Until the West breaks free from its artificial constraints on how ruthless it should be in dealing with Hamas, the cycle of sham negotiations and grinding war will continue.
Sham negotiations have restarted, but the ordeal of the hostages taken on October 7 remains unresolved. More than a year after being stolen in Hamas’s brutal assault on southern Israel, dozens of captives — men, women, children, and the elderly, Americans among them — remain held as bargaining chips in Hamas’s evil gambit to survive the resulting war.
The imperative to bring the hostages home by any means necessary has only grown in light of the horrifying revelations, compiled in an Israeli Health Ministry report, of the torture that hostages have suffered at the hands of Gazan captors. Negotiations, subject always to Hamas’s constantly shifting terms, are once again floundering. Last week, Hamas leaders once again claimed not to know how many hostages are alive, claimed they are unable to locate others, and dangled ever-changing numbers to prolong negotiations. This is nothing new. Each time progress on a deal seems within reach, Hamas retracts, tightening its grip on the hostages it sees as its ultimate leverage. The group’s backers urge it to hold firm, ensuring that this human tragedy continues to serve the broader aim of increasing global pressure on Israel to stop short of defeating its enemies.
Continue reading the entire piece here at the National Review Online (paywall)
______________________
Tal Fortgang is an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute. He was a 2023 Sapir Fellow.
Photo by SAID KHATIB/AFP via Getty Images