Ceasefire was a mistake - the joy of having many of the captives back notwithstanding

 The Security Cabinet convened this evening and made a series of operational decisions, the goal of which is to achieve the destruction of the military and governing capabilities of Hamas and Islamic Jihad in a way that will preclude their ability and willingness to threaten and attack the citizens of Israel for many years.

          -October 8, 2023

 

The Government of Israel is committed to achieving the goals of the war: Releasing the hostages, eliminating Hamas and ensuring that Gaza never again constitutes a threat to the residents of Israel.

-                        - December 1, 2023-

Time will tell what damage the moratorium Israel took in battling Hamas has done. It began on November 24 and ended today. Like all Israelis, I am grateful that some 80 captives have come home. At the same time, I have been watching how the release of busloads of Palestinians in Israeli custody has boosted the standing of Hamas in the West Bank.

I believe the release of terrorists and suspected terrorists has already had deadly consequences. And I fear precious momentum and time have been lost in Gaza.

Now that we are back to fighting, I pray for victory and the safety of our soldiers and security forces.

 

The Fruits of Netanyahu's Prisoner Exchange Becoming Apparent - More lives will be lost than Saved

My blog below was written  very early Friday, November 24, 2023 --

Israel began releasing dangerous Palestinian prisoners in return for innocent captive women and children, and men.

On November 29, 2023, the prime minister pledges the war will resume ...

Let's see what happens next...

Overnight November 29/ into November 30

More Palestinian prisoners were released to east Jerusalem and into the West Bank

Hurt, scared but free now. Palestinian boy recalls abuse in Israeli prison

Mohammad Salhab Tamimi, 18, was returned to his family on Tuesday as part of an ongoing prisoner exchange deal. (https://www.aljazeera.com)

Early November 30

6:44 AM  

גלצ

@GLZRadio

20 דקות לפני סיומה, צה"ל מודיע: ההפוגה באש תימשך

@Doron_Kadosh

7:46AMחשד לפיגוע בירושלים: דיווח ראשוני על ירי בכניסה לשכונת רמות

@noabaranes10
Analysts on Army Radio say worth checking if the release of prisoners and a sense Palestinian victory was the impetus for attackat the entrance pf Jerusalem
8:23 AM מגן דוד אדום @mda_israel בהמשך לפיגוע ירי בשדרות וייצמן בטרמפיאדה בכניסה לירושלים: חובשים ופראמדיקים של מד"א קובעים את מותה של צעירה בת 24 ומפנים לבתי החולים שערי צדק והדסה עין כרם 8 פצועים, בהם: 5 במצב קשה, 1 בינוני ו-2 קל.

The war that began on Black Saturday, October 7, 2023, ended in Israel's defeat on Black Friday, November 24, 2023. It will be seen as Israel's first defeat in a war of "no choice."

The extent of our loss will become apparent over time. In the Islamic world, the Arab, Persian, and Turkish perception will be that the Jewish state is brittle and vulnerable. "Dazed and crazed, Israel lashed out, killed thousands of babies, women, and children, left Gaza in ruins, yet in the end, failed to overcome the steadfast Palestinian resistance," the enemy narrative will say.

How did we lose? We abandoned our stated mission of removing Hamas as a military threat. Destroying Hamas was supplanted by "freeing the captives" that Hamas and other Palestinian criminal gangs took on day one of the war. Mission creep became mission lost.

The needs of the few overcame the safety and, ultimately, I fear, the existence of the many.

Once Binyamin Netanyahu made the decision (early in the war) to negotiate with Hamas about the captives via the US and Qatar, defeat was foretold. The Persians and Arabs have always seen through his bluster. It did not help that interested players got involved to "advise" and "champion" the captives' families. The intense public relations that came out of nowhere and made the hostages the focus of the war had – unintended or not – the consequence of saving Hamas's ability to fight another day.

The issue of the captives obfuscated the goal of the war. And then it derailed it.

Israel's leading media outlets encouraged the mission creep so that the return of the captives became the first imperative. Most of the population drank the cool-aid. Getting our hostages home trumped everything. I see this as a self-destruct gene in Israel's DNA.

The Jews are supposed to be shrewd bargainers. Maybe with each other. Not so in the Arab-Israel conflict. I refer you to Yitzhak Rabin's Oslo Accords and Netanyahu's fulfillment of Oslo II.

In this instance, the price will go steadily higher for each successive release of Israeli captives. The IDF's offensive will stand indefinitely paused. Gazans' humanitarian needs will become paramount. Our army's presence in the Strip will, in due course, become militarily and diplomatically less than useless. The enthusiasm of the reservists will drop. The Arabs will shoot occasionally to demoralize us, but not enough to torpedo the process. And at each stage, Israel will be forced to set loose more and more of the most dangerous terrorists from our prisons. A mass prisoner release was what Hamas has been demanding all along. The Islamists did not lose sight of their mission. Yahya Sinwar, who got his current job in Gaza thanks to Netanyahu, knew he could count on our PM to repeat the Schalit deal blunder.

Ours will be a two-front defeat as Hezbollah has managed to drive thousands of Israelis away from their homes in the North, and Hamas has made life in the South untenable.

Netanyahu's implied contract with Israel's citizens is that despite changing missions, mid-war, he can get all the civilian and IDF captives – alive or their remains – brought back to Israel, then resume our offensive against Hamas, ending its military capability to threaten our security. After that, Mossad will hunt down and liquidate the entire Hamas leadership abroad (which granted might take some time). Finally, the released sociopathic killers will be expected to sign lawyerly affidavits pledging not to engage in terrorism. I can't see how he can pull this scenario off, but I would be thrilled to be proven wrong.

However, if my realism turns out to be closer to the truth than Netanyahu's Rosy Scenario, he will spin our horrific reverses as the fault of the "leftist" IDF high command and the bad advice he got from the Shin Bet and Mossad - not to mention pressure from the Biden administration. He will say those who protested against his regime change putsch were a fifth column that undermined our deterrence. And he will assert that, thank heavens, he was nonetheless able to pull our chestnuts out of the fire. 

His wizardry is not what it was, but Israel is full of gullible people.

 

First, read what Binyamin Netanyahu said last night:

The outline that has been achieved does not include the release of murderers. It does include visits by Red Cross representatives to the hostages and the delivery of medicines to them. I heard that there is someone denying this. The Red Cross says that it has not heard; then here is the explicit clause: 'The Red Cross will be allowed to visit the remaining hostages and provide them with needed medicine.' I expect the Red Cross to do its work.

We went out for an Indian last night. So I missed the news conference our prime minister gave – though that is a fib. I did not miss hearing our prime minister talk balderdash.

Based on information in the public domain (11 AM Israel time Thursday), it is possible some of the captives held by Hamas and other Palestinian criminal gangs in Gaza may be dead.

It is conceivable that Israel agreed to a deal without knowing what it agreed to.

The Netanyahu-Ganz government does not know how many captives are being held in Gaza. It did not insist the Red Crescent or Red Cross FIRST visit the hostages before agreeing to any deal. It did not demand - as a starting point - a verified comprehensive list of all the captives and their condition.

Some reports claim that Hamas provided a list that gave names, sex, and nationality but not for all the captives to be released. And that it gave no information on any of them about whether they are alive.

Other sources say Hamas didn’t hand over any detailed list of the “first group” of captives.

One way or the other, our prime minister announced that he and Benny Ganz had agreed to a deal. They published a list of 300 Palestinian Arabs in Israeli prisons on a potential release list – attempted suicide bombers, attempted murderers, and Molotov cocktail throwers. Releasing these wanna-be-killers gives Hamas a claimable win.

Agreeing to a ceasefire gives Hamas time to reorganize. It makes it nearly impossible to restart the military campaign. It either dooms any captives not initially released or allows them to be used to stretch out a truce indefinitely. As in Ron Arad indefinitely.

Israelis were told when this war started that Hamas would not be a threat when it was over. 

More and more, that is beginning to seem like more Netanyahu balderdash.

 

 

This is awkward. I agree with Itamar Ben-Gvir

For English speakers, let me bring you into the loop. I just spent 20 minutes listening to Itamar Ben-Gvir – let’s call it –being “interviewed” by two belligerent interlocutors, @yanircozin and @sefiova, who have the Eight AM slot on @GLZRadio army radio. Like virtually all Israeli radio and television presenters, they can’t wait for an answer before cutting off their guests. They think journalism is about bullying their interviewees or tripping them up. 

I found myself indignant on Ben-Gvir’s behalf because of their approach. You invite someone on your stage -- give them the courtesy of letting them respond to your questions. Don’t invite them if you can’t tolerate their style or think they serially obfuscate.

It is no secret that as a classical Jabotinsky liberal, I find Ben-Gvir’s platform repugnant. His history and ideology do not, however, invalidate his positions on every issue.

Ben-Gvir is right to favor the death penalty for convicted terrorists. He makes a cogent argument that the death penalty laws already on the books have, in practice, not empowered judges to impose capital punishment. So this is a discussion that we need to have. 

And after what happened on Black Saturday, October 7, any claim that the death penalty would paint our enemies into a corner is risible. Certainly, the death penalty should not be off the table for a defendant convicted of the premeditated killing of multiple victims. 

I accept that capital punishment may not be a deterrent, certainly not for political or Islamist-inspired terrorism. That said, to my knowledge, no executed killer has ever killed again, nor has anyone ever been taken hostage to get a dead man out of prison. 

Ben-Gvir is wrong about advocating the issue now when our captives are in enemy hands, and their families are beside themselves with worry. But let’s put that aside. Yes, he is a demagogue (so is Binyamin Netanyahu), and it is fair to question his motives, but there is a possibility that he thinks he is doing the right thing by forcing the issue now. I don’t know.

He tried to tell Army Radio that he had not decided how he would vote in the Cabinet on a hostage deal. He’s correct to be suspicious of an exchange of captives for terrorists. He is right to point out that Netanyahu did that in the Schalit deal, and the results were catastrophic.

My fear is that captives left behind by another Netanyahu-authorized deal will likely be doomed. So, we need to hold out for the release of all our captives, including soldiers and remains.

Ben-Gvir is right to oppose a Gaza truce, for it will be near-impossible to restart our military campaign to defang Hamas.

He’s right to be suspicious of the analytical assessments of the security establishment, and I would add, the wisdom of the political echelon that was in power on October 6. And, of course, he and his wall-to-wall Bibist-Hardal-Haredi government, now in power, have been part of the problem. They ignored warnings we all read about in the newspapers that their judicial putsch and the mass opposition it was engendering were weakening our polity and undermining Israel's deterrence. His obsession with humbling the enemy by striding around on the Temple Mount was... unhelpful. So when all this is over, I hope voters throw the lot of them out of the Knesset. 

With all that, Ben-Gvir is right in arguing that every utterance of a general or Shin Bet chief needs to be evaluated on the merits and not taken as revealed truth.

He’s right to make it easier for citizens to arm themselves.

He’s right to question why the instant response teams (“minutemen” like squads) on both the northern and southern fronts were practically decommissioned and defunded. And he’s right to reverse that.

In other words, just because Itamar Ben-Gvir is wrong about so many things doesn't automatically invalidate his position on capital punishment, a possible hostage-for-killers exchange, and how to think about a Gaza ceasefire.