Families and supporters of the hostages in the Gaza Strip hear news of a release deal as they gather outside the Kirya military base in Tel Aviv, Jan. 15, 2025. Photo courtesy of Itai Ron/Flash90.
By JONATHON TOBIN
JNS
For many supporters of Israel, Jan. 20 and the beginning of President-elect Donald Trump’s second administration couldn’t come soon enough.
President Joe Biden’s weakness and appeasement of Iran, as well as ambivalent policies and public scolding of the Jewish state, have become routine since the Hamas-led terrorist attacks in southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, which left 1,200 dead and 251 taken captive into the Gaza Strip. The fallout from that assault has undermined the alliance between the two countries in the past 15 months. The military successes of the Israel Defense Forces against Hamas terrorists in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon during the last year were the result of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s courageous decision to reject the terrible advice that he was getting from Biden, and his foreign and security policy teams.
But it appears that the first foreign policy blunder of Trump’s second administration may have occurred even before his inauguration takes place on Monday, Jan 20.
The hostage release/ceasefire deal that was just announced between Israel and Hamas may have been largely the result of Trump’s blunt threats against the terrorists and their allies, coupled with pressure placed on Netanyahu by the new U.S. Middle East envoy, Steven Witcoff. If, contrary to its past record, Hamas doesn’t blow up the agreement at the last minute, the once and future president will have gotten what he wanted.
Responding To Threats
Trump has repeatedly declared that he wanted the hostages freed before he took office, vowing that he would unleash “all hell” if that didn’t occur. It was a blunt hint as much to Hamas’s funders and enablers, like Qatar and Iran, as it was to the terrorists. But if reports are true, it was also the tough pressure brought to bear on Netanyahu by Witcoff that forced the prime minister to make concessions in the form of favorable terms, such as Israeli withdrawals from Gaza and the mass release of imprisoned terrorists, including many with blood on their hands.
A Heavy Price
Netanyahu’s critics at home and abroad have wrongly interpreted his commendable reluctance to make a deal that would undermine Israel’s security—and lead to more Oct. 7-like atrocities in the future—as motivated by nothing more than his desire to hold onto power. Yet as he plowed forward while Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken exerted pressure on him (and though he appears to be getting very little credit for what he’s accomplished), Netanyahu has again shown a willingness to pay a heavy price to gain the release of at least some of the Israelis still being held by Hamas.
It has always been Hamas that has been the primary obstacle to a hostage deal. Its leaders have repeatedly thwarted negotiations, despite Israel’s willingness to make grievous concessions to free the men, women and children who were kidnapped amid the Palestinian orgy of mass murder, torture, rape and wanton destruction that started the current war.
Despite the suffering Hamas imposed on their own people, the defeats suffered by their terrorist forces and the deaths of their leaders, the terror group has stubbornly refused to end the fighting. They have stuck to the same belief that led to their decision to breach Israel’s border 15 months ago. They are sure that sooner or later, the United States and an international community hostile to Israel will force Jerusalem to bend to their will.
And though there is no world leader more hostile to them or to their genocidal cause of destroying the Jewish state than Trump, it appears that he has done just that.
The president-elect should get some credit for speaking of Hamas’s holding of hostages with the sort of moral clarity that was rarely, if ever, uttered by anyone in Biden’s administration. Though his legions of detractors don’t seem to think that Trump is capable of empathy, he obviously cares about this issue. And his record of support for Israel—unmatched by any other American president—has earned him the trust of Israelis.
But as much as Israeli citizens and decent people everywhere will rejoice if any of the hostages are freed as a result of these negotiations, the motivation here seems to be primarily one of optics before the inauguration and start of a second Trump presidency. He wants a repeat of the 1981 precedent in which President Ronald Reagan entered office with the announcement of the release of the American hostages being held by Iran. He also wants to take office with no Middle East wars being fought or at least a ceasefire in the one taking place in Gaza so as to claim to have been a force for peace.
This desire shouldn’t be dismissed as merely a function of his supposed isolationism. Trump’s opposition to the United States being drawn into new Mideast wars is supported by the overwhelming majority of the American people. It’s also prudent, given the misadventures pursued by his predecessors, as well as the disasters that unfolded on Biden’s watch as a result of his poor judgment, inflexible desire to repeat Barack Obama’s mistakes and his obvious mental decline.
But pushing for this hostage deal will, as reports of its terms indicate, almost certainly lead to a revival of Hamas control of Gaza. That is only setting up both Jerusalem and Washington for future problems that will test both Trump’s support for Israel and his commendable preference for no wars.
Moral Calculus
There is no conclusive or objective moral calculus by which national leaders can judge whether the concessions they make to obtain the release of kidnapped citizens will do more harm than good. They also labor under the unbearable pressure exerted by their families and supporters among the populace and in the press. In Netanyahu’s case, that has been compounded by the way his political opponents have largely hijacked the movement to appeal for the release of the hostages.
As I have witnessed personally, the rhetoric uttered at the weekly rallies in “Hostages Square,” across from the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, often made it sound as if Netanyahu was the kidnapper—and that he alone was responsible for their ongoing plight and not the terrorists that both took them and have refused to let them go.
Inauguration Optics
Moreover, the Jewish religious tradition that prioritizes the ransoming of hostages—pidyon shvuyim—also acts to impel Israeli governments to make awful bargains with terrorists. That sentiment has caused both Netanyahu and his predecessors to pay so high a price in releasing terrorists and other concessions that it arguably contradicts religious law, which forbids such deals when they can only lead to more kidnapping, terror and bloodshed.
Nevertheless, no one outside of Israel has the right to judge Netanyahu for agreeing to another such damaging compact if it leads to the freeing of at least some individuals.
While we should all rejoice in their release, no one—least of all Trump, and his foreign and security policy team—should be naive about the consequences of the price Israel is paying to supposedly give him the inauguration optics that he wants.
Short Of Goal
First of all, the reported terms that Witcoff pushed on Netanyahu and Hamas, and its allies, fall far short of what Trump demanded. All of the hostages are not being released by Jan. 20.
During the first phase of the agreement, only 23 of the remaining women, children, elderly and severely ill who are alive are to be released in exchange for about 1,000 Palestinian terrorists. In addition, Israel will partially withdraw from Gaza while being obligated to facilitate the entry of more humanitarian aid into the Strip, though it is far from clear that most of it won’t again be stolen by Hamas or other Palestinian criminals rather than going to civilians. The remaining approximately 60 hostages, who may or may not be still alive, will only be released if a second-stage deal for a permanent end to the fighting can be negotiated with the bodies of others still in Hamas’s possession and will only be handed over during a theoretical third phase.
Uncomfortable Future
What price will Hamas try to exact for going along with a second or third phase? It will almost certainly be a demand for a return to the status quo ante of Oct. 6, 2023, when the Islamist group governed Gaza as an independent Palestinian state in all but name.
Anyone who thinks this won’t correlate to the terrorists rearming and reorganizing their military forces, which were destroyed during the war, is dreaming. And that will ensure a future in which Israelis will be expected to return to a steady diet of rocket and missile barrages from Gaza, as well as an ever-present threat of cross-border terrorist attacks. In other words, all of the sacrifices of blood and treasure Israel made to ensure that Hamas can never repeat the atrocities of Oct. 7 will have been for naught.
This would not only be a tragedy for Israel. It would put Trump in a position where he will have to choose, as Biden did, between full-throated support for the inevitable Israeli counter-attacks into Gaza to once again try to eradicate Hamas and a policy of pressuring Jerusalem to simply endure the pain of terrorism as their due.
The rhetoric coming out of the Trump team, such as U.S. Secretary of Defense nominee Pete Hegseth, about support for Israeli efforts to stamp out Hamas and other Iranian-funded terrorists, is encouraging. And it’s probably fair to assume that Witcoff has assured the Israelis that Trump will have their back if, as is likely, Hamas’s intransigence derails the second phase of the agreement. But if the Trump team believes in a policy that opposes handing Gaza back to Hamas (and there’s no reason to doubt it), why have Trump and Witcoff pushed for a ceasefire that will lead to just such an outcome? Wouldn’t Israel and the United States be better off avoiding doing anything to re-empower Hamas?
A Biden-Like Blunder?
There may indeed be a ceasefire in Gaza on Jan. 20. Still, Trump needs to understand that the cost he is asking Israel to pay for freeing only some of the hostages will hand Hamas and Iran an undeserved victory. There is no denying that this is how the Palestinians and much of the world will perceive this deal. In doing so, Trump is making it more than likely that another round of vicious fighting in the Strip, during which more Israelis and Palestinians will die, will soon follow. Along with that come more decisions where the president will be forced to choose between letting Iran off the hook for its behavior and armed conflicts possibly involving U.S. forces.
This is exactly the sort of mistake that Biden made time and again, as well as the sort of strategic blunder Trump avoided in his first term.
There is much for friends of Israel and those who are deeply troubled by the surge in American anti-Semitism that took place during the Biden presidency to look forward to once the new administration takes over. And there is every reason to believe that Trump’s first day in office will see him signing executive orders that will begin the effort to end the reign of woke diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) racial discrimination and the “progressive” war on the West that is inextricably tied to Jew-hatred. But by starting his second term with a deal that is a gift to Hamas and Iran, he will be setting himself up for new problems because of an unforced error that Americans and Israelis may have to pay for in blood.
Jonathan S. Tobin is editor-in-chief of JNS (Jewish News Syndicate). He may be followed: @jonathanstobin.
