Netanyahu Buckled Under Public Pressure to Accept the Same Deal He Already Rejected - Israel News - Haaretz.com
By: Yossi Verter (Haaretz. com)
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Netanyahu buckled under public pressure to accept the same deal he already rejected
Yossi Verter 5-6 minutes 11/21/2023
Without a doubt, a four-day cease-fire, including a suspension of drone surveillance of what is happening in Gaza, will not help the war effort. There is a real fear that Hamas will emerge from this truce stronger, emboldened and reorganized, which will come at the cost of soldiers’ lives exposed now to greater dangers. It is almost certain that on the final day as well, difficulties, mishaps and incidents will occur, as will hostages who "can't be found." What can go wrong probably will.
But there is no choice except to approve the deal on offer. There are 236 hostages , ranging from 10 months old to 85 years old, who are trapped in Gaza — not because they took the wrong turn on a holiday trip. They became hostages because of a colossal failure on the part of the government, the Israel Defense Forces and the Shin Bet security service, a failure that cost the lives of 1,400 people and hundreds of injured, some of them destined to be disabled for the rest of their lives.
The chief responsibility of Israel’s political and defense leadership is to bring home all the abductees. Because that is not possible right now, at least the 50 or so children and mothers should be rescued. After them, women, the elderly and the injured That goal should get priority over all others.
The "elimination" of Hamas and the "dismantling of its military and governmental capabilities" can be accomplished later, including killing its leaders. There is time for that. What was not done over the past 20 years can wait. But the abductees - certainly the children, the sick, the elderly and the injured - have no time. And no one at the top has the moral authority to decide to leave them there in order to advance another kilometer to the south of the Gaza Strip.
For all those not included in these categories, it will be difficult, if not tortuous. With the freeing of the first 50 (perhaps 70) of the hostages, the hostage families will be divided between those whose loved ones have come home and are enjoying infinite happiness and those whose loved ones have been left behind. Their grief will be the worst for it, another insufferable blow.
Israel is now manic-depressive. The good news will be mixed with the bad. Joy will be mingled with sadness. Still, that is better than the unmitigated depression we have been living in for the last 46 days. We have never experienced such an emotional roller coaster. It will be the release of Gilad Shalit many times over.
The decision of the two coalition parties of the far right – Religious Zionism and Otzma Yehudit – to oppose the deal comes as no surprise. From the right that they represent, human life, even that of 40 children, is considered less important than making war, razing homes and killing terrorists. That is their “Zionism.” That is their “Judaism.”
A thought creeps into my heart: Would Ben-Gvir and Smotrich have taken a different stance, if people from other sectors of the population – and not kibbutzniks, for example – had been abducted? We saw this opacity and evil live in a Knesset committee discussion. Their opposition is Act II of this cruel performance.
As far as we know, the deal that the cabinet debated Tuesday night was also on the table a week ago, with negligible differences. The prime minister hesitated until he rejected it. This week, he changed his mind. Netanyahu's zigzags are par for the course. What seems to have changed his mind is public pressure, his meeting with the hostage families and the positions taken by the IDF, the Shin Bet and the Mossad. The ultimate responsibility is his, but it is always more comfortable to share it with the defense establishment.
It is not the first time during this war that Netanyahu has changed his public stance. At one time, he did not put freeing the hostages at the top of the war's goals. As the pressure increased, he moved more and more to a humanitarian stance until his public remarks gave equal priority to the release of the abductees and the elimination of Hamas.
Now, we can only hope that the care given to the returning mothers and children will be more humane, more professional and more compassionate than the treatment their families received over the past six weeks. That includes Tuesday, when many of those invited to a meeting with the war cabinet were left outside in the rain due to poor organization. Sloppy work is not an option.
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This what I have been saying since the beginning. Maybe now that an Israeli columnist says it , it will get a better reception here.
3 Palestinians equal 1 Israeli, seems like they got the math right.
No it isn't. Previously it was 100 to 1, 100 convicted terrorist murderers together are not worth the lives of one innocent Israeli.
Biden should have sent the Rev. Jesse Jackson. He probably could have gotten a better deal for the [Deleted]
His term not mine.
Abductees?... mmmmkay
Abductees sounds much softer than kidnapped hostages.
And ever so much softer than torture victims...
So it seems that between 50 and 70 hostages will not be collateral damage. If you watched the video of the meeting at the Knesset a few days ago with the hostage's families it was obvious that tempers were at a boiling point when finally one family member told the right-wing minister that it was time to stop talking about killing Arabs and talk about savings Jews.
I believe that probably put enough pressure on Netanyahu to make this deal.
Good point.
Get as many hostages out now, then resume rooting out the Hamas killers. The temporary ceasefire will determine if Hamas will live up to their end of the deal. Any dead hostages going forward will entirely be Hamas' fault.
The deal has been made and 50 hostages are supposed to be released in the next four or five days. That will determine the Israeli reaction.
If there are any dead hostages going forward try explaining to the families that it is Hamas's fault. I doubt if the families give a crap about it being Hamas's fault. Sounds good in the hypothetical not so good when you have to face the families and tell them that their relatives are dead.
Wise words.
"Netanyahu Buckled Under Public Pressure To Accept The Same Deal He Already Rejected"
I have to wonder how true this is. The pressure has been there from the start and has mostly been ignored by Israel and to a certain extent the US (at least in Public). I wonder if Netanyahu figured he has done enough damage that stopping for 4 or 5 days in order to get humanitarian aid in and hostages out can be done now because he feels it will take alot longer than that for Hamas to regroup and/or hide/dig in. I wonder if Hamas didn't overplay its hand with the brutality of the attack and just assumed Israel would go with a measured response and now they are back on their heals.
You could be right that Hamas did not anticipate the intensity of the response but my concern now is that Hamas will have lots of time to regroup, rearm and set up many booby traps in its tunnels that will kill a lot more Israeli soldiers than before. Although the defeat of Hamas is inevitable the war would end and not one more person would die or be wounded if Hamas were to surrender and turn over its weapons but there is no way Hamas will stop because the expected future for them if they die martyrs is to get the opportunity to deflower their 72 virgins, which is much more important to them than the lives of the civilian Gazans they should be protecting rather than using them as human shields..
Unfortunately, not just "some".