Tel-Chai Nation

Jonathan Tobin, who didn't back Donald Trump after he had his presidency hijacked by Joe Biden nearly 5 years ago, last week said said that Israel and Trump may regret the hostage deal made with Hamas, on which Trump never said should be done without preconditions:

But it appears that the first foreign policy blunder of Trump’s second administration may have occurred even before his inauguration takes place on Monday.

The hostage release/ceasefire deal that was just announced between Israel and Hamas may have been largely the result of Trump’s blunt threats against the terrorists and their allies, coupled with pressure placed on Netanyahu by the new U.S. Middle East envoy, Steven Witkoff. If, contrary to its past record, Hamas doesn’t blow up the agreement at the last minute, the once and future president will have gotten what he wanted.

Responding to threats

Trump has repeatedly declared that he wanted the hostages freed before he took office, vowing that he would unleash “all hell” if that didn’t occur. It was a blunt hint as much to Hamas’s funders and enablers, like Qatar and Iran, as it was to the terrorists. But if reports are true, it was also the tough pressure brought to bear on Netanyahu by Witkoff that forced the prime minister to make concessions in the form of favorable terms, such as Israeli withdrawals from Gaza and the mass release of imprisoned terrorists, including many with blood on their hands.

Though 3 hostages have been released so far, it is regrettable Witkoff did that, and no Israeli politician should have to do such things simply because a right-wing government is now in charge in the USA.

There is no conclusive or objective moral calculus by which national leaders can judge whether the concessions they make to obtain the release of kidnapped citizens will do more harm than good. They also labor under the unbearable pressure exerted by their families and supporters among the populace and in the press. In Netanyahu’s case, that has been compounded by the way his political opponents have largely hijacked the movement to appeal for the release of the hostages.

As I have witnessed personally, the rhetoric uttered at the weekly rallies in “Hostages Square,” across from the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, often made it sound as if Netanyahu was the kidnapper—and that he alone was responsible for their ongoing plight and not the terrorists that both took them and have refused to let them go.

Moreover, the Jewish religious tradition that prioritizes the ransoming of hostages—pidyon shvuyim—also acts to impel Israeli governments to make awful bargains with terrorists. That sentiment has caused both Netanyahu and his predecessors to pay so high a price in releasing terrorists and other concessions that it arguably contradicts religious law, which forbids such deals when they can only lead to more kidnapping, terror and bloodshed.

Nevertheless, no one outside of Israel has the right to judge Netanyahu for agreeing to another such damaging compact if it leads to the freeing of at least some individuals.

While we should all rejoice in their release, no one—least of all Trump, and his foreign and security policy team—should be naive about the consequences of the price Israel is paying to supposedly give him the inauguration optics that he wants.

It's definitely reprehensible how Islam is given a pass by the leftists at the rallies, which is basically what they're doing, and such an approach only makes clear the problems are not solved.

To Trump's credit, for the inauguration this Monday, he brought families of the hostages to the gathering, and has addressed the situation far more responsibly, even telling in one report that he's not optimistic a "ceasefire" will hold. But there's a lot more that'll need to be done to mend what damage has for now been done, and the Hamas must be destroyed. It's to be hoped that's something that in the next 4 years will be worked upon.

Labels: anti-americanism, anti-semitism, dhimmitude, islam, Israel, Jerusalem, jihad, Knesset, military, misogyny, Moonbattery, political corruption, racism, sexual violence, terrorism, United States, war on terror