypt.  When the war started everyone was sure that Egypt could be bribed into letting Gazans into the unpopulated Sinai.   That didn’t happen.   This now has to happen.  Egypt and the rest of the Arab world must create closed refugee camps and let in all non-Hamas Gazans who chose to leave.    This is not a war of choice for Israel and Israel ought not to shoulder the burden of Gazan civilians anymore.  The Arab countries in general and Egypt in particular must be forced to accept the Gazans so that Israel can destroy Hamas.  It is also in Egypt’s and many other Arab countries interests to rid the world of Hamas.

If Israel agrees to extend the cease fire past the two-day overtime we have been and are being, played.  We will be in the hands of Hamas who will always be able to tempt us with just one more day for a few more hostages.  They will be calling all the shots.   I am not denying the importance of freeing the hostages but before we even come to the negotiating table again, we must put Hamas and Gaza in a situation of desperation – and that can only come with intensive and relentless military fire.