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Why Israel had no choice but to make a ‘bargain with the devil’
(JTA) — In pressing for a deal that could see the release of 50 of the more than 200 hostages held in Gaza in return for a four-day pause in hostilities the release of 150 Palestinian prisoners, Israel’s National Unity Party Minister Benny Gantz described the return of the hostages as a “moral imperative and part of the resilience that enables us to win wars.”
But what if negotiating with Hamas, considered a terrorist group by Israel, creates a dangerous precedent and further encourages its enemies to view hostage-taking as a weapon? By putting its war on Hamas on a four-day hold, does Israel appear to be giving in to an enemy it has vowed to destroy? And by releasing three Palestinian prisoners for every hostage returned, does Israel risk allowing violent prisoners to go free?
These are the unbearable tensions Israeli and American negotiators faced in the leadup to the deal, announced Tuesday night. To understand the dilemmas and pressures Israel is facing, I spoke with law professor Robert Mnookin, director of the Harvard Negotiation Project at Harvard Law School and author of the 2010 book, “Bargaining with the Devil: When to Negotiate, When to Fight.” Mnookin advises governments and corporations on negotiating strategy and conflict resolution and has written about Israel’s controversial hostage swaps with Hamas and other adversaries.
He is also the author, in 2019, of “The Jewish American Paradox: Embracing Choice in a Changing World,” a book about Jewish peoplehood and identity.
We spoke Wednesday about the political pressure on Israel to strike a deal, how religious and national values play a role in hostage negotiations and why a “no-win” scenario is sometimes the best you can do.
The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
Before we get into the details of this specific hostage exchange, I wonder if you could provide a theoretical framework for hostage negotiation, especially with an enemy deemed terrorists. What should any power consider before embarking on negotiations essentially with kidnappers?
One hard question, of course, is, are they likely to keep to the deal that you make with them? Kidnappers aren’t necessarily a reliable partner to a negotiation.
A second big issue is the question of precedent. What kind of precedent are they setting by being willing to negotiate? For many years, the United States government took the position that it would not negotiate with terrorists to try to release kidnap victims. And there was a lot of tension [between the government and victims’ families]. The stated policy was often informally violated by the U.S. government, that is, they sometimes did participate. And in fact, it turns out that European countries were negotiating with various — often Islamic — terrorist groups in the last decade, were paying money to get people released. The United States wasn’t and it changed its formal policy.
That they would pay ransom?
Not necessarily, but they no longer had an absolute policy that there should not be any contact between the government and terrorist groups with respect to kidnap victims.
You wrote an op-ed critical of the decision in 2011 by an earlier Netanyahu government to release about 1,000 Palestinian prisoners in exchange for Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier kidnapped by Hamas in 2006 and held hostage in Gaza. What made you call that a “crazy deal” and what might be different about the current situation?
There were lots of things wrong with that deal. First, the price was absurdly high. Second, it set a terrible precedent. And third, as it turns out, that deal strengthened Hamas and weakened the Palestinian Authority, because the Israeli government was negotiating with Hamas, who made sure the Palestinian Authority would get no credit. And comparatively few of the Palestinian Authority’s prisoners were released. And finally, it turns out of course, that among those released are at least some who now are apparently leaders of Hamas.
On the other hand, obviously, I’m thrilled that Shalit was released.
Robert Mnookin directs the Harvard Negotiation Project at Harvard Law School. (Jon Chase/Harvard University News Office)
When you heard the terms of the deal Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, how did it strike you as someone who has an expertise in negotiations? Was there a winner? Was there a loser?
Well, listen, these kinds of negotiations often involve tragic choices. Who could not be very happy that women and children are being released? On the other hand, while we don’t really know the details of who’s being released by the Israeli government, I gather many of them are minors who participated in rather violent acts or very violent acts.
Should Israel worry that negotiating over hostages in this case is going to encourage its enemies to engage in more kidnapping?
They absolutely should.
Israel has a national ethos of returning its soldiers and protecting its citizens above all else — including by taking actions, like lopsided hostage swaps, that might endanger soldiers and civilians in the future. Do these sort of emotional goals — for the sake of national solidarity or morale, or even the religious imperative of pidyon shvuyim, or redeeming hostages — strike negotiation experts as irrational?
I don’t want to call it irrational because it may reflect and reinforce values that are really quite important. Israel has a tradition that no soldier would be left behind. Given that Israel has an army in which nearly all Jewish people participate, a truly citizens’ army, the Shalit deal was, for all its flaws, a valuable reinforcement of that ideology.
Israel is also a small country, and the degree of separation among its citizens is incredibly small. I imagine that any idea that it won’t negotiate with terrorists is impossible to maintain politically and morally when there are so many stories and they are so personal.
This is something I talked about in my oped many years ago, which is a very important psychological finding that people, in order to save identifiable individuals, are willing to take actions that are far more costly than actions that could save many more unspecified individuals. The classic example of this is when an individual is trapped in a coal mine: It becomes national news, and rescuers might spend millions of dollars to get them out — while the same government authorities are unwilling to spend anywhere near an equivalent amount on safety measures that would ultimately save many more people.
What we’ve seen in Israel, with so many victims, the political pressure is very, very substantial. You’ve seen these posters of all the individual kidnap victims. The families are trying to personalize it — appropriately, because it’s a good strategy. My wife last night was brought to tears with interviews of the family of one of the victims because their story was so sad. There’s this little girl, for example, who’s going to be 4 on her birthday, which is Friday. [Abigail Edan was kidnapped on Oct. 7; Hamas killed her parents, Roy and Smadar Edan; she is a U.S. citizen and President Joe Biden said he expects her to be released.]
Of course a government should be willing to work very hard to get her release. How can you feel they should not do so? These are very hard choices that governments have to face.
What did each side achieve in this deal?
What the Israelis achieved, of course, is that some fraction of the 200-plus hostages are being released and that there are going to be children and women among them. And the suspension of hostilities from Israel’s perspective is comparatively brief. As for Hamas, they’re getting credit for the release, they’re getting a rest in terms of hostilities and there’s going to be substantial humanitarian aid.
The other thing that I think is interesting about this arrangement, of course, in part goes to the reliability issue. They’re doing an arrangement where the hostages are going to be released partially each day, which is a way of reinforcing the ceasefire. Whereas if they were all released right in the beginning, Hamas would be taking the risks that the Israelis might immediately resume hostilities.
Do you accept the idea that a successful negotiation is one in which both sides are disappointed?
No. If the people are rational actors, it should create an outcome that each side views as superior to what their best alternative otherwise would be. Now, it is often the case that the negotiated deal is disappointing in comparison with a perfect world. But on the other hand, almost by definition, if you and I settle a terrible dispute, we wouldn’t have made a deal if we didn’t think it was superior to our expected alternative. And what’s often true is sometimes you and I could settle a conflict with an arrangement that makes us feel positive about doing business together in the future.
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New York Times ‘Ceasefire’ Coverage Laments That Israel Will Exist
Orthodox Jewish men stand near a tank, ahead of a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, as seen from the Israeli side of the border with Gaza, Jan. 16, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
The New York Times news coverage of Israel and the Middle East is becoming increasingly unmoored from reality.
A recent Times article about a ceasefire in Gaza carries five bylines — Aaron Boxerman, Rawan Sheikh Ahmad, Johnatan Reiss, Ephrat Livni, and Adam Rasgon. A sixth reporter, Nick Cumming-Bruce, is credited at the end of the piece for having “contributed reporting from Geneva.” With so many people involved, accuracy and accountability is more difficult.
The Times article reports, “Aid workers also hope that the cease-fire would allow for far more medical evacuations. The WHO reported that Israel had approved the evacuation of 5,405 patients since the start of the war. But the pace of evacuations slowed to a trickle after Israel closed the Rafah crossing in May.”
Actually it was not “Israel” that “closed the Rafah crossing,” which is a passage between Gaza and Egypt. The Rafah crossing was closed by Egypt after the Israelis took over the other side. That threatened to end the smuggling that reportedly brought in huge bribe revenues to powerful people in Egypt.
Another Times article about the ceasefire — this one under Rasgon’s solo byline, though with reporting contributed by Boxerman and Jerusalem bureau chief Patrick Kingsley — is no more accurate. “When Hamas launched its Oct. 7, 2023, attack against Israel, it had hoped to ignite a regional war that would draw in its allies and lead to Israel’s destruction. Instead, it has been left to fight Israel almost entirely alone,” the Times writes. This conveniently skips over how Israel was attacked by Hezbollah, from Iran, and by some students and faculty on US and European university campuses. Prime Minister Netanyahu has described it as a “seven-front” war — not only Gaza, but also Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Iran, and Judea and Samaria (also known as the West Bank).
The Times does mention attacks on Israel from Yemen, but it describes them airily as “occasional rocket and drone attacks, most of which Israel has intercepted.” If the “occasional rocket and drone attacks” had targeted, say, the New York Times bureau in Washington, or Columbia Journalism School, one doubts that the Times would be so casually dismissive of them.
The Times article concludes:
For many civilians, a future with both Israel and Hamas in the picture is bleak.
“We’re talking about a people stuck between a state ready to act with total brutality and a group ready to provoke that state to act with brutality,” said Akram Atallah, a Palestinian columnist from Gaza.
That passage draws a strange equivalence between Israel and Hamas, an internationally designated terrorist group. What would the future look like without Israel in the picture? That would also be pretty bleak for the Jews who live there, who can expect to be treated with the same cruelty that Hamas treated its victims on Oct. 7, 2023.
Who is this Akram Atallah? In the past, according to Palestinian Media Watch, he’s likened Israel to Shakespeare’s caricature of Shylock. The Washington Post has reported that Atallah “was imprisoned with [former Hamas leader Ismail] Haniyeh in the early 1990s in Israel.”
This is the journalist the New York Times turns to for expert commentary?
For many civilian readers hoping for factual, reliable journalism about Israel and its neighbors, the present — with the New York Times distorting reality and indulging fantasies about wiping Israel off the map — is pretty bleak.
No one is asking the Times to be a spokesman for Netanyahu or his Likud Party. At least, that isn’t what I’m hoping for. I’d settle for just simple factual accuracy about issues such as who closed the Rafah crossing or which parties attacked Israel. Or, minimally, for the ability to draw a distinction between Israel and Hamas.
Ira Stoll was managing editor of The Forward and North American editor of The Jerusalem Post. His media critique, a regular Algemeiner feature, can be found here.
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Israel Sees More to Do on Lebanon Ceasefire as Deadline Nears
Israeli soldiers gesture from an Israeli military vehicle, after a ceasefire was agreed to by Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon, near Israel’s border with Lebanon in northern Israel, Nov. 27, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
Israel said on Thursday the terms of a ceasefire with Hezbollah were not being implemented fast enough and there was more work to do, while the Iran-backed terrorist group urged pressure to ensure Israeli troops leave south Lebanon by Monday as set out in the deal.
The deal stipulates that Israeli troops withdraw from south Lebanon, Hezbollah remove fighters and weapons from the area, and Lebanese troops deploy there — all within a 60-day timeframe which will conclude on Monday at 4 am (0200 GMT).
The deal, brokered by the United States and France, ended more than a year of hostilities triggered by the Gaza war. Following the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas’s invasion of southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, the opening salvo that started the Gaza conflict, Hezbollah began launching rockets, missiles, and drones at northern Israel almost daily in solidarity with Hamas, forcing tens of thousands of Israelis to evacuate their homes.
The fighting peaked with a major Israeli offensive that displaced more than 1.2 million people in Lebanon and left Hezbollah severely weakened.
“There have been positive movements where the Lebanese army and UNIFIL have taken the place of Hezbollah forces, as stipulated in the agreement,” Israeli government spokesmen David Mencer told reporters, referring to UN peacekeepers in Lebanon.
“We’ve also made clear that these movements have not been fast enough, and there is much more work to do,” he said, affirming that Israel wanted the agreement to continue.
Mencer did not directly respond to questions about whether Israel had requested an extension of the deal or say whether Israeli forces would remain in Lebanon after Monday’s deadline.
Hezbollah said in a statement that there had been leaks talking about Israel postponing its withdrawal beyond the 60-day period, and that any breach of the agreement would be unacceptable.
The statement said that possibility required everyone, especially Lebanese political powers, to pile pressure on the states which sponsored the deal to ensure “the implementation of the full [Israeli] withdrawal and the deployment of the Lebanese army to the last inch of Lebanese territory and the return of the people to their villages quickly.”
Any delay beyond the 60 days would mark a violation of the deal with which the Lebanese state would have to deal “through all means and methods guaranteed by international charters” to recover Lebanese land “from the occupation’s clutches,” Hezbollah said.
Israel said its campaign against Hezbollah aimed to secure the return home of tens of thousands of people forced to leave their homes in northern Israel by Hezbollah rocket fire.
It inflicted major blows on Hezbollah during the conflict, killing its leader Hassan Nasrallah and thousands of the group’s fighters and destroying much of its arsenal.
The group was further weakened in December when its Syrian ally, Bashar al-Assad, was toppled, cutting its overland supply route from Iran.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot, speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos on Thursday, said Israel had put an end to hostilities and was removing its forces from Lebanon, and that the Lebanese army had gone to locations of Hezbollah ammunition stores and destroyed them.
He also indicated there was more to do to shore up the ceasefire. “Are we done? No. We will need more time to achieve results,” he said.
Three diplomats said on Thursday it looked like Israeli forces would still be in some parts of southern Lebanon after the 60-day mark.
A senior Lebanese political source said President Joseph Aoun had been in contact with US and French officials to urge Israel to complete the withdrawal within the stipulated timeframe.
The Lebanese government has told US mediators that Israel‘s failure to withdraw on time could complicate the Lebanese army’s deployment, and this would be a blow to diplomatic efforts and the optimistic atmosphere in Lebanon since Aoun was elected president on Jan. 9.
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Nova Music Festival Survivor Yuval Raphael to Represent Israel at Eurovision
Yuval Raphael, a survivor of the Supernova music festival massacre on Oct. 7, 2023, will represent Israel at the 2025 Eurovision Song Contest in Basel, Switzerland, in May. Photo: Screenshot
JNS.org — Yuval Raphael, a survivor of the Supernova music festival massacre on Oct. 7, 2023, will represent Israel at the 2025 Eurovision Song Contest in Basel, Switzerland, in May.
Raphael won the finals of the “Hakochav Haba” (“Rising Star”) song contest on Jan. 22. The season-long singing competition, which is broadcast on Israel’s Channel 12, selects the country’s representative to the popular European song contest.
Raphael sealed her victory with “two unforgettable performances” in the finals: ABBA’s “Dancing Queen” and “Writing’s on the Wall” by Sam Smith, Channel 12 reported.
She said she wants to represent those who didn’t survive the massacre.
“That’s why I want to be there — for all the angels who couldn’t be here now,” Raphael told Kan Reshet Bet radio. “I got to fulfill a lifelong dream and others are left there only in the shadows. It’s the only thing left of them — this shadow still dancing. That’s why it’s crucial to represent us. That’s why I want to be there; to bring the voice forward, because it’s so important.”
“That’s why it’s important for me to represent us. That’s why I want to be there—for all the angels who couldn’t be here now.”
Listen to the heartfelt words of Yuval Raphael, a survivor of Nova, who will represent Israel at Eurovision 2025. pic.twitter.com/7wnZ1X6SXB
— Hen Mazzig (@HenMazzig) January 23, 2025
Four days after the massacre, Rafael was interviewed along with other survivors by Channel 12.
“We were at a party, and around 6 am, a barrage of missiles began,” she said. “We all rushed to the car, we were five friends — two of them are currently hospitalized.
“When we got to the car, there was a crazy mass of people and vehicles trying to get out [of the festival area]. In the end, when we reached the road, we saw a [bomb] shelter, so we decided to stop on the side and enter it to protect ourselves from the [Gazan] missiles,” she said.
Raphael, 24, hid in the bomb shelter for seven hours. Hamas terrorists threw grenades into the shelter. Raphael, pretending to be dead, hid underneath the bodies of the dead. Forty young people entered the shelter at the start of the Hamas invasion. Ten left alive.
More than 360 people in total were killed at the music festival. Hamas-led terrorists murdered some 1,200 that day in a surprise attack from the Gaza Strip. They kidnapped 251.
On Wednesday and Thursday, many well-wishers congratulated her on social media.
“Mazel Tov YuvalRaphael — Israel’s next representative to the @eurovision competition and the winner of The Rising Star contest. Yuval is a Nova survivor and now she says her relationship with music has an even more emotional meaning. She’s not only telling her story of survival,” tweeted actress Noa Tishby, who served as Israel’s special envoy for combating antisemitism and delegitimization from 2022 to 2023.
The semi-final draw on Jan. 28 will determine in which Eurovision semifinal Raphael will compete, on May 13 or 15, in an effort to make it to the final on May 17.
Israel has won the Eurovision Song Contest four times: 1978, 1979, 1998 and 2018. According to Eurovision bookmakers, Belgium is the favorite this year. But since Raphael’s selection, Israel has been moved from fifth to third favorite by the oddsmakers.
The post Nova Music Festival Survivor Yuval Raphael to Represent Israel at Eurovision first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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