What Should He Do?

By David M. Friend

This week’s column is dedicated in memory of Carmel Gat, Eden Yerushalmi, Alexander Lobanov, Almog Saris, Ori Danino and Hersh Goldberg-Polin, who were kidnapped into Gaza on October 7th, 2023, held captive for more than 330 days, and who were murdered last week by their Jew-hating Hamas overseers.

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Benjamin Netanyahu, the Prime Minister of the State of Israel, has a crucial decision to make.  Either agree to phase one of a deal with a six-week pause in the war or continue on. 

There are many layers to the deal being hashed out amongst Israel, Hamas, the United States, Egypt and Qatar, but the bottom line in phase one is that the fighting would stop, and some hostages being held by Hamas would be released in exchange for convicted terrorists held in Israeli prisons.

Netanyahu is under enormous pressure from inside and outside Israel, to agree to the deal.  But if you were Bibi, what would you do?

Here are some of the things you’ll need to consider.

If you took the deal, it might mean withdrawing your troops from the Philadelphi Corridor, the strip of land on the Gaza-Egypt border that Hamas has used as an expressway for weapons and money smuggling.

It would mean releasing hundreds of terrorists jailed in Israel, men with blood on their hands, in exchange for 18-32 of the Israeli hostages who’ve been held in Hamas hell for almost a year.

It would probably mean Hezbollah, the terrorists who’ve been relentlessly shelling Israel’s north since October 8th, will stop, for now.

It could calm the passions of the Israeli public, who’ve been protesting in the streets and on the highways by the tens of thousands for the return of the hostages.  Do you silence the protestors by taking the deal and showing them you haven’t been blocking the agreement to save your political ass?

By agreeing to a ceasefire now, it could quell some of the international pressures you’ve been under for the past eleven months that resulted, among other things, in an arrest warrant issued for you by the International Criminal Court.

It could help Jews outside Israel where antisemitism has been unleashed with protesters using the lack of a ceasefire as a pretext for their hate-filled, Jew-hating demonstrations.

Do you agree to a ceasefire to possibly move closer to a normalization agreement with Saudi Arabia that the Biden administration has been dangling as a carrot in front of you?

Do you agree to the Biden ceasefire proposal now, because if Kamala Harris is elected president, the pressure on you from the White House will only get more intense?

But here’s the flip side.

If you nix the deal, there’s a good chance you’ve sealed the death sentence for the hostages that remain alive in Gaza.

So, do you continue the war until you’ve further dismantled Hamas to eliminate the possibility it will not play any role whatsoever in the future governing of Gaza?

Do you reject the deal because you don’t trust your military leaders?  They say Israel can withdraw from the Philadelphi Corridor with no worries because there will be monitoring stations to prevent Hamas from re-arming and the IDF could reoccupy the area if need be.  But after the pullout from Lebanon in 2000 and Gaza in 2005, and after the colossal failures on October 7th, do you believe them?  Are you willing to risk the lives of more soldiers to possibly retake the strategic corridor?

Do you say no to a deal now because you’re waiting to see if Donald Trump is elected president, and/or both houses of Congress go Republican, assuming that would cool some of the heat you’ve been getting from Washington?

And here’s the decision you have to make that no one wants to talk about publicly.  Do you believe in your heart that by sacrificing the lives of the remaining hostages, you’re saving more lives of Israelis in the future?

Do you believe that in order to prevent other October 7th-like massacres and abductions, you must send a clear message to the terrorists in your neighborhood, that the perverted game of taking Israeli hostages in the hope of exchanging them for hundreds of terrorists in Israeli prisons, is over?

Look what happened in 2011 when Netanyahu himself agreed to release 1000 terrorists in exchange for one Israeli solider,  Gilad Shalit.  One of those released was the murderous mastermind of October 7th and the current leader of Hamas, Yahiya Sinwar.

But, can Netanyahu refuse a deal as the leader of the Jewish state where the redemption of hostages is a long-held, sacred belief?  Can you do that in an Israel after 10/7, where the bonds of trust between citizens, the military and the government have already been torn asunder?

And, can say no to a deal when many in your nation don’t trust you and don’t feel you’ve leveled with them from the beginning?

So what would you do?  What would I do?

As a non-Israeli, I don’t believe I have a right to judge what path Netanyahu should take, what decision he should make.  I’m not directly in harm’s way.  I can go to sleep at night without fear of being murdered by psychopaths who are just over the next hill.  My country isn’t surrounded by terrorists armed with precision guided missiles and who’ve built tunnels with heavy blast doors deep underground to hide in, using civilians as human shields.

Sixty-thousand residents of upstate New York haven’t been ripped from their homes as have the residents in the north of Israel because of indiscriminate and incessant shelling from terrorists.

Iran isn’t launching cruise missiles at the United States, not yet at least.

Benjamin Netanyahu, love him or hate him, and there’s plenty of justification for both, has soul-crushing, monumentally difficult decisions to make.  Whatever he decides, he needs to convince his nation’s citizens that he made his choices because he’s a patriot, not a crass politician.  Maybe it’s too late for that, I hope not.

Jews in Israel are being bombed after being butchered.  Jews in the diaspora are being subjected to widespread and pernicious antisemitism.  The decision Netanyahu makes will have repercussions for everyone.

What should Bibi do?  He must do what he must do, so Carmel Gat, Eden Yerushalmi, Alexander Lobanov, Almog Saris, Ori Danino and Hersh Goldberg-Polin did not die in vain.

May their memories be a blessing.  May God and the IDF avenge their blood.