The Israeli opposition and so-called “international community” have spent most of the past 16 months lobbing two key demands—or accusations—at Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin (“Bibi”) Netanyahu. One is that he must introduce a clear plan for the “day after” Hamas. The other is that he “bring home all the hostages now.”
Busy fighting an existential defensive war against the terrorists who gleefully perpetrated the massacre of 1,200 people on Oct. 7, 2023, he has been unable to give a definitive answer. He did assert, however, that the Palestinian Authority could not assume any role in Gaza. “I will not allow us to replace Hamastan with Fatahstan,” he told the now-former administration in Washington.
The second rebuke was akin to alleging that Bibi was holding the hostages in his basement. Never mind that he was deploying the might of the Israel Defense Forces to search for them while battling the barbarians responsible for their plight—those continuing to commit the worst atrocities against Jews since the Holocaust.
Last week, U.S. President Donald Trump answered both. First, he announced that the United States would take control of Gaza. Then—after witnessing the condition of the three men emerging last Saturday from captivity looking as though they’d been liberated from Auschwitz, and hearing Hamas say that it wouldn’t free the next three the following week—he delivered an ultimatum.
“If all of the hostages aren’t returned by Saturday, [Feb. 15] at 12 o’clock … I would say, cancel [the ceasefire deal] and all bets are off and let hell break out,” he declared to reporters at the White House. “And if they’re not returned—all of them, not in drips and drabs, not two and one and three and four and two–by Saturday at 12 o’clock … all hell is going to break out.”
Ironically, the very people who claimed to want immediate solutions to the dire situation are up in arms over the plans that Trump presented. For one thing, they have a hypocritical aversion to population “transfer” when it applies to Palestinians. For another, they—like all Israelis—fear the potentially deadly consequences for the hostages of painting Hamas into a corner.
As a result, rather than feeling relief at the prospect of a crack in the enemy’s armor, the protest movement raised its voice even higher, pushing for the implementation of phase two of the ceasefire deal. You know, the part that requires a full IDF withdrawal from Gaza.
That this is Hamas’s precondition for demilitarization of the enclave and a third phase for the return of the rest of the hostages makes a mockery of the whole enterprise. Anyone paying attention must realize that Hamas won’t lay down its weapons. Nor will it relinquish every last captive—unless, of course, the hundreds of terrorists released from Israeli prisons kidnap a fresh batch of innocent Israelis.
The above opportunities that Trump has opened up are being obfuscated by the anti-Netanyahu crowd. Members of that camp haven’t ceased asserting that the longest-serving prime minister in Israel’s history cares solely about prolonging the war, regardless of the fate of the hostages. In their distorted version of events, Bibi’s priority is maintaining his coalition to preserve his power.
That his behavior indicates the opposite is irrelevant to those whose main objective is toppling the government he heads. Oh, and to see the bogus trial to which he has been subjected for the past several years bear fruit, despite the disintegration of the prosecution’s cases.
Even the unfriendly Biden administration has repeatedly acknowledged that Netanyahu never torpedoed a proposed ceasefire-hostage-release agreement during negotiations with Egyptian and Qatari mediators. However, this hasn’t persuaded the “anybody but Bibi” choirmasters to change their tune. On the contrary.
When Netanyahu decided on Saturday not to take advantage of Trump’s threat that all hostages be released “or else,” opting instead to accept the three hostages whom Hamas ultimately consented to free, the rallying cry against him from the usual suspects continued unabated. But had he taken Trump’s lead, they would have shouted just as loudly.
Meanwhile, many on the right—and among some of the hostage families whose relatives are not slated to return in the current phase—were disappointed that Netanyahu didn’t promptly adopt Trump’s “no more nice guy” approach, especially as it coincided with the delivery of crucial arms that had been withheld by Team Biden.
Still, these people blame Hamas, not Bibi, for the crisis. They constitute the majority of the public that is praying that he and Trump have been discussing the best way to proceed with the greatest number of live hostages rescued in as short a time as possible.
So far, there’s cause for optimism on this score, as U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio made plain after meeting with Netanyahu in Jerusalem on Sunday. For his part, Netanyahu said to Rubio: “Contrary to what is being reported, President Trump and I are working in full cooperation and coordination. We have a shared strategy, which cannot always be detailed to the public—including when the gates of hell will open. And they will open if all our hostages are not returned, every last one of them.”
{Reposted from JNS}
