To the families who have camped outside the Prime Minister’s residence, who have marched every Saturday night, who have lived in suspended animation since October 7—their nightmare is ending. Their strength has moved mountains. The entire Israeli nation stands with them as they prepare to welcome their loved ones home. No one, absolutely no one, questions the imperative of bringing them back.
And yet, even as the world celebrates, we must ask: at what price? And more critically: what comes next?
The arithmetic of this exchange should give everyone pause. Israel will release over 1,700 Palestinian prisoners, including 250 serving life sentences for the most heinous acts of terrorism. These aren’t stone-throwers or protesters. These are the architects of the Park Hotel Passover massacre, the planners of the Sbarro pizzeria bombing, the orchestrators of attacks that turned school buses into crime scenes. Each has blood on their hands and expertise in their heads.
Hamas is trading 48 hostages—20 living and 28 dead—for 1,700 experienced operatives—a massive force multiplication that transforms tactical defeat into strategic victory. Every released prisoner returns to Gaza or the West Bank as a hero, a symbol of resistance, armed with years of additional training and burning with renewed purpose.
History provides a grim preview of what comes next. Yahya Sinwar, the architect of October 7, spent 22 years in Israeli prison studying Hebrew, analyzing Israeli society, planning his revenge. Released in the 2011 Shalit deal among 1,026 other prisoners, he used his freedom to orchestrate the deadliest day in Israel’s history. Today, Israel is releasing another generation of potential Sinwars.
The framework speaks optimistically of Hamas agreeing to disarm, to leave Gaza, to accept peaceful coexistence. But Hamas has committed to none of this. They’ve agreed only to Phase 1—the hostage exchange that strengthens their position. Points 2-20 of Trump’s plan remain aspirational, contingent on Hamas’s voluntary compliance with demands no genocidal movement has ever accepted without military defeat….
Hamas has made clear it will not disarm completely. It wants to remain a fighting force. Nor has it agreed to have its leaders in Gaza removed from the Strip. It clearly wants to remain in a condition to claim that it has emerged victorious from the war — with victory being defined as having thousands of its combatants still standing despite the massive IDF effort to destroy them. Hamas, though battered, has not yet been completely defeated, and still has 15,000-20,000 combatants, in Gaza, their numbers being swelled by new recruits to the terror group. These refusals are so far being glossed over in all the understandable jubilation over the release of the hostages.
1 comment:
Terrorism persists because of international pressure for a two-state solution going back to the 6 day war in 1967. More importantly, Islam at the very least wants control of East Jerusalem hence the Temple Mount to prevent building of the third temple vis-à-vis Christ's dwelling place during the millennium.
Post a Comment