by Haggai Huberman, Arab Affairs Correspondent, translated by Hillel Fendel.
The protests of the hostages' families – "Free Them Now! At Any Cost!" – are not helping the Israeli negotiating teams, to say the least. The IDF's withdrawal from Gaza has been even worse.
Following a recent evaluation at the Lebanese border with senior IDF Northern Command officers, Chief of Staff Lt.-Gen. Hertzi HaLevi told the combat reservists stationed there: "The objectives of the ongoing offensive in Gaza are both to return the residents of the Gaza Envelope [Be'eri, Sderot, etc.] safely to their homes and to bring the hostages back home."
I'm forcing myself to believe - after our general loss of trust in the IDF leadership - that the Chief of Staff truly believes himself and that he is really striving to achieve these goals. The problem is that the State of Israel has blown its ability to return the captives being held by Hamas. This is because it chose the path of "exchange," instead of the more certain path, that of "war."
Cabinet Minister Orit Strook, of the Religious Zionism party, came under media and political fire last week, accused of having said that the release of 22 or 33 hostages was not a big deal. She of course did not say that; her point was that if we agree to the release of a limited number of hostages in exchange for a ceasefire, we will have basically given up on the remaining hostages. She was 100% correct.
For, in contrast with the impression that the hostages' families and their PR people are trying to present, the real dilemma facing the government is not a political one, but rather one of life and death. That is, saving the lives of some hostages now could easily cost the lives of many other civilians and soldiers in the future.
Hamas has no interest in freeing the hostages. Why should the terrorist organization want to give up its human shields? Hamas wants to survive and remain in power, and for that it needs a complete ceasefire for several good years, so that it can reorganize and prepare effectively for its next attack on Israel.
It is likely not well-known outside Israel, but the conditions that Hamas demands for the release of the hostages – "whether dead or alive," in its own words – are a recipe for hundreds of dead Israelis in the not far-off future. It's not only the military and political humiliation that we would suffer upon seeing Sinwar emerging from his hole flashing his fingers in a V sign, confident in his total, American-guaranteed immunity from elimination by Israel. That photo alone will turn Sinwar into the King of the Arab world, and Israel into a washrag country. Such a deal would enable Hamas to rebuild its military power within a few years, in all aspects: More missiles and rockets, stronger and larger Nukhba forces [those that carried out the Oct. 7th massacre], a naval force, and more.
It means, with near certainty, that within a few years, we will see an exact reproduction of last Simchat Torah: thousands of Hamas terrorists slaughtering Israeli citizens, accompanied by the spectacular pyrotechnics of thousands of Hamas rockets exploding throughout the country.
And in response to your shocked disbelief, dear reader, that this could happen, let it be clear that the conditions Hamas has set for an exchange guarantee this scenario. Every deal that Israel has made to release terrorists in exchange for one or more hostages has ended with an increasing number of murdered Israelis. The terrorists freed in the Jibril deal in 1985 were those who brought about the first intifada three years later. And many of those who were freed in 2011 so that Gilad Shalit could return home - among them Yichye Sinwar - carried out the Oct. 7th travesty. Not to mention that at least 11 Israelis have been murdered by Shalit-released Palestinian terrorists…
But the deal being negotiated today involves not only the release of terrorists, but means granting Hamas and the Arab world its greatest victory over Israel ever in history.
There is only one way to prevent it: Security control over all of Gaza must remain exclusively Israeli. The only armed body in Gaza can be the IDF. But if Israel agrees, as the Biden Administration has long been pressuring it do, to withdraw its forces from Gaza for good, this option will be lost.
Even the long-awaited Israeli offensive in Rafah [which has now begun – HF] cannot be expected to free the captives. It appears that at best, the IDF will enter, pound the enemy, and then leave – returning us once again to the same dead-end from which we started out.
It was once possible, with determined and unrestrained military activity, to get the leaders of Hamas to cry out, "Take the hostages! Just let us live!" But to do that, the IDF had to have remained in Gaza. Today there are no IDF soldiers in the Gaza Strip, with the exception of the Netzarim Corridor – too little, too late, and too weak. Remember the days a few months ago when Gaza City was flooded with Israeli flags? Not a single flag remains there.
And what about the exciting return of our soldiers to the areas of Gush Katif? Today that's just a dream. Even the tunnels have not been totally decimated; a majority of them remain whole and operative. Sinwar, hiding out in Khan Yunish, doesn't hear the tanks above him, as Defense Minister Gallant boasted, but rather the hundreds of trucks arriving daily with humanitarian aid grabbed by his men.
All those screaming at the government, "We want them home now!" should rather yell out, "We want a re-conquest of Gaza now!"
The IDF's withdrawal from Gaza – in 2024, not in 2005 – was undertaken without U.S. pressure; the Americans pressured us to allow humanitarian aid, not to hurt civilians, and not to attack Rafah, but not to withdraw totally. This was a foolishness that could take years to rectify. It has led us to a humiliating defeat, and whoever is responsible for it must pay the price and quit public life forever.