T. Belman. When Halevi served as Amb to EU in Brussels, my daughter served under him as a diplomat. He certainly feels that America will call the shots and Israel has no choice but to go along. This is the old comception.
Former Mossad chief Efraim Halevi told Ynet that the deal to release the hostages is ‘the best possible at this stage, and this is only the first stage’; Yair Moses’ elderly kidnapped father is not included in the deal: ‘The heart breaks, but we must bring back everyone who can be brought back’
By Alexandra Lukash, Nir (Shoko) Cohen, Moran Azulay, YNET
After it approved the deal with Hamas, which is set to exchange Israeli hostages for Palestinian prisoners, the government on Tuesday night issued an official statement which said that “the government of Israel, the IDF and the security forces will continue the war to return all the hostages, to complete the elimination of Hamas and to ensure that the threat to the State of Israel from Gaza will not be renewed.”
However, former Mossad chief Efraim Halevi told Ynet: “I think this deal is the first stage, and if this process of the exchange of prisoners is carried forward to the end, it will be much more difficult to renew the military campaign until the collapse of Hamas.”
Halevi, who also chaired the National Security Council, says that “I think there will be very great pressure from the United States to bring about a moderation and even an end to the fighting without Hamas collapsing completely as the prime minister would like. This is not only a deal in the field of exchanging prisoners from both sides, but also as a move that will strengthen the intention to try to bring the war to an end.” However, he clarified that he “assumes that this is the best deal that could be achieved at this stage, and that it is the beginning of a process of further deals that will return most if not all of our hostges home.”
Analyst: The soldiers on the ground believe ceasefire is a mistake
Military analyst Yossi Yehoshua notes ‘significant’ discrepancies between how top IDF bronze, soldiers fighting on the ground, see prisoner swap.
Yediot Aharonot military analyst Yossi Yehoshua on Thursday morning wrote that while top security officials express support for a prisoner swap to release the hostages held by Hamas terror groups, the actual soldiers fighting on the ground have expressed dissatisfaction.
“It would be worthwhile to separate the messages that are coming out of the top echelon of the IDF, headed by the Chief of Staff, as well as from those in the system who are responsible for this enormous failure, from the echelon actually fighting in Gaza,” Yehoshua said..
“The discrepancies between them are significant in character and perspective. The soldiers fighting on the ground are not caught up with preconceptions, do not like philosophizing, and mostly – wants to win. There you will not hear clear support for a ceasefire, to put it lightly.
He stressed, “These amazing commanders who are fighting for eight weeks already and making achievements despite all sorts of warnings that were flying around, are convinced that it would be a mistake to stop them at the peak of their offensive attack, moments before the completion of the conquest of the northern part of Gaza.”
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@John Galt III
Here is what Netanyahu REALLY thinks about “destroying Hamas”:
https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/how-hamas-deterred-netanyahu/
“I think Israel cannot withstand American pressure. First of all, because it is the main supporter of Israel today in the world, and President Biden is perhaps Israel’s greatest friend in many years and significantly helped Israel in the transfer of weapons during the campaign,”
If this guy thinks that Biden is a better friend than Trump, he is either a liar, a moron or both. In addition Mossad, Shin Bet and the IDF were all complicit in undermining Netanyahu while ignoring and sleeping through the preparations by Hamas for their invasion that was reported to them for three months. Only 2% of non-IDF Jews today in Israel have guns.
If Israel now is hamstrung then it is on the unity leadership of Israel. I hope it is not and they start going after the Hamas leaders in other countries and that includes Qatar.