One of the two planks holding up Israel’s campaign being waged in Gaza has been to return the remaining hostages being held by Hamas back home.
Everyone of authority, from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on down, has repeatedly stated that, along with the goal of eliminating the Hamas threat to Israel from Gaza, the freeing of the hostages is the reason the country declared war on the terror group following the October 7 massacre in the South.The astonishing rescue at the beginning of the week of two of the hostages lent weight to the importance that both the government and the military place on achieving that goal.
However, two other related events this week raise questions about how much, in fact, Netanyahu puts both goals on even footing.First, The Israeli delegation that traveled to Cairo for talks on a framework for a truce deal that would create an opportunity for a hostage release returned empty-handed.
According to KAN, a plan devised by Mossad head David Barnea, Shin Bet director Ronen Bar, and Maj.-Gen. (res.) Nitzan Alon, who is commanding intelligence efforts to find the abductees, was reportedly rejected by Netanyahu before their departure.
Alon was reportedly so miffed that he decided to join Barnea, Bar, and Ophir Falk, Netanyahu’s foreign policy adviser in Cairo, to meet US, Egyptian and Qatari officials and sent his deputy instead.
The other event that raises questions is that, after the delegation returned to Israel Tuesday night, according to N12, Netanyahu unilaterally ordered them not to return for more talks that the US was encouraging without informing or consulting his war cabinet.
Israel believes Hamas's demands are delusional
The Prime Minister’s Office said on Wednesday night that Netanyahu has insisted that “Israel will not give in to Hamas’s delusional demands. Israel did not receive in Cairo any new proposal from Hamas on the release of our hostages,” the statement said.Officials involved in the negotiations told N12 they “understand Netanyahu’s political challenge, but this is an opportunity he can’t miss,” referring to the likely pressure from his far-Right coalition partners to reject any deal that will halt the war in Gaza and release Palestinian prisoners from Israeli jails.Hamas is undoubtedly throwing spokes into any potential agreement with demands that Israel cannot live with. But to not reject efforts to find any glimpse of hope for a deal that would bring more hostages home is the government’s responsibility.“The families of the hostages were stunned by the decision to thwart the Cairo negotiations,” Hostage and Missing Families Forum spokesperson Haim Rubenstein said. “It appears that some members of the cabinet decided to sacrifice the lives of the abductees without admitting it.”So the question is, where are the Israeli war cabinet members – Benny Gantz and Gadi Eisenkot of the National Unity Party, and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant – on the issue? Do they agree that there is nothing to discuss in Cairo and that doing so won’t bring the hostages home any sooner?Or is this Netanyahu going rogue?If it’s the former, then there’s a strong middle-ground consensus that rejecting an “over the top” Hamas proposal will put pressure on them to soften their demands.If it’s the latter, can the country trust one man, whose judgment might be clouded by a myriad of considerations – political and personal – to make decisions on his own that could delay hostages returning home and result in more of them dying and more fallen IDF soldiers?It’s time for the war cabinet members to align themselves with the prime minister or denounce him. And the rest of us will have to draw the necessary conclusions.