The only way this capitulation in Gaza makes sense is if there is a side deal
I’m hoping – probably wishful thinking – that those Leb/Gaza deals were the cost of gaining Trump admin support for Israel taking out Iran’s nuke program
The terms of the hostage deal suck, for reasons argued all day and will be argued well into the future. It’s inexplicable based on what has been revealed.
Here is the take I had tonight, which I readily admit could be wishful thinking:
The only way this capitulation in Gaza makes sense is if there is a side deal. Trump said he wanted two things done before he took office – Lebanon and Gaza, so he could turn his attention to expanding the Abraham Accords. They are both done (even if temporarily) on terms that are not great for Israel. The death cults (Hezb and Hamas/PIJ) still pose some threat to Israelis, but only Iran poses an existential threat to Israel. I’m hoping – probably wishful thinking – that those Leb/Gaza deals were the cost of gaining Trump admin support for Israel taking out Iran’s nuke program, which also would advance Trump’s broader Abraham Accords plans.
That was in reaction to this take by Hillel Fuld:
Here’s my (very sad) prediction.
Unless there is something about this deal that is beyond what we know, meaning if there is no more than meets the eye, and Bibi agreed to this without some sort of incentive from Trump, this will be the end of Bibi.
What the judicial reform could not do, and what COVID could not do, and what the war could not do, this deal will do.
No way Bibi survives this unless there is something very significant that we don’t know about.
Whether it’s normalization with Saudi Arabia, some huge monetary or military incentive, or something else, if there is nothing on the table and Netanyahu just agreed to this because he had to, the end of the Netanyahu era is near.
Worth mentioning that the people who have been protesting against Bibi for years and most recently, they’ve been calling to end the war, they’re strangely silent today… Just sayin.
The only way this capitulation in Gaza makes sense is if there is a side deal. Trump said he wanted two things done before he took office – Lebanon and Gaza, so he could turn his attention to expanding the Abraham Accords. They are both done (even if temporarily) on terms that… https://t.co/hsLDT9gro8
— William A. Jacobson (@wajacobson) January 16, 2025
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Build something else faster than Hamas can recover, that prevents it from recovering.
Like what exactly? Israelis aren’t magic soldiers and the Mossad isn’t a perfect intel agency.
Israel was routinely right in preventing terror attacks before they happened prior to October 7th, it just happens that unless you have the perfect magic armed forces and intel that is 100% there will be the successful terror attacks and if facing a force like Hamas some of those will be major massacres followed by SAs and enslavement of captives as Hamas did.
That was a lot of the reason for wishing to get rid of Hamas because the idea you could build a human or machine system that is 100% is purely fantasy.
This makes sense IF nothing else on the ground has changed since October 7.
However things HAVE changed and changed massively and we should all thank Hamas for that change 😂
Qatar is no longer a safe haven, Iran can no longer fund Hamas war of genocide against Jews, Hesbullah can. Jo longer run cover for their brothers in Hamas, UNRWA is no longer and the UN is a thing of the past…oh and there are adults about to come in to the WH on Monday.
The world will be a very different place next week.
Turkey is a safe haven and is one that is a lot stronger than Qatar could ever be, Iran may not have the money for electricity but it has the money for weapons as it always has and has just signed a 20 year strategic partnership with Russia. For context with all of Russia’s loses it is still able to equip hundreds of thousands of combat soldiers so I do not think Iran is short on weapons to send.
Hezbollah was weakened to the point of Assad (Iran’s puppet) being replaced by Turkey’s puppet but unless you could see the Lebanese Army attacking it to destroy it (highly unlikely look who the Prime Minister is) it will like Hamas be rebuilding to.
The advantage of a canon fodder based army is casualties really do not matter.
When Hamas launches the next war it will be against a greatly diminished Israel, especially if Trump has soured on Israel which I hope he hasn’t but the posting of the Sachs interview by him implies he has.
If instead of crushing Tucker Carlson’s embrace of hating Israel Trump embraces it Israel is toast.
הַלְוַאי
my folks used to translate it as “From your to G-d’s ear.’
That may be how your folks put it, but the word means “if only”.
I agree with the Professor here. However, Occam’s Razor says to pick the simplest explanation. It might be as simple as, “We get some live hostages back, instead of none, and Hamas will not be able to restrain itself – we will finish the job with the first rockets fired into Israel,”
The savages in Gaza won’t be able to restrain themselves. They’ll violate the cease fire agreement which will give Israel an opening to wipe the place clean and bulldoze the scraps into the Mediterranean.
From the river to the sea, the Holy Land will be Hamas free. Hmmm, has a nice ring to it.
.
They will break the peace with another October 7th as soon as they are ready to do so, and as soon as they have reformed everything to prevent a repeat of Israel succeeding at an unprecedented low level of civilian death or injury for urban warfare happening again.
If you think they are dumb enough to break the truce before that readiness…….what do you have to base them being that stupid on?
They just won a war let that sink in. This is it.
Hamas will not be able to restrain itself, and it will have 1000 new terrorists to do it with, plus thousands more who will be inspired by this release, and the heros’ welcome the terrorists will receive, to engage in their own terrorism .
the heros’ welcome the terrorists will receive
Especially after the success of Operation Is That A Pager In Your Pocket I think my decades old idea should be executed. Anesthetize each terrorist you’re giving back. Make a small incision somewhere and sew it back up. Then, just before they’re released you let it “leak” that those dirty, rotten Joos inserted GPS trackers in all of them. Then Israel VERY carefully and diligently follows just one of them and blows them to kingdom come when they meet up with some other terrorists. Hilarity in Hamas follows.
I had considered pretty much the same.
It’s a horrible deal
Gonzotx, this is worse than a bad deal. It is an outright betrayal of Israel by Trump. I and many Jews voted for Trump because he was the anti-Biden. Instead we get this betrayal. I am deeply, deeply disappointed.
You are 100% right.
However remember all of those propaganda calls the Biden administration made to Israel aimed at delegitimization and dehumanization with the accusations in the form of questions?
Like it or not this betrayal does make the Trump administration so far a minor improvement but it is still a minor improvement.
Kamala said that genocide claim had legitimacy.
I am disappointed in Trump forcing Israel to surrender to but at least there wasn’t another call along the lines of “please stop committing genocide”.
Y’all need to remember that Trump isn’t even in office yet…
So am I, but Trump is still a lot better than the alternative. Harris (or Biden, or almost any other Democrat) would have been far worse.
Last night Biden took credit for negotiating the deal, so of course it’s a bad move
So you’re thinking maybe he wants to stop them by stopping their state sponsors?
Interesting theory but I wouldn’t expect any side deal with any of them to hold up.
Thank you Prof Jacobson. Once the hostage ratio was mentioned, I thought – “there has to be something else.” On the surface, this makes no sense – is there anyone else in Israel the can handle this situation? So the critics against Bibi are now silent? What do they know.
What do they know? That Netanyahu’s government is toast.
The hostage ratio makes “perfect sense” if you apply the standard of past such stupid deals Israel has agreed to — and paid the price for. Hundreds for one has become the standard exchange rate, and this deal just cements that unfortunate fact.
“Ridiculous deal. All the hostages are not even released. Some probably will never be released. But Israel has to immediately release 1300 terrorists. Hamas survives and remains in power as the IDF withdraws. Hamas will re-organize, re-build, and re-arm. Israel will fight the same war all over again in 3-4 years.”
I would add Israel will be infinitely weaker because of the diplomatic fallout of this war and because Hamas will get to have it’s numbers be declared absolute truth.
Congratulations to president elect Tucker Carlson.
You seem to be arguing that:
1. Tucker influenced Trump
2. Tucker is actively anti Semitic and hostile to the existence of Israel (as opposed to critical of it and some of their surrogates)
3. That this influence led to Trump making a policy decision he would not have otherwise done
4. That Trump support was essential to a deal
I am not convinced of the truth of these presumptions. In making these arguments you are asserting that the Israeli gov’t is not an independent Nation with it’s own elected Gov’t capable of making decisions for it’s people without regard to the interests of other Nations. Either Israel is independent and a separate sovereign Nation from the USA or it isn’t.
If it is independent then your argument collapses b/c Israel would tell the USA to pound sand The only way your argument can logically advance is you stipulated that Israel is a dependent/client State of the USA. I don’t think that’s the case. Certainly the USA has the ability to exert pressure on Israel by preventing tech or weapons transfers, withholding foreign aid funds and stopping sharing of intelligence.
None of that pressure removes the fact Israel is a legitimate Nation fully capable of making decisions independent of the approval/disapproval of the USA.
Israel is not in practice independent right now it is at the very least deeply dependent.
The list of places that haven’t firmly turned on Israel consists of the United States (which Trump has the ability to make turn on Israel), Hungary, Lithuania (which I forgot last time I made the list) Ukraine (which I also forgot last time) the Czech Republic and Greece.
Allowing Israel to win or forcing a surrender was very much an American decision which was made by Trump.
Knowing that it would be more Biden administration and Israel would never be permitted to win would mean Netanyahu could either initiate the end of his nation through ending the relationship with the United States or surrender the war.
Tucker Carlson has absolutely shown himself to be an anti-Semite. He has from the very start declared the pro-Israel position to be treason, he has from the very start of this been promoting the idea of Assad as the defender of Christians and Israel as their persecutor (numbers tell a different story the Syrian Christian population has plummeted since the Assad took over while the Israeli Christian population has skyrocketed. Tucker knows this).
He has been depicting Christian support for Israel as the strawman that they are helping genocide because of a misreading of the bible.
When members of the Squad got into a close primary race and the pro-Israel lobby consisting of American citizens decided to add their help to their opponents who should be there for the squad?
Why n0torious neo-Nazi Tucker Carlson!!!!!
How pro-American he is to defend America’s biggest haters.
By the way the Holocaust Denial interview he gave uncritically to the man he declared the most important and honest historian of our time alone establishes he is a neo-Nazi.
Yes he has influence with Trump, yes he hates Jews, yes he hates Israel, no he is not just critical of Israel for that to be true the same is true of every other Neo-Nazi.
I don’t know what you feel but I will be 6 feet under ground before I recognize Hamas as one of America’s children’s or go to a globalist conference to denounce my country which unlike Tucker.
The god dam cult of personality has to end. Tucker Carlson is a neo-Nazi full stop.
I disagree about TC.being a Nazi b/c that’s simply not true. unless you have direct evidence of his membership in the Nazi Party of the US (which does unfortunately still exist). I will concede that his open ended format with little to no pushback on his guests did offer a platform for the loony ‘historian’ that allowed an uncritical exposition of the loony history he was pushing.
I disagree with your belief that Israel isn’t independent. They are.just as legitimate and just as.sovereign a Nation as any other. They don’t deserve to be treated any more or any less harshly/favorably than any other Nation. Would there be potentially negative consequences for Israel in terms of US support for PO the US Gov’t? Maybe but that’s not ‘control’ by the USA.
I have no problem pointing out the mistakes and problems of the USA. The last four years have been full of them. In the digital age the location of the criticism no longer matters. Our comments at LI are viewable nearly anywhere in the world.
What is insanity?
Doing the same thing the same way a second time and expecting different results.
Re-read why Sisyphus is still rolling a huge boulder up that steep hill in Tartarus even today.
You don’t like the idea of the United States forcing an end to the war with Hamas being granted full victory?
Maybe instead of using your voice on the internet to promote Tucker Carlson you should have been promoting someone who isn’t a Hamas advocate?
Tucker is empowered as the voice for Trump to listen to great job.
is unknown how many of the hostages are still alive–to date, with their considerable resources the israelis have been unable to recover the hostages by force of arms–if the israelis intend to remove hamas completely from the area then releasing terrorists from israeli prisons is only a temporary matter– israel will exterminate them in due course regardless–perhaps a way to gain the freedom of the hostages while at the same time determining precisely how many are actually still alive– if hamas can return a handful only and has murdered the rest then the die is cast
the israelis have been unable to recover the hostages by force of arms
They’ve actually recovered several. Some dead, some alive.
IMO Israel would be better off long term by demanding release of all hostages as a pre.condition to any further negotiations. If Hamas continues to be ‘rewarded’ in lopsided exchanges of hostages for convicted terrorists/criminals they won’t stop taking hostages.
Of course there is a lot of pressure on the Israeli gov’t from domestic politics and the families of the hostages as well as from the ‘international community’ to make a deal even a bad deal. That pressure may be too much to resist.
Again, IMO, Trump should be making it clear to Hamas that any US Citizen hostages gotta be immediately released or the full military might of the USA will be brought to bear to secure them or their remains. Even if we have to sift the ashes of the entirety of.Gaza to do so.
I suspect that when Hamas breaks the deal, which we all know they will do, but Netanyahu will not be dissuaded from completely annihilating them. But, in the meantime he would like to get as many hostages back as he can.
Why not let it unfold, rather than all the bold predictions. Easy to be adamant when there’s no skin in the game. Is it much different than the pro-Hamasniks on college campuses, too far from the real action to actually know?
Once the hostages are no longer in the picture, who says that’s the end? At least then, there won’t be the issue that has tempered what could be done. At least now it opens the door for some real movement through the Abraham Accords.
David Friedman offers some wisdom:
“I am not smart enough to second guess a decision of the Prime Minister of Israel to make a deal for the return, albeit phased, of the hostages — especially when (1) that decision is endorsed by leadership of the IDF, the Shabak and the Mossad, (2) I have not been privy to the negotiations and don’t fully appreciate all the risks and benefits, and (3) the deal will not require Israel to end the war.
I understand that reasonable minds may differ — this an agonizing and extremely difficult decision. Obviously, rescuing the hostages or making a deal for their return without freeing terrorists would be far better. But 15 months have passed and that does not appear to be achievable.
I respect different points of view. What I respect far less is the certainty among some well meaning folks that this is a huge mistake.”
https://x.com/DavidM_Friedman/status/1879381312878039044
If predictions are in order, this is far from done.
Friedman knows better than that. All the people he mentioned also agreed to every disaster in the past, from the Jibril deal through the treasonous Oslo deal, the Gaza “disengagement” the Shalit deal, Barak’s panicked flight from Lebanon in the middle of the night, etc. They all agreed to all of those, and not once have they been right.
Now you are telling him what he thinks. Typical.
I know that he knows all this. You know it too. And that knowledge makes his statement obviously invalid.
You pretend because you must.
This is a comment section for readers to offer up options, including about how current actions may/may not influence future events and to what degree if any.
Even if this is so, it’s not good news, because Trump shouldn’t need a price for that. Trump should want and encourage that, not demand something in return, especially something that’s guaranteed to cost hundreds if not thousands of Israeli lives in the future, and therefore should be something he doesn’t even want.
Imagine Trump telling Panama “I’ll agree to take the canal off your hands but in return for that you must let China build a naval base at its end”. That would make no sense. Giving us the canal is good; hosting a Chinese base is bad.
Given that Panama is already deeply involved with China and that the Chinese (Hutchinson, which is same thing) already have bases at both ends of the Canal, your comparison appears somewhat flawed.
That’s precisely my point. From Trump’s point of view, the US taking back some level of control over the canal is good, and Chinese bases are bad. So how would it make sense for him to demand Chinese bases as the price of his consent to take the canal back? It wouldn’t.
And yet that is what Prof J is suggesting happened here. Trump demanding a victory for Hamas (something he shouldn’t want) in exchange for “allowing” an attack on Iran (something he should want).
The massacre itself should have been the end of Bibi.
Not only did it happen on his watch, through some gross negligence on the IDF’s part, it would not have happened at all without the stupid, evil Shalit deal that he made, because he couldn’t stand the pressure from Shalit’s family and all their stupid supporters.
Then he compounded that by losing over 1000 soldiers, for no other reason than that he didn’t have the spine to stand strong immediately after the massacre and take care of the problem immediately and drastically. His ministers announced a total siege of the Gaza Strip, would would either have got the hostages back immediately, or else solved the Gaza problem once and for all. But he backed down almost immediately, and as a result the war has dragged on for over a year, and over 1000 soldiers have died.
So he deserves to go for those things alone, but this deal just makes the case against him even stronger. No matter what else happens, Hamas will be seen as having secured a huge victory, and its support will surge. And that means more attacks in the future and thousands more dead.
You live in laalaa land if you believe anything short of totally flattening Gaza would have encouraged Hamas to give ALL the hostages back before every single human in the area was killed.
Even with the extermination of every Palestinian in Gaza Hamas would still not have given up their war sex trophies.
The siege that some ministers announced immediately when the news came in would have worked, one way or the other — either it would have got all the hostages back immediately, thus humiliating Hamas and dealing it a death blow, or it would have solved the Gaza problem permanently. But Netanyahu canceled it before it had even begun.
The Jeffrey Sacks interview praised by Elon Musk and reposted by Trump is a very compelling reason to think this may be part of a bipartisan realignment to be closer to Iran along Obama lines and that Trump was only pro-Israel because the American public is pro-Israel.
I really hope I am wrong but first Trump posted that bullshit then seems to have acted on it. There is no evidence of a secret deal.
I truly think there is more to this.
Bibi is already saying the Hama$$ has reneged on parts of the deal….
Does anyone believe Hamas will honor any agreement, they have never done so in the past. Do a clean sweep, drive all of them to the ocean just like they wanted to do to Jews. Invite S Africa to take them in.
The deal is broadly similar to previous hostage/prisoner exchanges so I really don’t get the angst over the ratio. I suspect the Israeli’s know what they are doing and what they want to achieve. As Ace noted at AofSHQ, this will give them something of a respite, too, and an opportunity to focus northward. I’m fairly sure that the Trump administration will have a very different attitude towards the Mid-East conflicts than Biden-Harris (take a look at Pete Hegseth’s response to a question about Hamas and Gaza, and the Abraham Accords) which probably factored into the Israeli response. There’s a huge difference between the way the Biden crew was continually looking for leverage to force the Israeli’s into accepting the bogus “two-state” solution framework, and cooperative negotiation between allies on war aims.
Don’t take Trump literally
But DO take him seriously.
All of which were criminally negligent at the time, and ended up costing hundreds or thousands of lives. That they set such a precedent that you now think it’s normal is yet another argument against them.
Agree.
Agreed.
Trump and Bibi are generally the two smartest foxes in a crowded stadium.
Capitulation is in the Biden vocabulary. Not Trump’s. Not Bibi’s.
You must be completely ignorant of Netanyahu if you think capitulation is not in his vocabulary. His entire career has been one capitulation after another. He started his first stint as PM by giving Hevron away, leading to disaster. He stayed in Sharon’s government and voted for the disengagement until a minute after the last minute, when it was already a done deal and unstoppable, and only then left the government in “protest”. He led a left-wing coalition that betrayed everything he had campaigned for. And he offered to include Ra’am in a coalition, before denouncing Bennett for doing the same. He backed down on judicial reform.
His entire career.. and that’s a long one. Israel has been dogged by calls for pragmatism for over half a century. Everytime it’s like Charlie Brown kicking the football.
I don’t think capitulation is what you do when pipe-hitting-mofo saying there will be hell to pay takes office. Does not add up.
Here is my take for what it’s worth. The cease fire and hostage deal allows President Trump to claim victory. The world looks on and sees that the President got it done. The headlines read “Cease Fire”. With the hostages released you can now box in Iran even more. You can bet your bottom dollar that Saudi Arabia is all in on assisting Israel and the US in seeing the mullahs forced out by their own people. The way to do that is to destroy their nuclear capability. Saudi’s will gladly allow the Israeli AF to transit their airspace to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities. Without the mullahs funding them hamas, hezbolla and the houthis can’t buy arms and munitions. This allows the US and Israel to go after the remnents. Once the domino of the mullahs being ousted happens you will see Russia and China pull back. And the political situation will be there to expand fully the Abraham Accords.
I agree with the first part, but I diverge with the notion of funding,
China and several other state actors would be only too happy to fund Hamas, as well as quite a few NGOs based right herre in the U.S.
It would be funny to have drones patrolling, looking for fancy hats, then removing them.
How about sending some fentanyl with instructions about how to poison their rulers?
Take out nuclear sites and Iran’s soldiers, then maybe Iranian’s will finish the job?
The critical nuclear facilities, the ones that would need to be destroyed in order to completely eradicate their program, are likely buried deep enough (inside a mountain) that they’re largely impervious to the most powerful conventional bunker busters in our arsenal. TL;dr is to eliminate the program, there would need to be boots on the ground for a prolonged period of time. I just don’t see Trump committing to that. The Iranians are eventually going to possess a nuclear weapon because there is zero appetite (outside of Israel) to do what it would take to keep Iran from possessing a nuclear weapon.
The best case scenario is a Trump-backed attack by Israel and coalition forces could potentially set their program back several years, maybe more, and seriously damage their missile program; it’s tough to do advanced missile development in an underground bunker.
They don’t have to be our boots on the ground. Israel did a test run when they took out an underground Syrian missile factory.
The best case scenario is a Trump-backed attack by Israel and coalition forces could potentially set their program back several years, maybe more, and seriously damage their missile program; it’s tough to do advanced missile development in an underground bunker.
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you presume that their only method of delivery is ballistic–no doubt a visible, effective threat / deterrent
as a practical matter, there are several other delivery methods more discreet and difficult to interdict–not to mention cheaper (though money would likely not be an obstacle to iran)
Or, it could be a rope-a-dope, as Hamas can’t resist thinking “Hey, we must have them on the ropes! Let’s push for even more!” Then they demand more. (Oh, look! “Netanyahu Postpones Cabinet Nod on Ceasefire After Hamas Made New Demands”.)
Then they can stand up and say “We had a deal. They decided they didn’t want that deal. So, back to killing evil people!”
Ya know, if there was no specifics re what condition the returned prisoners would be. returned in…
I think Israel just wants to temporarily quiet the Gaza front so it can take on Iran. You can’t fight on too many fronts simultaneously.
The “side deal” that I would like to see: if for every live hostage returned to Israel there are to be 50 Hamas terrorists returned to Hamas, then for every dead hostage, there should be 50 dead Hamas terrorists handed over to Hamas.
I had considered that this ” Deal ” was the first of a two part strategy:
Make a deal so impossibly outrageous and completely and obviously lopsided in favor of Hamas…
Hamas will violate it as every ceasefire ever before..
And it will be on the world stage.
Then, go clobber them.
Israel has at incalculable price, shown that they have made every possible effort to avoid this.
And then, who could question their going back to war?
Unfortunately, I doubt it would change many minds.
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