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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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The post Why Israel had no choice but to make a ‘bargain with the devil’ appeared first on Jewish Telegraphic Agency.
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Global Antisemitic Incidents Decreased in 2024 From Post-Oct. 7 Surge but Remain Alarmingly High, New Study Finds
A pro-Hamas march in London, United Kingdom, Feb. 17, 2024. Photo: Chrissa Giannakoudi via Reuters Connect
Antisemitic incidents worldwide decreased in 2024 following the record surge that followed the Hamas-led massacre across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, but they remain significantly higher than levels recorded prior to the attack, according to a new report published on Wednesday.
Just hours before the start of Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day on Wednesday night, Tel Aviv University’s Center for the Study of Contemporary European Jewry, in collaboration with the Irwin Cotler Institute for Democracy, Human Rights, and Justice, released its Annual Antisemitism Worldwide Report, which focuses on anti-Jewish hate crimes in 2024.
“Antisemitism is not just a problem of the past or a fringe issue,” said Professor Uriya Shavit, the report’s editor. “It is a mirror to our societies. And in 2024, that reflection is still deeply troubling.”
The 160-page study revealed that anti-Jewish hatred, which spiked in the wake of the Hamas onslaught, continues to persist across continents a year and a half into the ongoing Gaza conflict.
“Contrary to popular belief, the report’s findings indicate that the wave of antisemitism did not steadily intensify due to the war in Gaza and the humanitarian disaster there,” Shavit said. “The peak was in October-December 2023, and a year later, a sharp decline in the number of incidents was noted almost everywhere.”
“The sad truth is that antisemitism reared its head at the moment when the Jewish state appeared weaker than ever and under existential threat,” he continued.
Australia saw the most significant rise in anti-Jewish incidents, with 1,713 recorded in 2024, compared to 1,200 in 2023 and 490 in 2022.
Despite the sharp surge in anti-Jewish hate following the Oct. 7 attacks, Australia recorded 478 incidents between October and December 2024, a notable drop from the 827 incidents reported during the same period in 2023.
A rise in antisemitism compared to pre-war norms continued into this year. In February, for example, Australia experienced a scandal in which two nurses were caught on video vowing to kill Israeli patients, prompting outrage from authorities. After the video went viral, both nurses were suspended and permanently barred from employment within the New South Wales state health system. They were later charged with crimes.
The United States also saw notable increases in anti-Jewish incidents, especially in cities like Chicago, Denver, and Austin. The Anti-Defamation League released its own report on Tuesday showing that antisemitism in the US surged to break “all previous annual records” in 2024, with the civil rights group recording 9,354 antisemitic incidents last year.
In New York, the city with the world’s largest Jewish population outside of Israel, police recorded 344 antisemitic hate crimes in 2024, up from 325 in 2023 and 264 in 2022. Last month, Jews were the targets of more hate crimes than any other group, according to police data.
However, between October and December 2024, New York saw 68 antisemitic incidents, a sharp decline from the 159 incidents recorded in the same months of 2023.
Canada recorded a record-breaking 6,219 anti-Jewish incidents in 2024, up from 5,791 the previous year. Although members of the Jewish community make up less than 1 percent of the country’s population, they were targeted in one-fifth of all hate crimes.
“Around the world, levels of antisemitism remain significantly higher compared to the period before Oct. 7,” Shavit said in a statement.
In Europe, Italy experienced a sharp rise in anti-Jewish hate, with 877 incidents reported in 2024 — nearly double the 454 recorded in 2023.
Switzerland and Spain both saw a rise in antisemitic activity in 2024. For example, nearly 2,000 antisemitic incidents were reported in French-speaking Switzerland last year — an increase of 90 percent from 2023. The German-, Italian-, and Romansh-speaking regions recorded a 43 percent rise compared to 2023 and a staggering 287 percent increase compared to 2022.
One of the most notorious recent cases was the Zurich attempted murder, in which an Orthodox Jewish man was stabbed and left with life-threatening injuries by a Swiss teenager, an Islamic State supporter of Tunisian origin.
On the other hand, France reported an overall decline in antisemitic incidents in 2024, but there was a concerning rise in physical assaults. The total number of antisemitic outrages last year was a slight dip from 2023’s record total of 1,676, but it marked a striking increase from the 436 antisemitic acts recorded in 2022.
Last week, a Jewish man wearing a Star of David pendant was brutally attacked and called a “dirty Jew” in Villeurbanne, a city in eastern France that is home to the country’s second-largest Jewish community. In another egregious attack that garnered international headlines, a 12-year-old Jewish girl was raped by three Muslim boys in a Paris suburb last year. The child told investigators that the assailants called her a “dirty Jew” and hurled other antisemitic comments at her during the attack.
In the United Kingdom, 3,528 antisemitic incidents were recorded in 2024, down from 4,103 in 2023 and 1,662 in 2022. The country also saw a sharp decline in October, with 310 incidents reported in 2024, compared to 1,389 in the same month of 2023.
Despite recording an 18 percent drop in anti-Jewish hate crimes from the previous year’s all-time high, the UK still experienced its second worst year for antisemitism in 2024.
In Germany, 5,177 antisemitic incidents were recorded in 2024, down from 5,671 in 2023 and 2,811 in 2022. During the October-December period, 671 incidents were reported in 2024, a significant decrease from 3,163 in the same period of 2023.
In South America, both Argentina and Brazil experienced increased antisemitic activity in 2024. For example, Argentina saw a 44 percent rise in reported anti-Jewish hate crimes compared to the previous year.
The post Global Antisemitic Incidents Decreased in 2024 From Post-Oct. 7 Surge but Remain Alarmingly High, New Study Finds first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Celebrities Help ‘Spotlight’ Holocaust Survivors, Their Testimonies in New NYC Portrait Exhibit
Some of the portraits included in “Borrowed Spotlight” that feature Jennifer Garner, Nicola Peltz Beckham, and David Schwimmer with Holocaust survivors. Photo: Shiryn Ghermezian/The Algemeiner
A new portrait series and exhibition that opened in New York City on Tuesday showcases Holocaust survivors paired up with some of the most notable figures in media, fashion, and entertainment, in an effort to preserve survivor testimonies and amplify their stories, as well as to help combat antisemitism.
The portraits in “Borrowed Spotlight,” which is on display at the Detour Gallery, were captured by South African-born, renowned fashion photographer Bryce Thompson. They debuted ahead of Israel’s Holocaust Remembrance Day (Yom HaShoah), which begins on Wednesday night and marks 80 years since the end of World War II. The photographs feature portraits of survivors alongside prominent Jewish and non-Jewish figures such as Cindy Crawford, Jennifer Garner, Billy Porter, Wolf Blitzer, Chelsea Handler, Jenna Dewan, Barbara Corcoran, Nicola Peltz Beckham, Scooter Braun, David Schwimmer, Martha Grant, Ashley Benson, Josh Peck, George Stephanopoulos, Sheryl Sandberg, and Julius Erving.
The recognizable names heard testimonies from the Holocaust survivor they were paired with and then posed for photographs together with the survivor. A total of 18 celebrity and Holocaust survivor-paired portraits are in the series, and they were all taken by Thompson in 2023 and 2024. The exhibit features these large-scale portraits but also additional behind-the-scenes photos and other elements that aim to educate and inspire the public.
One section showcases notes written by some of the Holocaust survivors about life, hope, and reflection. In one such note that was on display, Holocaust survivor Risa Igelfeld, who is 107 years old, wrote: “I am writing this to urge the world to bring only positive thoughts to one another and let love flow.”
“Holocaust survivors are few and far between. Special people with special stories, and I really felt like they need to be told. [And] firsthand was really important to me,” Thompson, who is not Jewish, told the large crowd that attended the exhibit’s opening on Tuesday night. “Hearing a story from someone who has told a story is not the same as sitting in a room with someone who lived through something.”
Thompson told The Algemeiner he was originally hoping to only include non-Jewish celebrities in the portraits because “I wanted non-Jewish people standing up for Jewish people.” But once the project started, Jewish celebrities reached out to him and said they wanted to participate in the portrait series. He also admitted that he had a hard time getting some celebrities on board for the project.
“It wasn’t as easy as I had hoped, but the ones who did say ‘yes’ said [it] willingly and happily, and we were lucky to have them,” he said.
The Holocaust survivors in the series include natives of Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Belgium, Romania, and one man who was born in a Budapest ghetto basement during a bombing raid in 1944. The photographs feature survivors of the Warsaw Ghetto, Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen concentration camps, and one person who survived 12 concentration camps. After surviving the genocide of World War II, some of these Holocaust survivors went on to have large families, become graduates of MIT, rocket designers, entertainment lawyers, writers, acclaimed sculptors, tailors, members of the Israeli Air Force, doctors of clinical psychology, and Holocaust educators. The photo series also highlights a survivor of the Farhud pogrom that targeted Jews in Baghdad, Iraq.
The goal of the portrait series and exhibit is to take the spotlight off the featured celebrities and instead use it shed some light on the Holocaust survivors, to help magnify their testimonies and help them reach a larger audience, especially the next generation. “In these pairings, recognition is redirected, and the attention so often given to fame is instead used to illuminate history,” read a description of the exhibit that was on display at its entrance. “The result is a series of intimate portraits and conversations where past and present collide, where silence is broken, and where remembrance becomes an act of defiance against forgetting.”
Photo: Sabrina Steck
Brazilian model Daniela Braga is featured in the portrait series alongside Czech Holocaust survivor Gabriella Karin, who survived the war as a teenager by hiding in the one-bedroom apartment of a non-Jewish young lawyer who was located directly across the street from the Nazi-Slovak Gestapo. Born and raised Catholic, Braga converted to Judaism and her husband is Jewish. She told The Algemeiner that hearing about Karin’s experience during the Holocaust made her “very emotional because growing up in Brazil, we learned just a little bit about the Holocaust and World War II. But to have the experience to actually talk to someone who lived through it, it’s something so mind-blowing to me.”
“I could hear the pain in her voice,” Braga added. “It made me happy in the end that she’s alive and is able to tell her story to all of us, to share with other people. When we say, ‘Never Again,’ it really has to be never again.”
Braga also told The Algemeiner she met a Jewish people for the first time ever when she moved to New York 15 years ago.
“I’ve been immersed in this [Jewish] culture for 15 years. The Jewish culture is something very close to my heart. Anything that I can do to help the Jewish community, I will do it,” she said while explaining why she wanted to participate in Thompson’s portrait series.
Jewish actress Kat Graham is photographed in the portrait series with Holocaust survivor Yetta Kana. Graham spoke at the exhibit opening and said Thompson’s portraits capture “truth, resilience, and humanity.” The “Vampire Diaries” actress – whose maternal grandmother fled Europe during the Holocaust – additionally said the photographs “build a bridge between generations; a conversation between memory and legacy.”
“This project is about remembrance but it’s also about responsibility,” she told the crowd. “We are the torchbearers now. It is up to us to keep these stories alive and to ensure that history is never forgotten. That the voices of survivors, like Yetta, are not only heard, but felt. I invite you to see, to feel, and to carry these faces with you, long after you leave … Let’s never forget.”
The opening of “Borrowed Spotlight” on Tuesday night was attended by other well-known figures including Gregg Sulkin, Remi Bader, Moti Ankari, and “Real Housewives of New Jersey” stars Margaret Josephs, Melissa Gorga, and Lexi Barbuto. Sulkin, who is Jewish, told The Algemeiner he wanted to be in the portrait series but ultimately was unable to participate in Thompson’s project because of scheduling conflicts.
The photographs in the exhibit, as well as additional ones not on display, were compiled into a coffee table book available for purchase that features a foreword by Crawford. Proceeds from the book sales will support efforts to educate younger generations about the Holocaust. Proceeds from a private auction on Monday night of select prints in the series will benefit Selfhelp, which provides services and assistance to living Holocaust survivors in New York, and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
There are more than 200,000 Holocaust survivors worldwide. Nearly 50 percent of all Holocaust survivors will die within the next six years, while 70 percent will no longer be alive within 10 years, according to a new report released this week by the Conference on Jewish Material Claims Against Germany (Claims Conference). There are estimated to be more than 1,400 alive today around the world who are over 100 years old.
“Borrowed Spotlight” will be open at the Detour Gallery through Sunday.
The post Celebrities Help ‘Spotlight’ Holocaust Survivors, Their Testimonies in New NYC Portrait Exhibit first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Iran Fortifying Buried Nuclear Sites as Talks With US Continue, Report Says
Military personnel stand guard at a nuclear facility in the Zardanjan area of Isfahan, Iran, April 19, 2024, in this screengrab taken from video. Photo: WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS
Iran is ringing two deeply buried tunnel complexes with a massive security perimeter linked to its main nuclear complex, a report said Wednesday, amid US and Israeli threats of attack.
The Institute for Science and International Security released its report based on recent satellite imagery as the US and Iran prepare to hold a third round of talks this weekend on a possible deal to reimpose restraints on Tehran’s uranium enrichment program.
US President Donald Trump, who pulled the US out of a 2015 pact designed to prevent Tehran from developing nuclear weapons, has threatened to bomb Iran unless a deal is quickly reached that would ensure that same goal.
Trump’s withdrawal prompted Iran to breach many of the pact’s restraints. Western powers suspect it is pursuing the capability to assemble a nuclear weapon through enrichment of uranium to high fissile purity, which Tehran denies.
David Albright, the institute president, said the new perimeter suggested that the tunnel complexes, under construction beneath Mount Kolang Gaz La for several years, could become operational relatively soon.
Tehran has barred access to the tunnels to inspectors of the UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) who are monitoring its nuclear program.
This has raised concerns that they could be used to store Iran‘s stockpile of highly enriched uranium or undeclared nuclear materials, and advanced centrifuges that could quickly purify enough uranium for a bomb, Albright said.
IAEA Director General Raphael Grossi, on a visit to Washington, told reporters on Wednesday that those possible uses by Iran of the tunnel complexes “cannot be excluded” and the agency has repeatedly raised the issue with Tehran.
Iran, however, rejects an IAEA legal obligation requiring a member state to inform the agency of any intention to set up a nuclear facility even if radioactive materials have not been introduced, he said. “They are telling us, ‘It is none of your business.’”
“It is obvious that this is a place with numerous and important activities” related to Iran‘s nuclear program, Grossi added. “It’s a bit of a ping pong, but the digging continues, the building continues.”
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi, the chief negotiator with the US, said in a post on X in apparent response to the new report that Israel and unnamed “Special Interest groups” were looking to “derail diplomacy.”
Iran has said that advanced centrifuges would be assembled in one complex in place of a facility at the nearby Natanz plant, the centerpiece of its nuclear program, destroyed by sabotage in 2020.
The complexes, Albright said, are being built at depths much greater than Iran‘s deeply buried uranium enrichment facility at Fordow, near the holy city of Qom.
Commercial satellite images taken on March 29 showed hardened entrances to the complexes, high wall panels erected along the verges of a graded road encircling the mountain peak, and excavations for the installation of more panels, the report said.
The north side of the perimeter joins the Natanz plant security ring, it said.
The ongoing construction at the complexes appears to underscore Tehran’s rejection of demands that any talks with the US lead to the total dismantlement of its nuclear program, saying it has the right to peaceful nuclear technology.
Israel has not ruled out a strike on Tehran’s nuclear facilities in coming months, while Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insists that any talks must lead to the complete scrapping of Iran‘s program.
Iran‘s nuclear energy chief Mohammad Eslami, referring to concerns about the vulnerability of its nuclear program, on Tuesday appeared to refer to projects such as the construction of the new security perimeter around the tunnel complexes.
“Efforts are ongoing [to] expand protective measures” at nuclear facilities, Eslami was quoted by Iranian state media as saying at an event marking the anniversary of the establishment of Iran‘s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
The post Iran Fortifying Buried Nuclear Sites as Talks With US Continue, Report Says first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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