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Free The Hostages! Bring Them Home!

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Jan 15, 2025

The deal has been signed

Thank you Mr Netanyahu, Mr Trump, Mr Biden and everyone involved for coming to a deal to bring the hostages home and end the war (for now). Hopefully the deal will be implemented and not fall apart before it begins or before the stages are complete.

The return of the hostages was long overdue. The war was not really going anywhere at this point with just more and more soldiers being killed or injured as they were sitting ducks in Gaza with a low intensity situation going on. We had tremendous accomplishments in the war. If the war was only going to continue at low intensity with no intention to conquer Hamas entirely and replace them, or to conquer and hold land or anything significant like that, better it should end and our soldiers, and hostages, should come home.

Israel can enforce this deal, Israel can prevent Hamas from rearming, Israel can be more aggressive against Hamas violations, against Hamas attacks, unlike in the past when Israel allowed Hamas to attack without any real response, when Israel allowed Hamas to build, when Israel saw Hamas as a necessary force in Gaza, when Israel let the money flow into Gaza despite knowing it was going to build terrorist infrastructure. Israel can and has to ensure that won't happen again. Even if the deal is not great (eg too many terrorists being released), it is not a deal of surrender and it is not a deal of defeat for Israel. 

Did we accomplish everything? I don't know - other than some meaningless words of "total victory" nothing was ever really defined as to what that would look like. Even if we did not accomplish everything people might have wanted, we accomplished an awful lot.

Bring them home now!

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9 comments:

  1. Garnel IronheartJanuary 15, 2025 8:09 PM

    Only 33 hostages out of 98, with no timeline on the rest. And who knows how quickly they'll be released while the 1000 terrorists will have to be returned NOW NOW NOW.
    Israel will have to hope the US will let them enforce the deal because, like all previous ceasefire deals, the rest of the world will ignore Hamas attacks but condemn Israelis retaliatory strikes as "breaking the fragile ceasefire".
    Israel can't prevent Hamas from re-arming. After 16 months of fighting, they're still in control of a good chunk of Gaza, capable of launching attacks on soldiers and firing rockets. No one wants to say this out loud but the Israeli results have been mediocre at best. Short of a prolonged occupation and constant surveillance to find all the tunnels they've missed so far and destroy them and constantly taking out reforming Hamas cells, we will be back to October 6 in a year or two.
    Israel has lost badly but hopefully the booby prize will be the US giving Israel what it needs to finish off Iran,
    And then next up, Turkey

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  2. The question I'd suggest people thinking about - how would they evaluate this agreement if it had been reached by a center left Israeli government
    bsorot tovot

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    Replies
    1. Garnel IronheartJanuary 16, 2025 6:23 PM

      The same way, I'd think. For me, it's about objective criteria. Is Hamas neutralized? No. Are all the hostages coming home? No. So it's a bad deal.

      Delete
  3. Giving up all our cards for just 33 hostages? That's just insanity on our part.

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  4. IMO, we won't know how good a deal this is for a while. True, Hamas is not defeated, and hostages remain. OTOH, the real test is what happens going forward when Hamas and its friends start up again.

    First issue is Iran. Without Iran, the effectiveness of Hamas and Iran's other proxies goes way down. And the incoming Trump administration is making clear that it intends to neutralize or take down Iran. If that happens -- and it's a big if -- then it's a big plus for Israel.

    Second is how much can Israel go back and re-attack Hamas when (not if) they violate the ceasefire. Under Biden, I would have zero confidence that they would not pressure Israel to "show restraint." Under Trump, not so sure. Hamas is as popular among the Trump people as pork is in Meah Shearim. On that score, Trump’s pick for national security adviser Mike Waltz said in a recent interview that Hamas must be destroyed and have no role at all in postwar Gaza.

    Third, my impression is that Israel is now exhausted by the war and needs time to reenergize.

    As always, the end result is in the hands of the Almighty. Pray that the result is a net positive.

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    Replies
    1. Garnel IronheartJanuary 16, 2025 7:28 PM

      then there's Turkey which is working to establish itself as the new Iran.

      Delete
  5. Your entire thesis is irrational and baseless. Not based on Torah, not based on military strategy. This is capitulation to the enemies and capitulation to the protesters.
    Shame! Busha! Shanda!

    Everything you cited as facts are merely baseless opinions (e.g. lame ducks). What a joke. You've lost your credibility as a rational thinker.

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    Replies
    1. everything I write is my opinion. I am not the spokesman for God and/or the Torah , nor am I a military strategist, and my opinion could well be wrong.
      That being said, I am aware of many rabbonim who have come out in favor of this deal to release the hostages, and I am also aware of rabbonim who have come out against it. So I am not sure you have a monopoly on the torah position.
      It is nice to talk about taking down Hamas, but what is Netanyahu's plan to do that, other than to say he is doing it. in 15 months he hasnt done it, and it does not quite look like it is in the process of happening. This situation should just go on forever until it miraculously happens? The American administration has recently reported that Hamas has rebuilt all its strength (in numbers) being that it has recruited to its ranks as many people as it has lost in the war. sure, for now they are junior terrorists, but in 6 months they will be seasoned.. Even if it is somewhat an exaggeration and they have only recruited most not all, still it doesnt look like we are taking them down soon. I dont know if a different government might have more success in that, but this government is not doing it so, again in my opinion, we should at least get the hostages out

      Delete
    2. Well, since day one he's been talking about the hostages. That was the mistake. Maybe there was a need to discuss them outside of Israel, maybe. In Israel, not at all.

      Delete

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