Part of Israel’s Revenge Is To Continue Building, and Growing, and Loving Life, and Being Happy
Today was a difficult day to watch Hamas and Gaza “civilians” taunt and humiliate the three female hostages released in exchange for 90 terrorists, many with blood and death on their hands. In total, when this first part of the “deal” is done, if it is done, 33 hostages including the Bibas children and parents (dead or alive, we don’t know) will be released for over 1000 terrorists. There are over 60 more hostages, it’s unkown how many are alive or dead, for negotiation after this first round is completed.
Of course it was great seeing the three women released and reunited with family.
As usual, today’s Hamas show of strength was in many ways a Pallywood production, highly managed crowds and cropped video leading one to think there were 10s of thousands of people there. In fact, there were a few hundred as this overhead showed.
Videos released of well-fed “civilians” celebrating and “journalists” removing their press vests, put the lie to so much of the Palestinian propaganda campaign.
Nonetheless, the deal is horrible at so many levels. We know from the past that these bloodthirsty terrorists go on to commit more terrorism (about 80% will) and to kill. Yahya Sinwar, the deranged matermind of 10/7, was among 1000 terrorists released in the Gilad Shalit hostage deal in 2011. That deal cost thousands of Israeli lives in the ensuing years.
How to explain why decade after decade Israel keeps trading terrorists for hostages? Rachel Gur explains:
Of course it’s a bad deal. Any deal that releases murders is vile but if you believe we had a choice here then you don’t understand the DNA of the Israeli psyche.We cannot leave them behind. We cannot move on. We must get our people back. No matter what. This is who we are.
The desire to get every last person back is noble and admirable, but it means it will happen again. While I am thrilled and was moved to see the three women freed, there are parents and families who will be traumatized in the present by seeing the killers of their loved ones released, and in the future by having loved ones yet-unkown murdered by the released terrorists. The joys of the current hostage families will be offset by the horror of other families.
On the evening of October 7, 2023, when the toll of the murder spree and hostage taking was becoming clear, I wrote that Israel couldn’t have it both ways, completely destroying Hamas while getting all the hostages back alive:
The carnage and savagry will require Israel to decapitate Hamas. The old normal has to change.The hostages held in Gaza will not be recovered alive unless Israel gives major concessions and leaves Hamas in power. While of course Israel wants to get them back alive, Israeli military options are severely constrained if that is the goal. Hamas has grown comfortable taking hostages and using them as shields to temper Israeli military responses. The goals of toppling Hamas and getting the hostages back alive are not consistent. Israel faces a tough choice.
Netanyahu and Israel didn’t pick one or the other, they tried to achieve both objectives. It’s too simple to say that it failed — Hamas has been severely damaged in a way it never expected, but it has not been completely eliminated as we saw today. Israel never was given the free hand to finish Hamas off because of pressure mostly from the Biden administration but also because of concern over the lives of the hostages.
So how does Israel as a country continue to live this way?
Part of it is to have a strong military. The intelligence failures that permitted 10/7, and the mistakes in thinking Hamas could reform itself, were intense and not yet fully understood. Yet Israel not only severely damaged Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, it emasculated Hezbollah in Lebanon, and Assad in Syria, and set back the Iranian “Axis of Resistance” immeasurably, clearing the way for a future destruction of Iran’s nuclear program.
The Arabs of the British Mandate of Palestine, who began identifying as a unique Palestinian nationality in the 1960s, could have had their own state in 1936, 1947, 1967, 2001, and 2008, but always rejected it because it is a culture revolving around hatred of Jews.
But the military isn’t the only way.
Continuing to build, and growing the country, and loving life, and being happy also is the Israeli way. Despite all its problems, Israel is the 4th happiest country in the world, after Finland, Denmark, and Iceland (the U.S. is No. 15). Among economically developed OECD countries, Israel has the highest birth rate (a measure of happiness) by far, the only OECD country exceeding replacement levels.
Israeli Jewish and Arab birthrates are about the same, with religious Jews having the highest at over 6. But even ‘secular’ Jews in Israel have a birth rate of 2.2 children per woman, seen nowhere else in the developed world. Christian and Druze birthrates are also high compared to other developed countries.
Israel wins the way it has been winning for over three-quarters of a century, with a strong military but equally important, thriving not just surviving. We could learn lessons from them.
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