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Hostage Deal Is a Necessary Deal With the Devil
Aviv Asher, 2,5-year-old, her sister Raz Asher, 4,5-year-old, and mother Doron, react as they meet with Yoni, Raz and Aviv’s father and Doron’s husband, after they returned to Israel to the designated complex at the Schneider Children’s Medical Center, during a temporary truce between Hamas and Israel, in Petah Tikva, Israel, in this handout picture released on November 25, 2023. Photo: Schneider Children’s Medical Center Spokesperson/Handout via REUTERS.
In opposing the current deal to release Palestinian terrorists in return for innocent Israeli hostages, many point to the deal where Israel got back kidnapped soldier Gilad Shalit for 1,027 Palestinian prisoners, including Yahya Sinwar, now a chief leader of Hamas. Even if that deal was miscalculated, this one is different.
Many are discussing how they are for or against the deal, which is supposed to free 50 — mainly women and children — in return for Palestinian women and children (or people who started as children) most of whom were convicted of violent crimes. I wish we could get all our hostages back now, but it is crucial to save the lives of at least these 50.
There is a huge concern that Israeli soldiers will lose actionable intelligence and that Hamas will re-arm and perhaps Sinwar will escape. We’re already hearing reports that Hamas is telling all its civilians to go back into areas where Israel is operating, which could hamper future military action.
Any time an army has momentum and its enemy is on the ropes, it’s never a good idea to stop. But to bring back hostages out of Hell, you have to make a deal with the devil.
We learn in the Talmud that “whoever saves a single life, is considered by scripture to have saved the whole world.”
This shows that freeing captives is sacrosanct. At the same time, there is a real fear that freeing criminal prisoners will only encourage more kidnapping. Here’s a big secret: evil people, who make it their mission to kill and torture, will find a way to do it.
Some of the prisoners being released were violent and we know that violent criminals will likely be violent again. How do you stop that from happening? These are tough questions with no good answers.
But you can’t answer the cry of a relative who wants their loved one back with, “Sorry, maybe at a later point” — because at a later point, they may not be alive.
Israel did not ask to be in this war or to be in this position. We do know we are dealing with terrorists we cannot trust.
The ceasefire is a clear propaganda win for Hamas and gives them legitimacy. But this decision, as hard as it was, may be followed by a much harder decision: What if after the four days, Hamas says it will continue to release hostages but only if Israel releases some of the most dangerous murderers and terror planners?
Israel must calculate at what point their soldiers lose so much that many are in danger, and at what point the population is in peril if certain criminals are let go. President Biden had been pushing for a ceasefire, and perhaps while getting hostages back, this will get Israel some points with the United States.
A big tragedy is the failure of the international community and all major countries for not strongly demanding all hostages back from day one.
Based on the information that is known, we must be thankful to get these hostages back. We shouldn’t do this with blinders on, and should continue to make a cost-benefit analysis, while respecting the lives of all the hostages.
American college students who took down posters of the hostages thought they were big shots. Should these hostages be released, I hope these college students take a look in the mirror and work on being less hateful. It isn’t likely.
The author is a writer based in New York.
The post Hostage Deal Is a Necessary Deal With the Devil first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Iran Says Eight Arrested for Suspected Links to Israel’s Mossad Spy Agency
The Mossad recruitment ad. Photo: Screenshot.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards said on Saturday they had arrested eight people suspected of trying to transmit the coordinates of sensitive sites and details about senior military figures to Israel’s Mossad, Iranian state media reported.
They are accused of having provided the information to the Mossad spy agency during Israel’s air war on Iran in June, when it attacked Iranian nuclear facilities and killed top military commanders as well as civilians in the worst blow to the Islamic Republic since the 1980s war with Iraq.
Iran retaliated with barrages of missiles on Israeli military sites, infrastructure and cities. The United States entered the war on June 22 with strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities.
A Guards statement alleged that the suspects had received specialized training from Mossad via online platforms. It said they were apprehended in northeastern Iran before carrying out their plans, and that materials for making launchers, bombs, explosives and booby traps had been seized.
State media reported earlier this month that Iranian police had arrested as many as 21,000 “suspects” during the 12-day war with Israel, though they did not say what these people had been suspected of doing.
Security forces conducted a campaign of widespread arrests and also stepped up their street presence during the brief war that ended in a US-brokered ceasefire.
Iran has executed at least eight people in recent months, including nuclear scientist Rouzbeh Vadi, hanged on August 9 for passing information to Israel about another scientist killed in Israeli airstrikes.
Human rights groups say Iran uses espionage charges and fast-tracked executions as tools for broader political repression.
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Body of Idan Shtivi, Murdered on Oct. 7, Retrieved from Gaza in Special IDF Operation
Idan Shtivi. Photo: Courtesy of the family
i24 News – The body of Idan Shtivi, a 28-year-old murdered by Palestinian jihadists at the Nova music festival on October 7, 2023, was recovered in a joint operation by the IDF and Shin Bet in central Gaza, it was cleared for publication on Saturday.
Shtivi’s remains were returned to Israel alongside the body of Ilan Weiss, another hostage killed during the October 7 massacre.
“Idan Shtivi was abducted from the Tel Gama area and brutally murdered by Hamas terrorists after acting to rescue and evacuate others from the Nova music festival on October 7th, 2023. He was 28 years old at the time of his death,” read an IDF press release.
“Following an identification process conducted at the National Center for Forensic Medicine, along with the Israel Police and the Military Rabbinate, the Hostages and Missing Persons Headquarters notified his family.”
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Shviti “was a gifted student of sustainability and governance, and a courageous individual” who acted heroically on October 7, helping others flee.
“He was killed in the process and his body was abducted to Gaza by Hamas. My wife and I send our heartfelt condolences to the Shtivi family. So far, 207 hostages have been returned, 148 of them alive. We will continue to act tirelessly and decisively to bring back all our hostages—living and deceased.”
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Woman Stabbed at Ottawa Grocery Store in Latest Antisemitic Attack
A social media post by the alleged attacker, Joseph Rooke of Cornwall, Ontario. Photo: Screenshot via i24
i24 News – The stabbing of a Jewish woman at an Ottawa grocery by a man with a long history of antisemitic posts on social media, the latest antisemitic hate crime in Canada, sparked outrage and prompted condemnation from officials including the prime minister.
Both the victim and the attacker are in their 70s. The woman is reportedly in serious condition.
The suspect was identified as Joseph Rooke, who has authored a series of lengthy rambling screeds on social media, ranting against Israel and Jews.
“Judaism is the world’s oldest cult,” he writes in one post, going on to say “over time jews have become insidious in governments, businesses, media conglomerates, and educational institutions in order to do what they do better than anyone else. Jews are the world’s masters of propaganda, gaslighting, demonization, demagoguery, and outright lying. Using their collective wealth they have become masters of reprisal.”
“I am under no obligation whatsoever, legal, moral, or otherwise, to like jews and I do not. If that means I meet the jewish definition of an anti-semite, so be it.”
Canada has seen a steep spike in antisemitic attacks over the past two years, including a recent incident in Montreal where a Hasidic Jew was beaten in front on his children.
After Prime Minister Mark Carney condemned the incident, many, including former Israel’s ambassador the US Michael Oren, pointed out that Carney’s rhetoric and policies contribute to the increasing insecurity of Canada’s Jewish community through uncritical embrace of outrageous and easily disprovable allegations that Israel and its supporters were guilty of the worst crimes against humanity.