As is his custom, Bibi Netanyahu collapses in the face of US pressure from two administrations. Will Israelis be the ones to pay the price for his spine having gone missing?
Minhag in Hebrew means custom. Customs are a very important and ancient part of Jewish life. While many things that a Jew does, like circumcising his son or eating matzah on Passover, are direct commandments from the Torah, much of life is based on customs. One of the many disastrous effects of the holocaust was the loss of customs. Each family, each town, and each community had its own way of doing things, and much of that information was lost with the wholesale slaughter of European Jews. I always tried to pump my parents for details about how they lived their lives in small towns in southern Germany before they fled. I was able to glean some information on customs of yore.
Benjamin (Bibi) Netanyahu has a custom of folding like a cheap suit under intense American or international pressure. One of the major surprises in this round of fighting in Gaza and Lebanon has been Israel’s resilience in ignoring nudnikim like Joe Biden, Tony Blinken and the Jew-haters at the UN and international courts. Biden said don’t go into Rafah, and Israel did go in with great success and minimum loss of life. Blinken said not to escalate in Lebanon, and Israeli covert and overt activities decimated Hezbollah. So Bibi was on a winning streak. The IDF has routinely violated the signed ceasefire in Lebanon as needed, instead of abiding by it and bellyaching that Hezbollah is moving weapons or cheating. Instead, a couple of bombs and then return to the ceasefire.
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Immediately after the mass murder on October 7th, the world was promised that all of the participants in the attack were dead men walking. We were told that Hamas would be wiped out. While Israel did kill thousands of those who entered the country, many are still alive in Israeli jails, and Israel never applies its on-the-books death penalty. And as for Hamas, the entire agreement coming out is to keep it in power in Gaza.
The lousy agreement being pushed onto Israel once again shows that Bibi has his limits, and one of them has bright orange hair. Many people do not remember that there was a price for Israel in signing the successful Abraham Accords. Just prior to their announcement, Israel was on the verge of making the towns and settlements in the West Bank legally equal in status to 1948 Israel. From 1967 until today, they are treated differently than Israel proper, and the move to have Israeli law cover them was a major step towards incorporating them into Israel. Bibi was told that if he went ahead with the program, there would be no deal with the UAE, Bahrain, etc. So he backed down. And this pattern, like giving Hebron to the Palestinian Authority under Clintonian pressure via the Wye River Accords also smelled of capitulation.
One thing that is quite irksome is that those who loudly protest for the release of the Gaza hostages treat anyone who might apply a little bit of brakes as wanting all of the hostages dead. One can go in the street and ask anybody, and each man, woman and child will say unequivocally that they want the hostages home. The question is at what price? Let’s say that Hamas demanded one person enter for each one that leaves. Nobody would agree to that arrangement. Let’s say that they demanded that Bibi kill his family for hostage release to happen. Most people would not agree to that one either. So, there is a price that is too high. And the price that Israel is apparently going to pay is enormous—and stupid.
Every hostage release to date has given the Palestinians the kernel of their next major attack against Israel. The Jibril terrorists led the second intifada. The Schalit cohort were the ones behind the October 7th massacre—including Yahya Sinwar. While it is very hard to get definite details about the negotiations in the traitorous country of Qatar, the deal seems to be a big loser: 1300 released murderers for 33 hostages, not all of them alive; removal of Israeli positions from parts of Rafah, north Gaza and elsewhere; and, a ceasefire in Gaza and increased humanitarian aid.
The hallmark of Western fighting since the Korean War has been not to use all tools available against the enemy. The US famously did not use atomic weapons or even let their fighters attack Chinese positions north of the Yalu River. Vietnam was more of the same, as was Afghanistan and the wars in Israel. At the end of last week, Israel lost four soldiers in northern Gaza. This week, it was five. Israel could turn Gaza into a parking lot but chooses to endanger its soldiers rather than apply the full force of its armed capabilities. In World War 2, there was still enough wisdom in the world to realize that a German or Japanese citizen was no less guilty than an actual soldier. It allowed the Allies to fight like they meant it. Today, Western armies hold one hand behind their backs and become contortionists to protect the same civilians who danced over their countrymen’s bodies.
The problem with the deal as publicly described is that nobody cares about the future. Those released terrorists are not political prisoners who will return to being doctors, dentists, and dermatologists. They are murderers and they will go back to what they were doing before their incarceration. And the political echelon, led by Bibi, couldn't care less about those whose lives they are putting in danger by letting out over a thousand hardened terrorists and strengthening Hamas in Gaza. When the Schalit deal was about to take place, terror victims appealed to the High Court. So certain was Bibi that the judges would not block the deal and thus condemn Gilad Schalit to death, they sent a woman from the Justice Ministry who had maybe been working there for two weeks. Every question asked by the court was met by “I don’t know.” She claimed that letters were sent to each affected terror victim. Neither we nor anybody we knew received one. Bibi and his ministers live a life of guards and protection. They don’t take the bus. But those they potentially condemn do take the bus and wonder how safe that bus will be after the Hamas terrorists get out of jail.
Israel is like the guy in the movie who does not realize how strong he is. Israel is way stronger than Hamas and is pulverizing them in Gaza. Israel should be dictating terms to Hamas rather than playing some pingpong with them. Israel should hold territory won so that the Palestinians will every day see the price of killing Jews wholesale. But Israel fights like it is weak and negotiates as if it is weaker. Everybody wants the hostages home. But not everybody is willing to pay any price to get them. The Schalit deal has led to thousands of dead and wounded Israelis. We don’t need to play that song again. Get the hostages out but not at the price of future funerals for Israeli citizens who were not asked their opinion about the deal.
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