Israel must prioritize hostages above all - editorial

Haaretz published an analysis on Monday sourcing unnamed officials in the defense establishment expressing their concern that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu will likely torpedo the talks that are going to take place this week in Cairo and Doha to keep his coalition intact.

The talks in question are aimed at reaching a ceasefire in Gaza and the beginning of the return of the remaining hostages, and the analysis basically claims Netanyahu will choose political survival over the survival of the hostages.

That hypothesis, again without any official corroboration but possibly the opinion of one or two defense officials who are probably not fans of Netanyahu anyway, then becomes the lead story that morning on KAN Reshet Bet’s new bulletin, and the theory spreads and is disseminated both domestically and abroad.

Unfortunately, even without dubious stories stirring up suspicion and distrust in the prime minister, there’s been enough misgivings about his motives and policies since October 7 to raise those questions on their own.

Israelis are loath to think their prime minister would put personal political survival ahead of reaching a less-than-optimal deal that would free hostages who have been held in Gaza for over nine months now.

But as we enter a critical phase of negotiations involving CIA Director William Burns and high-level teams from Egypt and Qatar, it’s a sad situation in which many Israelis are unsure if their own government wants to reach a deal as much as Hamas does.

It’s clear Netanyahu’s far-right flank does not want any deal, short of complete Hamas surrender.

Smotrich releases statement on X, formerly Twitter

Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich wrote on X, formerly Twitter, that “Hamas is collapsing and begging for a ceasefire. This is the time to squeeze the neck until we crush and break the enemy. To stop now, just before the end, and let him recover and fight us again, is a senseless folly.”

A Givati commander told Maariv Sunday that Hamas is “a weary and demoralized enemy,” but that doesn’t mean the terror organization’s leadership is anywhere near saying “uncle.”

Smotrich’s burst of bravado doesn’t jibe with the reality on the ground however, and taken at its face value is unrealistic, much like the redlines Netanyahu set out on Sunday for the negotiations ahead of Wednesday’s summit in Doha led by Burns.

Any deal will allow Israel to resume fighting until all of the objectives of the war have been achieved (the elimination of Hamas and the return of the remaining 120 hostages).

There will be no smuggling of weapons to Hamas from Egypt to the Gaza border as it laid out its second redline.

There will be no return of thousands of armed terrorists to the northern Gaza Strip.

The hostages will be returned without infringing on the other objectives of the war.

It’s become increasingly clear that the twin objectives of freeing the hostages and ending Hamas’s rule in Gaza cannot be both accomplished at the same time. It could take years to achieve the latter, while if a deal is reached, it could take only a matter of weeks or months to get the remaining captives home.

 It would be a painful deal indeed for Israel, requiring the release of Palestinian terrorists from prison and, for the time being, enabling Hamas’s weakened capabilities to remain intact.

By stating the redlines up front, Netanyahu is boxing in Israel’s position and minimizing the chances of actually arriving at a deal that is workable.

Opposition leader Yair Lapid put it best, saying “We are at a critical moment in the negotiations, the lives of the hostages depend on it, why issue such provocative messages? How does it contribute to the process?”

Israel’s goal of the renewed talks, which in its previous incarnations failed to produce results due to Hamas intransigence, must be the return of the hostages. The government must be of a single mind in that goal and be flexible in order to achieve it.

There must be no doubt that if the talks again fail, it’s not because Netanyahu is letting his coalition partners turn the country’s back on the hostages and their families for a fight that will continue indefinitely, but because Hamas is continuing its duplicitous ways of moving the goalposts and making new, impossible demands.