The terror group is manipulating the Israeli public to pressure its government to bend to Hamas' demands as part of a ceasefire-for-hostages deal. It is psychological warfare at its finest.
Yes, yes, and yes. The Israeli hostage families and their adjacent protesters are playing into Hamas hands. I feel deep pain for these poor people, but they need to stop. It will be a bitter pill for Israel if they let Hamas emerge without being defeated. Most of these hostages are unlikely to come back even with a truce, so demanding a deal under any terms won’t even get them back their families and will cost Israel the future. So hard to accept but they need to do it. Where is America? Weak and cowardly.
I am not sure what is more painful. Hearing the news of the killing of the hostages or hearing the news that some folks want to make any sort of a deal to get back the hostages. Naive? How about willfully suicidal? I just finished reading a book by Craig Shirley titled, "December,1941". It is not a new book (2011) but certainly new to me. In his epilogue, he recounts a Congressional hearing after the tragic accident where three American astronauts were burned alive in the Apollo 1 spacecraft during a ground training exercise. Frank Borman, a fellow veteran astronaut who had been put in charge of NASA after the accident was asked how this could have happened during a simple ground training session. His answer, "There was a failure of imagination. No one ever imagined that this could happen." The December 7th, 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was a failure of imagination. At that time, who would have thought that the Japanese could secretly cross the wide Pacific and successfully attack the big, bad, USA fleet. Likewise, the October 7th attack on Israel by Hamas was a failure of imagination. But like America after Pearl Harbor, which did not again make the mistake of lacking imagination and underestimating their opponents, hopefully there are a majority of voices in Israel who also will not fail to use their imagination. Imagine how nasty Hamas has been and will continue to be, and get nastier. I truly hate to say this but, when one imagines that all of the hostages are already dead men and women walking, the solution becomes quite clear. As long as any part of Hamas lives, Israel will never be safe.
I agree with you. I told my husband on October 8th that the horror for Israel was that they had to act like all the hostages were already dead. I have negotiated contracts most of my adult business life and I always try to pretend to myself that I don’t care about the outcome. I certainly do, but a show of strength and indifference to the outcome is always the best negotiation position. I pray for the hostages but I would show a different face.
I,too, spent most of my adult life negotiating business contacts, but I'm not sure that's applicable here. When you're on the other side of the table, the other party isn't typically a religiously motivated, lying, psychotic, death cult, like Hamas.
Unfortunately, Israel has abandoned it's initial policy of not negotiating for hostages. The new practice of negotiating for hostages with terrorists simply teaches them to take more hostages. Israel's willingness to swap 1,000 murderous psychopaths for one innocent Israeli teaches Hamas to take hostages and then hold out for better numbers - get your "best" people, like Sinwar, back in the game.
Today, the United States, Qatar and Egypt have their respective thumbs on the scale of these negotiations to ensure that Israel doesn't get a fair bargain.
The only thing islamists respect is strength. To paraphrase Jim Malone, played by Sean Connery, in the 1987 movie, The Untouchables: You come at us with a knife, we come back at you with a gun. You put one of us in the hospital, we put 10 of yours in the morgue. You kill our hostages, we kill you and your extended family. We eliminate your DNA from the earth.
The United States and the rest of the allies cared nothing about the loss of German life, including children, during WWII. If you don't want dead civilians and your cities destroyed, then surrender. Yet no one holds Hamas accountable for the loss of a single Palestinian life. Here, Israel cannot, will not, nor will they be permitted by the Harris/Biden administration, to take a path that inflicts such awful death and destruction in the Muslim world that never again would they risk attacking the country or taking hostages.
I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but I'm pretty sure that Chinese-owned TikTok, along with Facebook, and X, are weaponized to foment unrest among the Israelis, as well as to erode support for Netanyahu, as much as possible. First they tested their algorithms to get people to pour cold water on themselves. Then they got them to risk injury by climbing milk crates. Then they got them to endanger their lives by eating Tide pods. Each test was amazingly successful. Now the algorithms are convincing the world that, no matter what Israel does, they are the villain.
So, on one side of the table is Israel, simply trying to survive. On the other side of the table is the rest of the world, including the US, telling them to stop defending themselves and just take it. Fighting to a draw with Hamas and then rewarding them with their own country will ensure Israel's eventually demise.
I don't know how this ends, but with the Democrat party calling into question our heretofore-unequivocal support for the only democracy in the middle east, asking with upcoming generations of kids educated by antisemitic Wikipedia and the DEI model, unless something changes quickly, I fear we don't have many decades left.
I think we are saying the same thing and I agree with your well written comments. I don’t mean to imply that this is like negotiating a business contract. It is not, for the reasons you describe. I simply mean that you can’t show weakness, and have to act like you don’t care in order to put a wall in front of your weakness.
Useful lefty idiots. Perhaps the left should be participants in negotiations so they can share responsibility with government negotiators for outcomes.
Very right on. I can't stomach the idea of freeing terrorist prisoners as part of a deal. Personally, I would like to see the soldiers little by little rescue hostages until they are all accounted for. THEN: 1) send all terrorist prisoners back in body bags; 2) go in to the tunnels with poison gas. One of the other recent blogs talks about how Hamas is making a point with the six murdered hostages about how they are more cold and ruthless than Israel. Let's show them how cold and ruthless we can be.
Cold and ruthless and the means to escape this terrible conundrum of hostages and ridiculous negotiations is Israel threatens to destroys Irans oil and nuclear industry unless all hostages, dead and alive are returned within 1 week.
Very upsetting that these Israel organizations are buying into the psych warfare. I can’t imagine their anger and pain but reacting from emotion never solves anything and can sometimes make things worse.
Sinwar will continue to twist and twist and twist the knife because it brings him the utmost pleasure to inflict the utmost pain on the Jewish psyche. No ceasefire agreement or hostage deal will ever change that. On 10/18/2011, Hamas established the price of a Jewish life. 1 Jew equals 1000 Palestinians. This is not to say that Israel/Israelis should start killing indiscriminately, absolutely not. But Hamas, worldwide, has got some payback coming its way.
Heartbreaking, those beautiful lives. But the evil deed is already done: Hamas has to be exterminated for October 7. Israel cannot give in or the enemies will be kidnapping hostages forever.
You are absolutely right. It is psychological warfare!!! My heart breaks for these hostages and their families but giving in to this will make things much worse. I remember the feelings of British people over the ISIS hostages but the government of the day refused to negotiate. I fear the situation in Israel will deteriorate if this happens. Stay on course!
Thank you. Several of the 12 Comments below so far, reflect my general feelings/thoughts. As stated repeatedly, I'm not only a late learner but also a slow learner. None the less, in response to the valid timely discussion of the video I'll post at the end, here are a few quick thoughts I've just Posted on a few Jewish sites: Here I am only talking about terms, language, words and their continuous misuse for misdirection. When I use the word 'hoax' I only mean that the other terms are misused. For example: 'cease fire' hoax; 'palestinian' hoax; 'peace deal' hoax; 'antisemitism' hoax; 'west bank' hoax; etc. What is REALLY going on is that those important words/terms are perpetually used to weaken the very people those words/terms are said to 'help'. For example jns org is an ongoing Kvetch Machine of perpetual victimhood and blame blame blame. It is lame to imagine that there is any outside force other than our actual purpose in this world. "Get with the program" i.e. start where you are and begin your new improved steps or even a single step today. Daily begin to use so-called 'orthodox' methods which are simply 'traditional' (inclusive of historical variations). Tonight begins Elul - Rosh Chodesh. 'tune in'. Stop being a 'refusenik':). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WM56YlwUlgE
I agree with this article 100%. The question for Bibi is what should he do now? He is in a self created political box. If he truly has Israel’s best interest at heart he should agree to give Sinwar anything he wants in an area of world that showing any kind of weakness is suicide. That agreement should last approximately two to three weeks even though the first phase would be set to last longer. Before Sinwar can renege on the agreement for some perceived slight , Bibi should get as many hostages back (of course) but more importantly leave Israeli spies behind as Israeli troops withdraw to see where the hostages are coming out from. Then use the spies information and break the agreement and send Israeli paratroopers in to these spots to as quickly as possible enter where hostages came out of. When he did this he would loose worldwide credibility so he would have to resign. The new Israeli government could disavow him and thus save face as far as living up to any future agreements. The only downside when this happens is there is a strong likelihood that any remaining hostages would be killed unless the IDF can to them first.
Amen… Enough (not) said indeed! My heart grieves for the people of my own country, as well as the entire world, who are so easily manipulated and deceived into becoming participatory agents of their own destruction. As a Bible-believing Christian, that grief is particularly strong in regard to other professing Christians who have been manipulated and deceived into not supporting, and even attacking, Israel and the Chosen People. But it may be even more painful to see this happening within Israeli Jewish society, as well as between Israeli and Diaspora Jews. I often consider what it must have been like to be an ancient prophet of G-d, such as Isaiah, Jeremiah, Malachi, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, and others.
How heartbreaking it is to see one’s beloved people foolishly rebelling against G-d and turning against those who seek only to help them see what harm they are bringing upon themselves, and all that they profess to love. And how amazing it is to reflect on the fact that these prophets were expressing the heart and pleas of G-d for His people, only to have the messengers mocked, abused, or even put to death.
BUT (Behold the Underlying Truth), G-d…
Lamentations 3:21-26
21 But this do I call to mind, therefore I have hope: 22 the kindness of the LORD has not ended, His mercies are not spent.
23 They are renewed every morning—ample is Your grace!
24 “The LORD is my portion," I say with full heart; therefore will I hope in Him.
25 The LORD is good to those who trust in Him, to the one who seeks Him; 26 it is good to wait patiently till rescue comes from the LORD.
May the Holy Spirit comfort the people of Israel in their pain and sorrow, cause them to cease their internal strife, to seek His grace and show it to each other, and to recognize and reject the forces of division and discord, that only bring harm, and may ultimately aim to destroy, Israel.
May the Lord grant His people the peace that surpasses all understanding; the peace that flows from His grace and love. May His people repent of their sins, turn to Him for salvation and healing through the sacrifice of His Son, Yeshua, and live in His will, forever. Amen
Hamas knew exactly what it was doing putting Israel between a rock and a hard place, and now with their psychological warfare, Israel is falling into place. The hostage situation is a highly emotional one, and I fully understand having lost a son, (not to such a horrendous event) but if Israel was to agree to any convoluted agreement, it could only be looking at more attacks, murders, and abductions. I mentioned yesterday after reading your essay on the diversity of Jews, that all Jews/Israelis must stay as one to keep their strength. Sinwar loves seeing the tension, protests, and division in Israel, as he and the Arabs enjoy the same in the US. Divide people, create chaos, and prey on their emotions; what a prescription to get what you want. Israel must stay united and concentrate on assassinating Sinwar, while freeing the remaining hostages. Not an easy task, but if anyone can do it, Israel can. What Israeli technology needs is a GPS system for tunnels, to track these rats wherever they go. Bottom line is, Israel cannot fall for their ploys. If anyone knows the Arab mind and culture it's Israel.
My opinion is that every time Israel finds a hostage has been executed by Hamas they should assassinate a Hamas leader in Qatar or an Iranian leader. Declare it as the cost of executing hostages.
Without these leaders consent, who are living in perfect safety in Qatar or Iran and making themselves rich with financial support for their instigating these actions, none of these hostages would be executed. Make the leaders pay and turn the psychological warfare against them and watch how they will be more interested in surrender instead of negotiations.
The Israeli public is being manipulated. You understand the enemy and their tactics. Sun Tsu stated the only way to win a war is to know your enemy. This is the only way to win the war against Hamas and the other terror groups. My heart breaks for the families of the deceased hostages. Israel is dealing with a horrific situation where the most difficult choices have to be made. Israel has no choice but to keep fighting until Hamas is defeated. There should be no ceasefire which gives Hamas any ability to continue to exist. Netanyahu is doing what is best for Israel. I cannot comprehend how foolish the leaders of the United States and Great Britain are acting. If they were the leaders during World War 2, Hitler would have won. I pray for Netanyahu, his government and the IDF who are the only ones that can save the people of Israel. Thank you again Josh for your wisdom and clarity.
These protesters are a disgusting disgrace. They are giving aid and comfort to hamas, hezbollah, Iran and all of Israel’s enemies. hamas just executed 6 hostages and these people want to reward them with a deal which allows them to get away with it and still have the ability to commit future atrocities. I do give a pass to the hostage families whose attitudes I can understand. They cannot be expected to weigh this issue rationally. However, Israel’s PM has to make decisions for the greater good of his nation. A ceasefire deal would be a disaster. What would they have Bibi do to get the hostages back? Should he end the fighting, release hundreds of hamas terrorists from Israeli prisons, withdraw Israeli forces entirely from Gaza, allow the remaining hamas terrorists a free pass? Those are some of hamas’ demands. And even if Israel agreed to such a lopsided deal, they still would not get all of the hostages back, hamas would keep some for insurance, using them as human shields to protect themselves from being hunted down. I find it hard to believe the majority of Israelis agree with the protesters. I would bet that these protests are being organized and funded by left-wing groups in America. Right now, hamas, hezbollah, the hoothies and Iran are watching what's unfolding in Israel with glee. They see victory is near. Why should I continue defending Israel when apparently Israelis don't even want to fight for themselves. I never would have thought Israelis to be capable of defeatism and surrender. I am going to focus on saving my own country, hopefully we won't surrender to the forces trying to destroy us. BTW, not a single western nation has pressured Ukraine to stop fighting and negotiate for a ceasefire. That war has been ongoing for 2 1/2 years with no end in site. If anything, they are being encouraged to fight "as long as it takes", a direct quote from Joe Biden.
Yes, yes, and yes. The Israeli hostage families and their adjacent protesters are playing into Hamas hands. I feel deep pain for these poor people, but they need to stop. It will be a bitter pill for Israel if they let Hamas emerge without being defeated. Most of these hostages are unlikely to come back even with a truce, so demanding a deal under any terms won’t even get them back their families and will cost Israel the future. So hard to accept but they need to do it. Where is America? Weak and cowardly.
I feel so da*n sorry for the Jewish People.
One small disagreement with Joshua Hoffmann: Yahyah Sinwar isn’t just cold-hearted. He’s a psychopath, and needs to be eliminated.
We agree on that.
I am not sure what is more painful. Hearing the news of the killing of the hostages or hearing the news that some folks want to make any sort of a deal to get back the hostages. Naive? How about willfully suicidal? I just finished reading a book by Craig Shirley titled, "December,1941". It is not a new book (2011) but certainly new to me. In his epilogue, he recounts a Congressional hearing after the tragic accident where three American astronauts were burned alive in the Apollo 1 spacecraft during a ground training exercise. Frank Borman, a fellow veteran astronaut who had been put in charge of NASA after the accident was asked how this could have happened during a simple ground training session. His answer, "There was a failure of imagination. No one ever imagined that this could happen." The December 7th, 1941 Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor was a failure of imagination. At that time, who would have thought that the Japanese could secretly cross the wide Pacific and successfully attack the big, bad, USA fleet. Likewise, the October 7th attack on Israel by Hamas was a failure of imagination. But like America after Pearl Harbor, which did not again make the mistake of lacking imagination and underestimating their opponents, hopefully there are a majority of voices in Israel who also will not fail to use their imagination. Imagine how nasty Hamas has been and will continue to be, and get nastier. I truly hate to say this but, when one imagines that all of the hostages are already dead men and women walking, the solution becomes quite clear. As long as any part of Hamas lives, Israel will never be safe.
I agree with you. I told my husband on October 8th that the horror for Israel was that they had to act like all the hostages were already dead. I have negotiated contracts most of my adult business life and I always try to pretend to myself that I don’t care about the outcome. I certainly do, but a show of strength and indifference to the outcome is always the best negotiation position. I pray for the hostages but I would show a different face.
I,too, spent most of my adult life negotiating business contacts, but I'm not sure that's applicable here. When you're on the other side of the table, the other party isn't typically a religiously motivated, lying, psychotic, death cult, like Hamas.
Unfortunately, Israel has abandoned it's initial policy of not negotiating for hostages. The new practice of negotiating for hostages with terrorists simply teaches them to take more hostages. Israel's willingness to swap 1,000 murderous psychopaths for one innocent Israeli teaches Hamas to take hostages and then hold out for better numbers - get your "best" people, like Sinwar, back in the game.
Today, the United States, Qatar and Egypt have their respective thumbs on the scale of these negotiations to ensure that Israel doesn't get a fair bargain.
The only thing islamists respect is strength. To paraphrase Jim Malone, played by Sean Connery, in the 1987 movie, The Untouchables: You come at us with a knife, we come back at you with a gun. You put one of us in the hospital, we put 10 of yours in the morgue. You kill our hostages, we kill you and your extended family. We eliminate your DNA from the earth.
The United States and the rest of the allies cared nothing about the loss of German life, including children, during WWII. If you don't want dead civilians and your cities destroyed, then surrender. Yet no one holds Hamas accountable for the loss of a single Palestinian life. Here, Israel cannot, will not, nor will they be permitted by the Harris/Biden administration, to take a path that inflicts such awful death and destruction in the Muslim world that never again would they risk attacking the country or taking hostages.
I'm not a conspiracy theorist, but I'm pretty sure that Chinese-owned TikTok, along with Facebook, and X, are weaponized to foment unrest among the Israelis, as well as to erode support for Netanyahu, as much as possible. First they tested their algorithms to get people to pour cold water on themselves. Then they got them to risk injury by climbing milk crates. Then they got them to endanger their lives by eating Tide pods. Each test was amazingly successful. Now the algorithms are convincing the world that, no matter what Israel does, they are the villain.
So, on one side of the table is Israel, simply trying to survive. On the other side of the table is the rest of the world, including the US, telling them to stop defending themselves and just take it. Fighting to a draw with Hamas and then rewarding them with their own country will ensure Israel's eventually demise.
I don't know how this ends, but with the Democrat party calling into question our heretofore-unequivocal support for the only democracy in the middle east, asking with upcoming generations of kids educated by antisemitic Wikipedia and the DEI model, unless something changes quickly, I fear we don't have many decades left.
My apologies for the jeremiad.
I think we are saying the same thing and I agree with your well written comments. I don’t mean to imply that this is like negotiating a business contract. It is not, for the reasons you describe. I simply mean that you can’t show weakness, and have to act like you don’t care in order to put a wall in front of your weakness.
Tough, courageous and brilliant.
Hamas is playing psychological games with the Israeli left and the families of the hostages as well as with Biden & Co
They’re playing them with the whole world, regardless of political bent.
Hamas kills Israelis and the left of Israel seeks to take power from the leadership. Are they truly patriotic or useful idiots?
Useful lefty idiots. Perhaps the left should be participants in negotiations so they can share responsibility with government negotiators for outcomes.
Very right on. I can't stomach the idea of freeing terrorist prisoners as part of a deal. Personally, I would like to see the soldiers little by little rescue hostages until they are all accounted for. THEN: 1) send all terrorist prisoners back in body bags; 2) go in to the tunnels with poison gas. One of the other recent blogs talks about how Hamas is making a point with the six murdered hostages about how they are more cold and ruthless than Israel. Let's show them how cold and ruthless we can be.
Cold and ruthless and the means to escape this terrible conundrum of hostages and ridiculous negotiations is Israel threatens to destroys Irans oil and nuclear industry unless all hostages, dead and alive are returned within 1 week.
I like it!!!
Very upsetting that these Israel organizations are buying into the psych warfare. I can’t imagine their anger and pain but reacting from emotion never solves anything and can sometimes make things worse.
Sinwar will continue to twist and twist and twist the knife because it brings him the utmost pleasure to inflict the utmost pain on the Jewish psyche. No ceasefire agreement or hostage deal will ever change that. On 10/18/2011, Hamas established the price of a Jewish life. 1 Jew equals 1000 Palestinians. This is not to say that Israel/Israelis should start killing indiscriminately, absolutely not. But Hamas, worldwide, has got some payback coming its way.
Heartbreaking, those beautiful lives. But the evil deed is already done: Hamas has to be exterminated for October 7. Israel cannot give in or the enemies will be kidnapping hostages forever.
Hamas care about Palestinian lives either. All they care about is themselves and staying in power.
You are absolutely right. It is psychological warfare!!! My heart breaks for these hostages and their families but giving in to this will make things much worse. I remember the feelings of British people over the ISIS hostages but the government of the day refused to negotiate. I fear the situation in Israel will deteriorate if this happens. Stay on course!
Thank you. Several of the 12 Comments below so far, reflect my general feelings/thoughts. As stated repeatedly, I'm not only a late learner but also a slow learner. None the less, in response to the valid timely discussion of the video I'll post at the end, here are a few quick thoughts I've just Posted on a few Jewish sites: Here I am only talking about terms, language, words and their continuous misuse for misdirection. When I use the word 'hoax' I only mean that the other terms are misused. For example: 'cease fire' hoax; 'palestinian' hoax; 'peace deal' hoax; 'antisemitism' hoax; 'west bank' hoax; etc. What is REALLY going on is that those important words/terms are perpetually used to weaken the very people those words/terms are said to 'help'. For example jns org is an ongoing Kvetch Machine of perpetual victimhood and blame blame blame. It is lame to imagine that there is any outside force other than our actual purpose in this world. "Get with the program" i.e. start where you are and begin your new improved steps or even a single step today. Daily begin to use so-called 'orthodox' methods which are simply 'traditional' (inclusive of historical variations). Tonight begins Elul - Rosh Chodesh. 'tune in'. Stop being a 'refusenik':). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WM56YlwUlgE
I agree with this article 100%. The question for Bibi is what should he do now? He is in a self created political box. If he truly has Israel’s best interest at heart he should agree to give Sinwar anything he wants in an area of world that showing any kind of weakness is suicide. That agreement should last approximately two to three weeks even though the first phase would be set to last longer. Before Sinwar can renege on the agreement for some perceived slight , Bibi should get as many hostages back (of course) but more importantly leave Israeli spies behind as Israeli troops withdraw to see where the hostages are coming out from. Then use the spies information and break the agreement and send Israeli paratroopers in to these spots to as quickly as possible enter where hostages came out of. When he did this he would loose worldwide credibility so he would have to resign. The new Israeli government could disavow him and thus save face as far as living up to any future agreements. The only downside when this happens is there is a strong likelihood that any remaining hostages would be killed unless the IDF can to them first.
https://x.com/CrannofonixNews/status/1830267648921448755
Watch til the end. Enough said.
Amen… Enough (not) said indeed! My heart grieves for the people of my own country, as well as the entire world, who are so easily manipulated and deceived into becoming participatory agents of their own destruction. As a Bible-believing Christian, that grief is particularly strong in regard to other professing Christians who have been manipulated and deceived into not supporting, and even attacking, Israel and the Chosen People. But it may be even more painful to see this happening within Israeli Jewish society, as well as between Israeli and Diaspora Jews. I often consider what it must have been like to be an ancient prophet of G-d, such as Isaiah, Jeremiah, Malachi, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, and others.
How heartbreaking it is to see one’s beloved people foolishly rebelling against G-d and turning against those who seek only to help them see what harm they are bringing upon themselves, and all that they profess to love. And how amazing it is to reflect on the fact that these prophets were expressing the heart and pleas of G-d for His people, only to have the messengers mocked, abused, or even put to death.
BUT (Behold the Underlying Truth), G-d…
Lamentations 3:21-26
21 But this do I call to mind, therefore I have hope: 22 the kindness of the LORD has not ended, His mercies are not spent.
23 They are renewed every morning—ample is Your grace!
24 “The LORD is my portion," I say with full heart; therefore will I hope in Him.
25 The LORD is good to those who trust in Him, to the one who seeks Him; 26 it is good to wait patiently till rescue comes from the LORD.
May the Holy Spirit comfort the people of Israel in their pain and sorrow, cause them to cease their internal strife, to seek His grace and show it to each other, and to recognize and reject the forces of division and discord, that only bring harm, and may ultimately aim to destroy, Israel.
May the Lord grant His people the peace that surpasses all understanding; the peace that flows from His grace and love. May His people repent of their sins, turn to Him for salvation and healing through the sacrifice of His Son, Yeshua, and live in His will, forever. Amen
That's a great share Mike. 👍
Hamas knew exactly what it was doing putting Israel between a rock and a hard place, and now with their psychological warfare, Israel is falling into place. The hostage situation is a highly emotional one, and I fully understand having lost a son, (not to such a horrendous event) but if Israel was to agree to any convoluted agreement, it could only be looking at more attacks, murders, and abductions. I mentioned yesterday after reading your essay on the diversity of Jews, that all Jews/Israelis must stay as one to keep their strength. Sinwar loves seeing the tension, protests, and division in Israel, as he and the Arabs enjoy the same in the US. Divide people, create chaos, and prey on their emotions; what a prescription to get what you want. Israel must stay united and concentrate on assassinating Sinwar, while freeing the remaining hostages. Not an easy task, but if anyone can do it, Israel can. What Israeli technology needs is a GPS system for tunnels, to track these rats wherever they go. Bottom line is, Israel cannot fall for their ploys. If anyone knows the Arab mind and culture it's Israel.
My opinion is that every time Israel finds a hostage has been executed by Hamas they should assassinate a Hamas leader in Qatar or an Iranian leader. Declare it as the cost of executing hostages.
Without these leaders consent, who are living in perfect safety in Qatar or Iran and making themselves rich with financial support for their instigating these actions, none of these hostages would be executed. Make the leaders pay and turn the psychological warfare against them and watch how they will be more interested in surrender instead of negotiations.
The Israeli public is being manipulated. You understand the enemy and their tactics. Sun Tsu stated the only way to win a war is to know your enemy. This is the only way to win the war against Hamas and the other terror groups. My heart breaks for the families of the deceased hostages. Israel is dealing with a horrific situation where the most difficult choices have to be made. Israel has no choice but to keep fighting until Hamas is defeated. There should be no ceasefire which gives Hamas any ability to continue to exist. Netanyahu is doing what is best for Israel. I cannot comprehend how foolish the leaders of the United States and Great Britain are acting. If they were the leaders during World War 2, Hitler would have won. I pray for Netanyahu, his government and the IDF who are the only ones that can save the people of Israel. Thank you again Josh for your wisdom and clarity.
These protesters are a disgusting disgrace. They are giving aid and comfort to hamas, hezbollah, Iran and all of Israel’s enemies. hamas just executed 6 hostages and these people want to reward them with a deal which allows them to get away with it and still have the ability to commit future atrocities. I do give a pass to the hostage families whose attitudes I can understand. They cannot be expected to weigh this issue rationally. However, Israel’s PM has to make decisions for the greater good of his nation. A ceasefire deal would be a disaster. What would they have Bibi do to get the hostages back? Should he end the fighting, release hundreds of hamas terrorists from Israeli prisons, withdraw Israeli forces entirely from Gaza, allow the remaining hamas terrorists a free pass? Those are some of hamas’ demands. And even if Israel agreed to such a lopsided deal, they still would not get all of the hostages back, hamas would keep some for insurance, using them as human shields to protect themselves from being hunted down. I find it hard to believe the majority of Israelis agree with the protesters. I would bet that these protests are being organized and funded by left-wing groups in America. Right now, hamas, hezbollah, the hoothies and Iran are watching what's unfolding in Israel with glee. They see victory is near. Why should I continue defending Israel when apparently Israelis don't even want to fight for themselves. I never would have thought Israelis to be capable of defeatism and surrender. I am going to focus on saving my own country, hopefully we won't surrender to the forces trying to destroy us. BTW, not a single western nation has pressured Ukraine to stop fighting and negotiate for a ceasefire. That war has been ongoing for 2 1/2 years with no end in site. If anything, they are being encouraged to fight "as long as it takes", a direct quote from Joe Biden.