Michael Ejercito
2025-01-17 16:12:29 UTC
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PermalinkThe terrible déjà vu of an Israel-Hamas hostage deal
by Jeff Jacoby
The Boston Globe
January 15, 2025
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Supporters greet a busload of Palestinian security prisoners heading to
Gaza City after they were released in exchange for a kidnapped Israeli
soldier, Gilad Shalit, in October 2011. Among the prisoners turned loose
were the men who would mastermind the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terror
atrocity in Israel.
FOR THE past 15 months, Israel has fought with brilliance and tenacity
to crush Hamas and ensure that an unspeakable atrocity like the one the
terrorist group unleashed on Oct. 7, 2023, never recurs. Yet now it is
on the point of making a grievous blunder — of repeating a grievous
blunder — that all but guarantees that more Israelis will be killed,
maimed, and abducted in future atrocities.
According to multiple news accounts based on information from
negotiators meeting in Qatar, Hamas and Israel are close to finalizing a
deal for the release of some of the hostages, nearly all of them
civilians, who have been held in Gaza for more than 460 days. Under the
agreement's reported terms, 33 of the 98 hostages still in Hamas
captivity (not all of them alive) would be freed in exchange for a
six-week cease-fire and the release of an estimated 1,300 Palestinian
security prisoners, including as many as 200 who are serving life
sentences for murder. Negotiations to return additional Israeli hostages
would begin during the third week of the cease-fire.
The proposed agreement would also require Israeli forces to withdraw
from the narrow buffer zone that separates Gaza from Egypt. For years
leading up to Oct. 7, Hamas smuggled enormous quantities of weapons,
ammunition, construction material, and personnel into Gaza by building
tunnels across the corridor. As recently as Dec. 25, 2024, Israel's
defense minister insisted that Jerusalem would never permit Hamas to
regain control of the corridor.
All of which means that if this deal is approved, it is a certainty that
Israeli hostages will remain in Gaza's dungeons and that hundreds of
Palestinian militants — including many with blood on their hands — will
return to the fight. Despite everything Israel has done to destroy
Hamas's infrastructure and decapitate its leadership, it will remain a
deadly foe capable of plotting further atrocities.
Will Israel never learn?
On numerous occasions in the past, Israeli governments have agreed to
similarly lopsided exchanges with terrorist organizations like Hamas,
Hezbollah, and the Palestine Liberation Organization. Time and again,
Israel has paid for the freedom of a few hostages or prisoners of war,
or sometimes just their remains, by releasing hundreds of violent
prisoners, many of them responsible for the deaths of civilians. Time
and again, the newly freed terrorists have picked up where they left off.
In May 1985, after nearly a year of negotiation, Israel agreed to
release 1,150 Palestinian prisoners convicted of murder and other
security offenses in exchange for three Israeli soldiers held by the
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a notorious terror group.
Among those released was a Muslim Brotherhood operative named Ahmed
Yassin, who had served less than two years of a 13-year sentence for
unlawfully stockpiling weapons and establishing jihadist cells. Once
freed, Yassin resumed his terrorist activity. In 1987 he launched Hamas
for the purpose of exterminating Israel and carrying out the mass murder
of Jews.
In October 2011, to bring home a kidnapped soldier named Gilad Shalit,
Israel let 1,027 security prisoners walk free. Among those released were
two notorious Palestinian terrorists, Yahya Sinwar and Rawhi Mushtaha.
Sinwar went on to become Hamas's senior commander and Mushtaha his top
lieutenant; together they planned the horrific events of Oct. 7.
By agreeing to let murderous and implacable enemies like Yassin, Sinwar,
and Mushtaha go free, in other words, Israel has repeatedly paved the
way for more innocent victims to be killed, tortured, and traumatized.
Now it seems ready to do so again — and most Israelis are fine with
that. Not because they are unaware of the devil's bargain they are
striking, but because the moral obligation and emotional yearning to
redeem captives is so deeply entrenched in the psyche of the Jewish
state that for most Israelis, every other consideration pales in importance.
An opinion survey released this week finds that 64 percent of Israelis
support releasing even terrorists with "blood on their hands" if that is
the price of bringing hostages home.
Would they feel that way if they knew in advance exactly which innocent
victims would lose their lives, limbs, or liberty at the hands of the
violent prisoners to be exchanged for (some of) the hostages? Does the
moral obligation to redeem captives require Israel to, in effect,
condemn innumerable others to death — or fates worse than death?
On Monday, Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, one of the few
high-ranking Israeli officials to condemn the impending agreement,
called it "a catastrophe." He is right. The way to bring home the
hostages is to achieve the goal Israel's leaders have repeatedly
articulated — a total victory over Hamas culminating in its
unconditional surrender. Another wholesale release of prisoners will not
speed such a victory but prevent it. It will mean new pain, loss, and
grief. And it will guarantee that this terrible war, which has already
cost Jews and Arabs so much, will cost them even more.
Jeff Jacoby is a columnist for The Boston Globe.
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