Reports: Israel and Hamas are about to make a deal on hostages

If the reports are accurate, the deal seems terrible for Israel

So now, it looks like Hamas might win its latest war with Israel, after all. This, at least, is what I fear will happen as the result of a deal the genocidal terrorists reportedly are about to reach with Israel.

Under the deal, as reported, Hamas will release 50 women and children it holds hostage. In exchange, Israel will release three times as many Palestinian prisoners. These prisoners will be women and males under the age of 18.

In addition, Israel will agree to a cease fire of five days. During that time, it will stop its drone surveillance over Gaza. And during that time, “humanitarian” aid will flow into Gaza, with most of it probably flowing to Hamas.

This strikes me as a terrible deal for Israel.

Why? Let’s start with the liberation of three Palestinians for every one hostage Hamas says it will release.

Even after its worse-than-barbaric attack on Israel, Hamas will get a substantial numeric advantage in this exchange. Thus, its decision to take hostages will be more than vindicated. This means that Hamas and/or other anti-Israel terrorist groups will have all the incentive in the world to take hostages in the future.

And please, let’s not hear (as I’ve already heard from apologists for the deal) that in past exchanges the ratios were far more favorable to terrorists than 3-1. Those exchanges were monumentally stupid. The fact that the latest Hamas atrocities reportedly were directed by a former prisoner whom Israel released shows them to be criminally stupid.

One might have hoped that Israel learned more from October 7 than just to be somewhat less stupid than before. But the deal, if consummated, shows that this is all Israel has learned.

Nor should we take any comfort from the fact that Israel will release no male prisoners over the age of 18. Female terrorists have been responsible for the deaths of Israelis in the past. And kids incarcerated by Israel will have both the chops and the desire to spearhead future attacks against the Jewish state.

But the ratio of the hostage-prisoner swap may be not the deal’s worst feature. The cease fire, if it holds, might be worse.

It’s only for five days, the Israeli government points out. But after five days, Hamas will still be holding at least 150 and possibly close to 200 hostages. Thus, the same pressure that led to this deal will still exist, so the cease fire might well be extended for many more days.

Joe Biden will still be demanding this. So will the families and friends of hostages who remain in captivity.

Even a cease fire of five days would work to Hamas’ considerable advantage. To the extent it still wants to fight, it will be able to fight more effectively. To the extent it wants to conserve terrorist lives so as to fight another day, its fighters will have the opportunity to save themselves by moving on.

These opportunities will be all the greater because Israel apparently will agree to suspend drone surveillance over Gaza. Thus, Israel will be hard pressed to track the movement of Hamas’ terrorists. And if fighting resumes — in a week or maybe a month — most of the hard-earned intelligence the IDF has accumulated about these terrorists will be obsolete.

I hope I’m wrong, but this deal is likely to prevent Israel from achieving its primary objective in this war. That objective wasn’t to reduce parts of Gaza to rubble; nor was it to kill large numbers of Palestinians or even to get its hostages back.

The stated goal was to destroy Hamas. The realistic goal was to hit Hamas so hard that it would be sidelined for many years.

There’s no evidence Israel has yet come close to achieving this goal — the realistic one. And with a cease fire that could last for weeks, Hamas will likely have all the time it needs to avoid being crushed. Enough of its fighters will be able to melt away from the war, assuming it ever resumes, and live to butcher Israelis another day.

By contrast, Hamas will likely have achieved its main objective which was to strike a terrible blow against Israel — the worst mass slaying of Jews since the Holocaust - and live to fight another day. It will also have increased international hostility against Israel — most importantly among Democrats in America, thus making it likely that in the not- too-distant-future, the U.S. will no longer back Israel. In addition, Israel’s quest to establish relations with Saudi Arabia will have been set back, which I take it was the prime objective of Hamas’ backers in Iran.

All of this will have been accomplished at a terrible price for Gaza. But Hamas has never shown interest in the welfare of Gaza.

I understand the pressure the Israeli government faces to agree to this deal. It’s not just pressure from America, it’s also pressure from the families and friends of the hostages.

I sympathize with those who are applying the latter form of pressure. If a member of my family were being held hostage in Gaza, I would be clamoring as loudly as anyone for a deal — any deal — that would secure her release.

But it’s the job of a war government to see the whole picture. It’s the job of a war government to realize and act upon the reality that this deal will likely lead to a number of future hostages and deaths in excess of 500 or even 1,500.

For, as explained above. the deal will (1) encourage future hostage taking and (2) likely enable one of Israel’s most bloodthirsty enemies to get back into the murder and hostage taking business years ahead of when it could have done so if Israel had kept killing terrorists and destroying their infrastructure on schedule.

Finally, this deal calls into further question the fitness of Prime Minister Netanyahu to lead Israel. Netanyahu can blame his enemies in the military and the intelligence community for Oct. 7 all he wants (and they certainly deserve some blame). But he is ultimately responsible for what happened that day.

Netanyahu didn’t need to rely on his enemies in government to know the risk of a Hamas attack. In September, newspaper reports from Gaza were describing enough suspicious activity by Hamas — including drills on storming settlements and kidnapping — to alert a competent prime minister to the danger.

I hoped that Netanyahu would partially redeem himself in the current war. But now, it looks like he has lost his nerve.

For all of his tough talk, Netanyahu doesn’t seem to be up to the job of protecting Israel from its many enemies. Arguably, he’s as far past his sell-by date as Joe Biden.