Why would Israel agree to a hostage deal with Hamas? Israel agreed to a much worse deal to free another hostage some years back. That deal and the ones before it were wrong. And yet with a large number of hostages held in enemy hands, and with hundreds of family members rallying for their release, I’m not surprised that it was agreed to.
Qatar, a state sponsor of Hamas, came to Biden with this. And Biden wants a political win. After over a month of fighting, a lot of political interests want something besides dead terrorists.
Even though dead terrorists is what a win looks like.
It may be stating the obvious, but here’s why the hostage deal is a terrible idea.
1. After Oct 7, the new rule was that Hamas would no longer be treated like a normal entity, but like an abominable evil that had to be destroyed. The negotiations kill that. Once you negotiate with evil, it stops being unacceptable. That’s why we had rules against negotiating with terrorists. When the taboo is broken, it’s a lot harder to put back into place.
Oct 7 should have restored an absolute taboo. No more.
2. Hamas has been losing. Its defense strategy has failed. Its best hope for staying in power is to boost morale and make its forces and Arab Muslims in Gaza think that this was all for something.
In today’s article, I delved into why the poll numbers for Hamas and the war were worse in Gaza than in the West Bank. Now Hamas will claim to have delivered a win.
3. The deal endangers other hostages. Hamas wants time to relocate its forces and the hostages. This deal gives it that. Beyond the temporary cessation of attacks, Israel will ‘blind’ itself to its movements. This not only sets back the war effort, but it allows Hamas to make off with and then kill more hostages.
4. The deal means that Israel is falling back into the same bad habits of believing in negotiated deterrence that led to the Oct 7 attack. Delusions of diplomacy are a bad idea. Especially when it comes to terrorists. Hamas can’t be negotiated with or deterred. No Islamic terrorist group can. The moment anyone thinks that way, they’ve lost.
5. Negotiating for hostages leads to the taking of hostages. Period.
6. Israel had a clear moral case for taking out Hamas. Negotiating with it muddies it and undermines Israel’s supporters.
7. After Oct 7, there was a conflict within the Biden administration over diplomacy vs. force. The ‘diplomacy’ crowd will now claim to have won and be in the driver’s seat for setting policy. That means people who are basically agents of Qatar and Iran are back in charge of foreign policy. This will have terrible implications for American support for Israel’s war effort.
{Reposted from FrontPageMag}
