The terrible calculus of negotiating with Hamas

Is there anyone who is surprised by the brutal murder of six Israeli hostages in a Hamas tunnel? Have we learned nothing about the values and priorities of Hamas and its amen chorus of some 2 million Gazans and numberless other Palestinians in the territories and beyond?

Were I the father, brother, or child of a hostage I would surely be among those demonstrating non-stop for a ceasefire. And, alas, I would be wrong. Dead wrong. But a terrified relative cannot be blamed for thinking and acting irrationally.

Our rational self knows beyond doubt that there is no negotiating with Hamas. Such negotiations yield nothing but prolonged frustration and agony. And a global spectacle that does not work to our favor.

Worse yet, what might be touted as a success in such negotiations would yield the discharge of the very murderers who will then go on to plan and perpetrate the next October 7^th.

The much-celebrated release of Gilad Shalit on October 11, 2011 was the death sentence for over 1200 Israelis in October 7, 2023. The line connecting the two events is straight. And that “trade” in which 1,000 killers were released – including Yahya Sinwar – was also the result of massive demonstrations on behalf of a single, unfortunate Israeli POW trapped in Hamas’ maw.

Hamas has never been anything but honest regarding its cult of death. Their stated goal is the annihilation of every Israeli. Any collateral loss of Palestinian life in the pursuit of that goal is to be celebrated as martyrdom.

Such a philosophy leaves no quarter for negotiation or compromise.  Such negotiation will not work. At best it will result in the illusion of a settlement that will backfire exponentially at a later date.

Hamas has been perfectly clear that it would only release hostages – if indeed there are any left to release – in exchange for a total Israeli defeat by way of a full withdrawal from Gaza and the handing over of an untold number of Hamas murderers and thugs from Israeli captivity. They do not prevaricate. They do not blink. Yet we continued to play into their hands through months of false hopes and delusion which only provide fodder to our international foes.

Along the way, thousands of Gaza Palestinians have lost their lives protecting their brothers, fathers, sons, cousins, nephews and neighbors who comprise the Hamas killing squads. They did so by serving as humans shields. They did so by providing access and egress for Hamas tunnels in their children’s bedrooms, under their houses of worship, and within their schools and hospitals.

To date there has not been a single manifestation of Gazan civilian opposition to Hamas or its tactics. Only very recently one may have heard an individual here or there blaming Hamas ‘also’ for their misfortune. But of popular opposition there is none.

Alas, it is politically incorrect to say there are no civilians in Gaza. Yet it is not only by way of their orgiastic celebrations on October 7^th that we know of Hamas’s overwhelming popularity. We know it because Gaza has not once demonstrated a preference for releasing 200 kidnapped and murdered Israelis in exchange for saving tens of thousands of their own lives, not to mention their property and livelihoods.

Worse still, in the hope of discovering live hostages in the snake pit of Hamas tunnels, we have fought a cautious war that has cost us the lives of 400 of our most precious sons. And now, nearly eleven months into the conflict, we are no closer to achieving the release of our hostages than we were on day one.

It could be reasonably argued that had we prosecuted the war more aggressively, and with less concern for the lives of ostensibly innocent Gazans, the war might have ended sooner, and popular opposition to Hamas might have been unleashed. What’s more, it is quite possible, more hostage lives might have been saved. And, of course far fewer of our sons and brothers would have been killed in battle.

The very idea of hostage negotiation is absurd on its face. Every single instance of successful hostage negotiation has only led to the taking of more hostages. And we are speaking of bad actors like Russia, North Korea and Iran. This truism is compounded by a quantum factor when we are talking about Islamist terror armies.

In the atrocious calculus of dealing with an enemy like Hamas we must ask ourselves whether the possible rescue of 200 hostages is worth the lives of 400 of our citizen soldiers, and counting. The question is rhetorical to anyone who is not the relative of a hostage. And the anguish of such relatives is as understandable as it is irrational.