We are weeping and celebrating simultaneously. We are joyous because we will finally get to see among us – albeit in excruciatingly piecemeal fashion – those hostages who remain alive. And we weep for those who will not share their happy fate and for the soldiers who fell in battle.
But we are also angry at the repugnant side of this deal and concerned about the details and the questions that it raises: Will Hamas rebuild its strength and once again become the governing power in the Gaza Strip?
When, in his farewell speech, former US president Joe Biden said that the future of Gaza is “without Hamas in power,” did he know something that has yet to be brought to our attention, or was it simply another cognitive error?
The United States and most of the Arab states are opposed to Hamas’s continued rule in Gaza – with the exception of Qatar, the terrorist organization’s de facto partner – just as we are, but how will this be ensured?
Will Israel remain deployed along the Philadelphi Corridor, a precondition lest Gaza once again become an active terrorist basis? And what about the dimensions of the buffer zone at the northern and southern side of the Gaza Strip?
And there are additional questions of urgent concern. In stage one of the ceasefire deal, Israel will free 735 dangerous murderers and rapists, including by some reports terrorism instigator Marwan Barghouti and other known dangerous terrorists. Exiling them overseas seems more of a distraction than a concrete plan.
During the first stage of the deal, some of the living hostages will be freed, with Israel in theory maintaining the ability to use military pressure to secure the release of the rest of the hostages and captives during the second stage – but there is no guarantee that the second stage will be reached.
Almost up to the final moment of the present stage of the deal, Hamas had tried to place obstacles in its path similar to what it had done for the past 15 months – and, as is patently evident, it would not have come to fruition without the massive military pressure exerted by the IDF.
In some quarters, including in Israel, the Israeli government was badmouthed as being responsible for delaying the release of the hostages by allegedly making new demands. US secretary of state Antony Blinken forcefully confirmed that it was Hamas that had reneged on previously agreed details – in part because of the pressure exerted on Israel.
Blinken also said that he was astonished that there was no international pressure on Hamas to surrender and release the hostages, but failed to mention that the Biden administration’s pressure on Israel to allow humanitarian aid into Gaza was not helpful either.
A critical period
It should be emphasized that the period between the two stages of the ceasefire agreement will be especially critical, if Hamas for different reasons will once again be able to put spokes in the wheels, and averting this will depend almost entirely on Israel’s option to renew the war – just as the massive military pressure that the IDF exerted in northern Gaza in recent months was the main factor forcing Hamas to be more flexible and to change its recalcitrant stance, coming to realize that cutting a deal was preferable to losing thousands more of its people and further destruction in Gaza.
IN THIS deal, Israel has been caught in an impossible dilemma: to choose, or at least balance, between the immediate fate of the hostages and the long-term national security concerns of the State of Israel and its citizens, with the ceasefire and its negative elements being the result of both internal and external factors.
Just as the timing of Hamas’s October 7 attack was the result of the divisions and rifts within Israel, its decisions and attitudes now are, among other factors, influenced by what it perceives and expects to be happening on Israel’s domestic scene.
The emotions and protests expressed by the hostages’ families, supported by the public at Hostages Square, were totally understandable and justified, especially given that were it not for the all-around failures of the state, this terrible situation would never have arisen.
However, wanton acts, like petitioning the International Criminal Court in The Hague against the Israeli government and its leader, can only be described as obnoxious and disgraceful. No less egregious are the cynical acts by those who have hijacked the suffering of the hostages and their families for blatant political reasons.
The self-appointed or self-anointed and well-organized and well-funded organizations and public “committees” that have popped up under various names deliberately created the false impression that it was the Israeli government, not Hamas, holding the hostages. By those irresponsible deeds they turned themselves into de facto abettors of Hamas.
Every demonstration, every roadblock and rowdy disturbance in the Knesset, every poster brandishing “now” and “at any price” was another gain for Hamas in its strategy of extortion, making it even harder to secure the hostages’ release, endangering their lives and the very chances of the deal.
Once a commission of inquiry is established to look into all the events connected to October 7, it will also have to examine the extent to which the above activities have contributed to the damage and the suffering in its aftermath.
GETTING BACK to the deal itself, it would be unrealistic not to recognize the (perhaps pivotal) role that external factors played in it, both its positive and negative elements, such as President (at the time still President-elect) Trump’s pressure on Hamas, and in a crucial moment ascertaining Israel was on board.
There is surely a lesson to be learned from this also with regard to possible scenarios in the future, including, for example, in relation to resuming the war if the need arises.
However in the next few months – and perhaps even the coming days – Israel will face one of the toughest political, diplomatic, and public campaigns in its history given the need to preserve and expand its achievements against Hamas on the one hand, but also dealing with the situation in the Gaza Strip brought upon its people by their leaders and themselves, a situation which our enemies are using to defame Israel and the entire Jewish people.
Most importantly, we must prevent the possibility of more October 7s.
The writer, a former MK, served as ambassador to the US from 1990 to 1993 and from 1998 to 2000.