We can only hope that Trump’s pressure is part of a larger plan to secure Israel’s total victory, not its surrender.
Netanyahu speaks to Trump Amos Ben-Gershom/GPO
It seems that the deal brokered under pressure from incoming President Trump is done, forcing Israel to release terrorists and essentially withdraw from Gaza in exchange for freeing some hostages.
I am left grappling with profound confusion and disbelief.
How is it that after enduring the most horrific attack in modern Israeli history—a massacre on Oct. 7th that claimed thousands of lives and led to the kidnapping of innocent men, women, and even babies—that Israel is still the one being pressured?
Why is the Jewish state, the victim of this barbarity, forced to capitulate to the demands of its enemies?
Why aren’t Hamas, Iran, Qatar, and Egypt—the very actors complicit in this massacre—being held accountable?
The Injustice of International Pressure
The very fact that Israel is under this pressure reflects a twisted moral calculus. Even worse, the rumored terms of this deal are beyond comprehension: releasing over 1,000 terrorists, withdrawing from Gaza, and leaving Hamas victorious.
Hamas winning this war sends a message to the entire pro-Jihad world that massacres,kidnappings, and terrorism work. That endangers every single citizen in the entire freedom-loving world.
Why would Trump, who has built his reputation on peace through strength, be pressuring Israel into such an agreement? It doesn’t align with his previous declarations. Only weeks ago, he warned that all hostages must be freed by Jan. 20th, or, as his VP-elect Vance clarified, Israel would have full support to obliterate Hamas.
So, what has changed?
Something Doesn’t Add Up
This situation raises too many questions:
1. Why Would Trump Change Course?
Trump’s past rhetoric emphasized peace through strength. He knows who the bad guys are. Why would he push Israel into appeasing Hamas and Iran, undermining his own credibility and Israel’s security?
2. Why Is Israel Caving Now?
Prime Minister Netanyahu resisted similar pressure for over a year in not agreeing to the dangerous concessions that would endanger Israel and not even return all of our hostages. Why would he now agree to that same deal that leaves Hamas alive and emboldened to kill and kidnap more Israelis moving forward?
3. Is There a Bigger Picture?
Could this be a strategic maneuver by Trump to allow Israel to destroy Hamas after Jan. 20th? Is this a calculated move to secure the hostages while setting the stage for Israel’s ultimate victory?
4. Can this be about stopping a final anti-Israel act by the Biden administration?
With news reports assessing the Biden administration planning a last-minute diplomatic attack against Israel at the UN, can Trump’s strategic pressuring of Israel to accept this horrible Biden/Blinken deal with Hamas be about stopping the anti-Israel UN action?
The bottom line is that we don’t know the answers, just that things as they seem do not make sense.
The Real Stakes
Ultimately, Israel’s focus is not just about securing the release of hostages. It’s aboutensuring that what happened on Oct. 7th never happens again.
Reconquering Gaza, placing it under Israeli sovereignty, and making it Jewish again is notjust a moral imperative—it’s a strategic necessity. Anything less emboldens Hamas, all of our enemies, and guarantees future massacres and kidnappings.
This war cannot end with Hamas still in power in Gaza. If it does, despite the beating that Israel gave Hamas, their survival emboldens them to kill us another day and means thatIsrael ultimately will have lost the war. And not just for Israel—this would be a loss for every freedom-loving nation that relies on Israel as the frontline defense against Islamic jihad.
A Time for Faith and Resolve
If this deal is carried out, then something much more significant is at play. We can only hope that Trump’s pressure is part of a larger plan to secure Israel’s total victory, not its surrender.
As we await clarity in the coming days and weeks, I urge everyone to focus on what we can control:
? Pray for the safe return of all the hostages.
? Pray for Israel’s leadership to stand firm and make decisions that protect the Jewish people and ensure our sovereignty.
? Pray for total victory over the Islamonazi forces threatening us and the entire freedom-loving world.
Regardless if Hamas agrees with this deal and it goes through or not, the Jewish state ofIsrael will prevail. This war is not just about Israel—it’s about the future of the entire freedom-loving world, even if we have to fight alone.
Avi Abelow is the host of the Pulse of Israel daily video/podcast and the CEO of 12Tribe Films Foundation.
Many thanks for the very important comments.
Brooklynbubbe
The issue being discussed in a wider and far more, in the present past and long-term approach, is one of strategy and tactics.
I spent some time on this in my last post placing in context the contrast between Netanyahu and Trotsky
How would you have advised Israel to proceed on October 8th given what you know about both?
I am arguing that Israel was beaten from the first moment. It took an approach that was bound to fail.
It has failed. It will continue to fail. That is my point.
Unless there is very big discussion where all questions are up in the air for discussion then Israel is stuck.
In case you don’t know I am Irish and Irish people carried out a pogrom in Limerick against totally defenceless Jews and that leaves me with a stake in October 7, which was also a Pogrom.
How stupid are we???? With all due respect, in my humble opinion….this “deal” is horrific!!
It is a shanda to all the IDF, lone soldiers, and innocent victims who were killed by Hamas……….and the concept of it being forbidden to place a life at more risk than the other person is already in deftly explains the lives of the hostages being already at risk….AND, setting free many more convicted terrorists – murderers – criminals…puts many many more lives in danger.
Former Secretary of State George Shultz had an iron rule of hostage negotiation: don’t pay for hostages. His very logical and brilliant reasoning: “The minute you pay for a hostage, you give an incentive to people to take more hostages.”
By trading innocent people for criminals we risk encouraging the enemy to take more hostages – next time. Paying a high ransom for captives will encourage kidnappers to kidnap more Jews and demand still higher ransoms.
HOW STUPID to free hundreds or thousands of terrorists. They will be free to join in Hamas terrorists brigades, which definitely endangers the public!! These convicted criminals will be set loose upon innocent Israelis. IF they do kill Israelis…and because they will free to attack Israel and to take more hostages – on whom should the blame fall??? It would seem therefore, everything Israel is about to do, is against the halakhah of the Mishnah, the legal authorities AND against the security of the Jewish people in Israel.
Pidyon Shvuyim is a major value in our tradition and that Jews have exerted great efforts to redeem captives. However, we do not pay excessive ransom price “for the public good. In other words, the public takes precedence over the individual, even if this endangers the individual. Exchanging hundreds or thousands of terrorists for one or 30 Israelis will only encourage kidnapping of Israelis in the future.
To repeat: Freeing hundreds or thousands of terrorists who will undoubtedly pick up their weapons and attack Israel again….is DUMB!!
In other words, it endangers the public and should not be done.
Do NOT reward the enemy! Too many gave their lives to let HAMAS WIN!!!!!
Laurie Kurs
Acceptance of this ‘ceasefire’ is simply death on the instalment plan.
I have said on this site and on others that many so called ‘experts’ and commentators ignore Charles de Gaulle’s words: ‘Nations do not have friends; they have interests’. The failure to pay attention to what this means leads many astray.
Applying it here means that Donald Trump will do what he thinks will enhance and promote the interests of the United States. So far, the interest of the US and those of Israel align and, when they don’t, he will stand by the interests of his country and not those of Israel.
What continues to amaze me is that commentators and others have put all their hope in Mr Trump. He certainly is more favourable towards the Jewish state than the demented fool now in the White House. That does not mean that he will always adopted this stance. And under the best circumstances, he will be President for only four more years. The Arabs can certainly wait that long to launch another attack.
And Israelis and their government should prepare for this eventuality. And that means weaning the country from military dependence on the Americans. Unless that happens, Israeli leaders will find it necessary to placate the Caliph in Washington by what will be in fact a series of surrenders to their enemies.
Frank Adam
How Jews treat the individual and being prepared to sacrifice for the individual life is what makes Jews a great people. As the hostages.
Even in the forest of moments and situations Jews remained true.
So as Frank Adams says do it
I had differing views from October 8 on to Netanyahu.
Along the lines of holding back on war because the ground had to be prepared and had not yet been prepared so I was thinking that Israel forgot about preparing of the ground
I said to Reader Israel must not fight on the ground prepared by the enemy but they did that anyway
Rather I thought
1. An urgent open review of how Israel was walked all over by Hamas on October
2. How Israel was lulled to sleep by false ideologies…including the Kibbutz mentality was a lulling to sleep mentality
3. The judiciary role of treason…but much more as in a comprehensive review of Israeli political positions
4. A systematic telling of October 7 and telling every horror detail worldwide and rapidly sparing no fact or detail. This was not done at all.
And much much more. EG the money and support pouring from internationally to support Palestinism proving that equals Antisemitism in our modern era
Trotsky who inspires me never made a war move without having prepared the ground
Not so much as touch a gun except in defence until that work is done
I can give much proof of that.
And that is foreign to what has grown up as the Israeli way
Frank Adams is not totally close but he has opened the door to new thinking of this potentially great people in his comments above
@eddie dee and whoever is curious about who is behind Israel’s defeat
Extremely important, read the whole thing:
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/387757
those who choose to LAY DOWN ALL THE GUNS OF ISRAEL to
send home 100 hostages are WHAT ?
DO I HEAR SMART ??????????????????
NO, I HEAR, LOUD AND CLEAR, DUM DA DUM “DUMB”
Eddie…..aka…..tzvi
Some of this can be explained by the “bird in hand is worth two in the bush” view. Hamas has also changed its mind now by accepting the Biden proposals from May NOT to be blamed by an incoming Trump in a fury with a, for them worse proposal. BB has also probably accepted the plan to evade public blame by an outgoing Biden who will be writing memoirs. Clinton pasted Arafat for not accepting a plan.
Remember how by accepting both Peel and UN 181 Ben Gurion and Israel in general at the time had the press and political advantage. War is politics by violence. The politics is important. Israel also is exhausted and needs a breather to rebuild, restock and retrain. Besides ordering its political house.
Two of Israel’s biggest and worst fails are probably the result of diaspora attitudes remaining engrained in Israeli Jews even after the founding of the state. In the diaspora, it was accepted that “the redemption of captives” held by non-Jewish rulers required Jewish communities to ransom them at any price. This was nearly always done, even when it bankrupted the Jewish communities paying the ransom. This perhaps made some sense in the diaspora, when there was no Jewish state that needed to be defended. But it makes no sense to ransom captives at a very high price when it endangers the security of the state of Israel.
The other major fail of Israel is its failure to counter the massive campaign of hate propaganda, distortions and lies throughout the whole world, and to tell the world’s people the truth about Israel. Most countries that can afford to do so budget a large amount of money to advocating for their country’s interests to the public in foreign countries. But Israel does not do this. Dr. Martin Sherman pointed out years ago that Israel budgeted less money for “public diplomacy” (itself a weak and misleading phrase) than a medi -size Israeli candy manufacturer budgeted for its advertising campaign. Since then, the budget for “public diplomacy” has increased only slightly. And not even all of the little that has been budgeted for it has been spent. Why? In the pre-state diaspora, it could be very dangerous for Jews to respond to the constant stream of lies and libels directed against them by the church, and to tell the Christian majority public the truth about Jews and their religion. This could be interpreted as disrespect for Christianity and the Church, or even an attempt to prosylatize Christians to convert to Judaism, which was strictly forbidden.
Finally a couple of ideas that may make sense of this otherwise apparently inexplicable deal. We must all pray that Israel utterly defeat Hamas, that the IDF retain control over all strategic areas, especially the Philadelphi Corridor, and for the safe return of all hostages. Otherwise, more lawn-mowing is inevitable.
It is less important who pressured Israel into accepting the deal than the fact that Israel did accept it. Israel seems to have learned absolutely nothing since the Gilad Shalit deal. Even worse, though, that Israel agreed to the deal, is the fact that it has resulted in general rejoicing in Israel by both the entire political establishment, except for Ben Gvir, and by the Israeli public. Everyone seems deliriously happy. Crowds celebrating in the streets.
Israel has agreed to release 30 terrorists for every hostage that Hamas says it will release. And that is only if Hamas keeps its word. And Hamas hasn’t even agreed to release all of the hostages.
Clearly, there is a problem with false values in Israel. The lives of a small group of individuals is prioritzed over the survival of the nation as a whole. Even though if the nation and the state it has created to protect it falls, probably more than six million Jews will be killed. Israels are so self-destructive that they are willingly heading to Holocaust II.