Lament over the Second Hostage Deal (Column 688)

Thank you, Rabbi,
words of truth are evident.
Someone once said that life is a comedy to those who think and a tragedy to those who feel. Unfortunately, these days it seems that the opposite is true.
May God save us from these lunatics.

A quote from Sinwar’s 2011 speech — apparently he was better than us at chess, several moves ahead.
Interesting that nobody is talking about the feelings of the bereaved families, who will soon see their relative’s murderer celebrating his release with a big V sign, a smile on his face, and the sense the bereaved family will have that the judicial and political systems failed catastrophically.
To think that Sinwar was involved in the kidnapping of Nachshon Wachsman.

Sinwar, a senior Hamas figure released in the Shalit deal, is currently considered the link between the military wing in the Strip and the political wing, and is regarded as a very extreme figure in Hamas. Upon his release to Gaza in 2011, Sinwar said: "This is a great victory for our people and our resistance. We feel that we left our hearts behind us; we left many prisoners behind."

In his speech that day, Sinwar called on the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades to continue acting seriously in order to kidnap additional Israeli soldiers so as to free the remaining Palestinian prisoners. He added that he was fully convinced that "the release of prisoners will be possible only through kidnapping Jews and exchanging them." According to Sinwar, "the release of the prisoners is far closer than everyone imagines." He then stressed that the prisoner exchange deal was a turning point in the history of the conflict with Israel.

Sinwar was sentenced to four life terms for the murder of Palestinian collaborators and for his involvement in the kidnapping and murder of soldier Nachshon Wachsman in 1994. He was released from Israeli prison in the Shalit deal five years ago.

Words like goads.

And notice this headline (apologies for sending traffic to Ynet):
https://www.ynet.co.il/news/article/sjydis4djl

And what about the long-term effect that people who live in a country that does not abandon its own are more socially cohesive, and contribute more in the army and in general?

Words of truth.

I don’t understand what the big surprise is.
This has been the Left’s tactic for decades: to prevent any actual debate by portraying the other side as evil, delusional, and insane.
Anyone who opposed the disengagement or Oslo was portrayed as crazy and as an enemy of peace; anyone who supported the reform was portrayed as a Nazi who wants dictatorship (Dina Zilber said that even holding a discussion over whether to have reform or not is akin to discussing whether antisemitism is acceptable or not). What expresses this more than anything is a photo uploaded by two of Israel’s senior diplomatic correspondents, Yaron Avraham and Dana Weiss, hugging each other excitedly when news broke that the deal had been finalized. Fine, you hugged — but why upload it and make it public? They are emotionally involved in the matter through and through. Not for nothing did those two journalists sit night after night in the studio of the most-watched channel in Israel and accuse Smotrich and Ben-Gvir — the Nazis — of there being no deal.
I faithfully promise you that after the next massacre or kidnapping, the same movie will replay itself with chilling precision.

I really do not agree with the position here, and certainly not with how categorical it is.
But since opponents of the deal are engaging in arithmetic of the dead, as though that were the only consideration, it is worth saying a few things about that.

1. The alternative to the agreement is continuing to wallow in Gaza. Therefore I support ending the fighting and leaving Gaza even if there were no hostages. In just the last two weeks, 15 soldiers were killed in Gaza. Continuing the futile fighting in Gaza (that is, ongoing security activity) and turning our soldiers into stationary targets and ducks in a shooting gallery — will exact more deaths than renewed fighting when it comes. The "marginal value" of the war today is very low. This is a chase after guerrilla fighters.
2. Opponents of the deal say we have given motivation for more kidnappings. I strongly disagree. After the enormous prices Hamas and Gaza have paid + the total devastation, literally, the likes of which the modern world has not seen since Hiroshima, I do not see any rational actor viewing kidnappings as a worthwhile bargain.
And if you say, but Hamas are not rational, and so they will continue kidnapping — my answer is: quite so, and therefore the question of motivation is not relevant at all. They will try to kidnap whether you make a deal or not.
3. Hamas’s condition today is far worse than Hezbollah’s, both in terms of weapons and manpower. In addition, it is much harder for it to smuggle weapons than for Hezbollah. And lo and behold — over the truly disgraceful agreement that returned Hezbollah to the border, hardly anyone on the right demonstrated or shouted. But over the current agreement — there is a sense of catastrophe.
This is deranged psychosis, which I cannot understand. But apparently the reason is post-trauma. October 7 came from Gaza, not from Lebanon, and therefore the anxiety about Hamas is much greater than about Hezbollah, although it ought to be the opposite.
4. It is in our hands to defend ourselves — defending against the damage caused by Hamas is in our hands. Even when it certainly regains strength, we have learned the lesson of the containment concept; we will know better how to defend ourselves against it, and certainly not transfer money to it and ignore smuggling.
And the comparison to Hezbollah is illuminating. Hezbollah was much stronger than Hamas even before October 7, but there in the north we struck it hip and thigh, at relatively low cost. Why? Because we had prepared for this for many years and capabilities were developed, unlike the neglected Gaza front.
And that is how things should proceed from here on: renewed vigilance regarding Hamas.
5. Halakhically, morally, and practically — we do not do arithmetic of the dead when certain danger to life stands before us, while on the other side there is only doubtful danger to the lives of others (and in this case — it is still only doubtful that more will be killed because of the deal than without it).
For example, in the operation to rescue Nachshon Wachsman, an entire platoon of soldiers was endangered for the sake of one person.
According to the arithmetic approach — that is irrational.
Or for example, in defending an isolated settlement located in a dangerous place. Many soldiers and residents are endangered for the sake of an alternative that is far less dangerous.
And if we look from a bird’s-eye view, in practical terms the entire Zionist project was very dangerous and not "profitable" in terms of deaths. If we were in America, we would have spared enormous amounts of death in wars and terror attacks.
Rather, clearly, what guides reasonable people is not simple arithmetic of dangers, but also values we want to achieve. And in this case the value is saving a large number of hostages buried alive and writhing in the ground. That is a value for which one enters a situation of possible mortal danger. And there are other such values.

You did not see a single word in my remarks about arithmetic of the dead. That is not the consideration at all. I have already answered all your arguments in the past, and I see no point in getting into them again, since the column was not intended to discuss the deal and the considerations at all. The discussion is about the form of discourse surrounding it (the emotional psychosis).

I wrote that this claim should be directed at those who create that situation. The future trauma will be a result of the psychosis. Besides, there is no one here (apart from the deal’s supporters) who has "abandoned" anyone. If anything, I do not see how we will be able to live with dozens of hostages who were abandoned in this deal.

First of all, the column nicely expresses the stirrings of my own mind at this time.
But is there room for doubt that perhaps the war really will return within a short time, perhaps even at greater intensity, as people in the coalition are declaring?
Not to mention past sins, but even during the first ceasefire you thought the war would end, and you were glad to be proven wrong.

It should be noted that even if the fighting does return, the deal is bad. That is not my point.
In my opinion, even the first deal — which for some reason is now a consensus — was bad.

By the way, it seems to me that the public that contributes most in the army is the public from which the main opposition to the deal arises. So whoever raises such an argument should take a look in the mirror.

Actually, the first one was less bad in my opinion. Moreover, as far as I recall, I doubted at the time whether the fighting would return, and I wrote that even if it did, the intensity would be very different. That is exactly what happened. Since then and to this day there has not really been a war in Gaza. There have been raids of little value that failed to reach a decision.

As for your question, there is a small basis for doubt about the return of the war, but a very small one (as I wrote: only if Hamas saves us from ourselves). The agreement, as anyone who read it says, is an agreement to end the war and abandon its objectives.

Although you are careful to speak about the carnival and not about the deal itself, your words, especially at the beginning, indicate that in your view this is a tragedy for generations.
I do not understand where you get the pretension to decide so clearly on a question about which you do not have all the data.
Various reports indicate that there are significant pressures from the new American administration. Do you know what those pressures are? They could be carrots, and they could be very significant sticks (Iran, Saudi Arabia, an embargo, protection at the UN). It has been said more than once during the war that American support is a significant strategic consideration for our enemies. I do not know how one can evaluate the deal without clear knowledge of this consideration.

There is much other data that makes it hard for a layman like me and you (and probably many others who talk themselves hoarse in the media) to form an informed position. For example, being ignorant in military matters and force buildup, I have no idea what capabilities Hamas has lost — capabilities it spent years building. I also assume the deal has classified appendices or agreements signed between Israel and third parties.

In short, one must exercise judgment from the intellect, as you wrote, but one also needs to know all the data. You do not have that, yet you rush to oppose it categorically. Strange.

In situations like this, ordinary citizens simply need to rely on the decision-makers whom they appointed in democratic elections. That is what they were elected for.
The assumption in a proper state should be that the elected officials act with all the considerations you mentioned in mind and make an informed decision.
Personally, I do not trust this leadership at all. Not its head, not the finance minister who has made and is making fateful decisions on budgetary matters out of political considerations (economic considerations, unlike security ones, are not subject to censorship), and certainly not Ben-Gvir, who is the antithesis of everything you write in your article.

Therefore I oppose the deal. Because I simply do not trust the judgment exercised by these dangerous fellows.

I get the impression that you are generalizing from the emotional discourse in the media (where ratings are the metric and therefore they appeal to the masses through emotion) and projecting its considerations onto the politicians who support the deal, as though that is exactly their consideration (while refusing to attribute to its opponents in the coalition what is attributed to them in the media).

Even if the politicians are not free of taking populist considerations and the public mood into account, still — projecting that onto them as their sole consideration is exactly what you objected to when others did it to the deal’s opponents.

Personally, I get the impression that (as in your famous castor-oil plant parable) some of the deal’s supporters really are making a more strategic calculation about the long-term implications for social cohesion around an existential threat, and the unwritten contract in which the soldier (and it makes no difference whether regular-service or a civilian who is very likely a reservist) goes willingly, even eagerly, to risk his life knowing that significant efforts will be made to bring him back and that he will not be abandoned in the name of a cold tactical calculation.
Combined with the fact that the trauma is seared into consciousness for many good years ahead, too much for us to fall asleep at the wheel again as before October 7, and that the policy of restraint has already become a dirty word — this seems to me a very reasonable consideration, and I am not convinced I am not on their side.
True, Hamas brought us to our knees, but it is not certain that the price of internal disintegration — which in the long term will create life-threatening poison for the whole body — is preferable to that.

It is clear to everyone that another October 7 will not happen again in the foreseeable future from Gaza. The army, intelligence, risk management in terms of available order of battle, the degree of reliance on timely warning, and responses to violations, force buildup, and erosion of deterrence — all of these will receive fundamentally different responses in the coming years.

In that light, this sounds preferable to me to stagnation.
And if people want a permanent military presence there and prolonged lawn-mowing — then it would be proper for us to enlarge the army accordingly.

It doesn’t suit you to fall for this spin, Michi.

This isn’t a hostage deal; it’s a deal to end the war, being shoved down Israel’s throat by the U.S. It has nothing to do with Israeli support or opposition, or with the price of hostages versus other things. If Israel had refused the deal, it still would have been forced to stop the fighting — just without getting hostages in return. So at least we get some hostages along the way (and not even all of them).

The moment Netanyahu spoke about his "total victory," I said there was a much higher chance we would get a "total failure" — that is, none of the war’s objectives would be achieved — and unfortunately I was not mistaken. That’s what happens when you enter a war with non-military objectives and only a military arsenal of tools. Like entering a carpentry shop with a hoe and a tractor.

I want to argue that there is also a rational dimension to going for a deal. One of the goals of the State of Israel is to care for the security of its citizens, and it saw itself as obligated to do everything for every Israeli anywhere. You were able to know as a fact that anywhere in the world, the State of Israel would act to rescue and save you — whether in an earthquake, or if you landed at an airport in an enemy country because of a plane malfunction. After 07/10, the personal security of every Israeli citizen in the world plummeted, because the trust that every Jew has the backing of the State of Israel was shattered. The deal nevertheless proves that in the end the State of Israel is willing to take risks as a collective in order to save the individual.

I can agree or disagree with the main thrust of your remarks, but I do not understand your "proof" regarding the issue of women’s service. What is the conclusion from the fact that, God willing, the female surveillance soldiers will return before other soldiers? That their "price" is higher or lower? That women and men are different from one another is clear to everyone; the question is whether they are given equal opportunity.
Why are you even bringing proof from the agreement that has taken shape, which you yourself oppose? In the same way, I can "prove" that one should not fight Hamas, because the fact is that now, after so many of our soldiers were killed, we are giving them what they wanted from the outset!

But what’s new here?
During the judicial reform period too, there was one camp that effectively set all the rules of the game (without getting into whether the reform was good or not, and whether it was done well or not) and said: if you don’t play by my rules, we will leave the country, shut down the army / hospitals, etc. And although this is crazy, and by all the ‘pure’ standards (democracy, rule by those elected, etc.) it is not legitimate, you still have to take it into account — not only for the sake of unity but practically, because without them you have no people / army. And you yourself were first among those opposed. Here too, even though there is no minimal logic — with all the pain — in the idea that one hostage or a hundred or even a thousand could influence the fate of an entire people, policy is set by those same people, a large portion of whom have no minimal sense of responsibility. (Unlike you, I think with a heavy heart that in the current situation there is no choice but to agree to the deal, because indeed the fighting is not real and we are not prepared, for all sorts of reasons, to do to Hamas the things that would truly end the war and Hamas. But I do not understand the surprise, nor what the difference is between opposition to the reform or to anything else the right does — and sadly, the right is correct in most of what it has done for decades — and the present case.)

All well and good,
but why specifically Ben-Gvir because of his decisions in the war?
Smotrich is much more sane, and does not behave like an average high-schooler.

As usual, the words are well phrased.
In these times the curse of Scripture keeps echoing in me without pause: "The Lord shall strike you with madness and blindness and astonishment of heart."
And the great frustration — how long will it be decreed upon us that "the prudent shall keep silent in that time, for it is an evil time".

Although the Rabbi does not like transcendental interpretations, I see in all the processes happening to the state of the Jews since 1973 the finger of God — in the sense of imposing punishments in accordance with what is written in the portion of ‘When you come’ (Ki Tavo).

True, the great Israeli scientists know how to cope with drought and disease, but God is capable of befuddling the tiny minds of our generals and politicians, planting destructive pacifist feelings in them in order to turn us once again into exiles in foreign lands and into ‘a byword and a proverb’ throughout the world.

I wonder whether the State of Israel will make it to age one hundred.

Wow. The diagnosis regarding emotional morality, and in general the excess of emotion that sometimes exists in groups on the left, is so precise. A constant sentimentality that is never satisfied. Hugs, embraces, kisses, and sugary compliments over every little thing. The line between that and selfishness, indifference, revulsion, and hatred of other groups is sometimes so thin.
Even the distinction in priority between responsibility toward a person and toward an animal can sometimes become blurred under the influence of exemplary Western culture.
Central Park, New York culture.
Not everyone, of course.

Regarding emotionality, you are very mistaken. First, it is clear that the emotion here points in only one direction. The strongest emotions driving the process are the suffering of the families and of the hostages themselves. Therefore, whoever is prone to act emotionally is someone who supports the deal, not someone who opposes it. Opposition is usually perceived — and rightly so — as cold (that is usually the accusation). Obviously there can also be arguments in favor of the deal, and I wrote that too (although I do not agree with them). But the discourse and what drives it are emotion, distinctly and unequivocally. The media reflects the public discourse. That is where it takes place. So it really does not matter whether they want ratings or not. Factually, that is the nature of the discourse. Notice that for some reason, the pursuit of ratings leads in the direction of supporting the deal (as you yourself write). There you have emotionality in spades.
I already explained that with the consequences of this deal too, we will not be able to live in future generations, but for some reason that does not come up in the discourse. Only the consequences of not making a deal will lead to crisis. Again, double emotionality: both the very existence of this emotional sensitivity, and the taking of it into account as a decisive consideration — which is itself emotional. So your message not only fails to refute my remarks; it proves them.
As for the arguments, I have already addressed them, and they are not important here anyway. The purpose of the column is not to oppose the deal but to point to the emotionality and one-sidedness of the discourse.

I am not at all sure you are right (neither of us knows what is happening there), but even if you are, it does not matter very much. I am talking about the public discourse, not Netanyahu’s moves. The public discourse is emotional and supports the deal for all the wrong reasons. The discourse silences every voice that opposes it and every consideration against it. So even if Netanyahu surrendered to Trump and had no choice, that is not relevant to my discussion.

Your impression is mistaken. My problem is not with the deal but with the discourse surrounding it. I certainly do not have information, and therefore I am not speaking with absolute certainty. I am talking about what an ordinary person should think given the information available to all of us publicly (nobody has insider information). I definitely do not trust the decision-makers.

Rabbi Karo said: "Every moment one delays redeeming captives, where it is possible to act sooner, it is as though he sheds blood." Therefore the deal. Although it is a bad one, it comes 450 days late. We will keep fighting Hamas for many more years. They are now recruiting more children and teenagers than those they lost. And our fallen soldiers fell for nothing, because our prime minister does not care about the soldiers. He cares about staying in power. He could have made the same deal in May.

As far as I am concerned, this entire reality — in which such steps can be forced on Israel — leads to the conclusion that a Jewish state cannot exist. I do not belong to Neturei Karta, and this conclusion does not stem from any conception of theirs.
A reality in which a state can force us — and it forces this on us so resolutely only because we are a Jewish state and for no other reason — to supply provisions and fuel to a Nazi regime, and in certain respects it is even worse than that, while our hostages are still being held by them and we have no ability to resist — something that would never be contemplated in any other conflict — necessarily leads to this grim conclusion.

This has nothing whatsoever to do with a state’s obligation to care for the safety of its citizens! By the same logic, you could claim that a state is also obligated to care for the health of its residents, and in a situation where someone needs a liver transplant, we would take one from another citizen chosen at random.
That is exactly what happens when murderers are released and destroying Hamas is abandoned. And if you say that taking a liver from another person will certainly cause his death, which is not so here, it can be replied that here too we are dealing with a completely clear outcome. Just as it would be absurd to argue that if you give a rifle to someone so that he can fire into a crowd, there is a chance that no one will be hit.

Rabbi Yosef Karo did not run a sovereign state. There is no redeeming of captives anywhere in the Bible, but there are many cases of freeing captives through unlimited force, beginning with Lot, who was freed by Abraham our father. The "commandment" of redeeming captives suits a community in exile that is afraid of its own shadow, not a sovereign state.

Regarding "the pursuit of ratings leads in the direction of support for the deal (as you yourself write). There you have emotionality in spades" — I do not think there is any contradiction between the fact that many people’s emotions support the deal and the claim that there is a risk to social cohesion and mutual responsibility, expressed in the agreement and knowledge that the kidnapped and captive will be ransomed and rescued even at the price of future risk (in a way that certainly removes from the sphere of certainty). I think many people’s emotions express precisely a breach of that covenant (the preservation of which is strategically correct) in the name of political survival.

So it is not clear to me why that proves your claim.

As for future generations, here it depends very much on how we act (including in the continuation of the process), and not only on how many and who are released. Most people want to believe that we can do a great deal so that the outcome will not depend on the release of some Sinwar 2.0 and/or a few more old-timers who once pulled off an attack, as part of some deal.

I did not write that there is a contradiction. I wrote that the discourse is emotional. There may be an accidental match between emotions and the correct conclusion, and still it is not advisable to make decisions based on feelings.
The consideration of what obstinacy will do to cohesion is indeed a consideration, and I have already addressed it. But of course the very harm to cohesion is itself evidence of the public’s emotionality.

This is an invention of the communists. It’s called "Trotskyism." That is, turning Trotsky — who had been part of the Communist Party — into a demon and a traitor because of disagreements over pushing the spread of communism to the rest of the world. The word Trotskyist became synonymous with traitor.

I think exactly the same. There is no place for the state’s existence under these conditions.

I don’t understand why the rabbi is so worried.

I’m not the rabbi’s neighbor and I don’t know the rabbi,
but the rabbi writes that he wants to vote for Ben-Gvir.
And I have a few neighbors who also vote for Ben-Gvir.
And they are my neighbors and I know them very well.
Surely the rabbi is like them, because two Ben-Gvir voters…

These neighbors sing a lot, "It will get even better and even better," and "The eternity of Israel is not afraid of a long road."
So the rabbi should sing too: "It will get even better," and "The eternity of Israel is not afraid," and everything is fine.

There is a lawyer who explains how this psychosis came about, Ilan Zion https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VACIzh36uI there is something very clever in the head of the right that causes everyone who belongs to the right-wing camp to adopt the positions of the left, and so the left too becomes more delusional. Everyone is very clever, but subconsciously we are unable to say Benjamin Netanyahu is to blame, and therefore everyone here is twisting themselves into knots. There is probably something we don’t know, some American pressure from Trump, something we don’t know.

Thank you.

R. Yosef Karo also wrote, "Captives are not ransomed for more than their value, for the sake of repairing the world, so that enemies should not give themselves over to capture them."
Any sensible person understands that the laws of redeeming captives do not belong here. Stop shoving this in and stop confusing our minds.

You are right in every word. It is simply unbearable. And yes, it has definitely already reached certain circles in Religious Zionism as well.
If, heaven forbid, you dared to raise any argument at all against the deal, you would immediately be met with some profound remark such as, "But we simply can’t leave them there." Usually this would be accompanied by a deep sigh from the bottom of the heart.
You didn’t mention (at least not in this column; I haven’t read them all) the greatest crime of this conduct — it is the cause and the central factor behind the insane price of the deal. Hamas has ears and they know what is happening here, and when they hear people shrieking in the squares that they must be brought back at any price, that surely raises the price. This is simply recklessness and irresponsibility. And at the head of this crime stand the hostages’ families.

Yedidya Meir published a column today very similar to this post:
https://www.hidabroot.org/article/1205389
Interesting how this issue apparently stands out so strongly to religious people.

"Halakhic and Torah thinking teaches and trains us to separate the mind from the heart" — this very much reminds me of Maimonides’ words regarding learning halakha before Kabbalah (where too one can probably fall into emotion and fantasies): "And bread and meat are to know what is forbidden and permitted and the like among the other commandments. And although the Sages called these things a small matter, for the Sages said: A great matter is the Account of the Chariot, and a small matter is the discussions of Abaye and Rava — nevertheless they are fit to be given precedence, *for they settle a person’s mind first*” (Foundations of the Torah).

There is no doubt that we lost the war, and that was already clear on October 8, when we saw how and by whom it was being run.

More power to you.

I understand your rational point of view (within which there is also hidden the hope of returning to settle Gaza…)
But there is also the emotional issue,
right now you are certainly saving living Jews.
We need to get the maximum from both sides, save as many as possible, and make sure they won’t succeed in killing us later on 🤷🏻‍♂️
Not simple.

Ben-Gvir really opposed the deal. Smotrich opposed it too, but knew there would be a majority in favor and did not break the tools and resign, so his opposition is symbolic and no more.

So in your opinion, should Smotrich also have left the government because of the deal?

By the way, here is a nice response from him: https://www.inn.co.il/news/659234

The question of resignation depends on many factors. If they had asked me, I would have recommended removing him (and Ben-Gvir) from the government. With respect to the deal, I support the position of these two buffoons.

From a strategic standpoint the deal is really good for us. I’m probably an idiot, because everyone sees something I can’t manage to see. Maybe I’m just not empathetic enough.

"Those who drove the government, in absolute madness, in a symbiotic action together with Hamas, toward the current reckless deal — they too will soon be standing in the public square, once the results of this shocking deal become clear, and explaining that it was the government’s fault and that they themselves actually opposed the deal from the outset."

How right you were. Here it begins.
Only one day after the deal,
20.1.25 17:48 Moran Sharir, "Haaretz"
https://www.haaretz.co.il/digital/daily/2025-01-20/ty-article/.premium/00000194-842c-d83f-a597-bfbd20530000?utm_source=App_Share&utm_medium=iOS_Native

K. wrote me a private response:

I hope you will allow me to address you regarding your latest column on the deal. I did not agree with you, and I think not from emotional arguments but from rational and value-based arguments.
I try to form an opinion for myself, and actually unlike you I am indeed exposed a great deal to positions strongly opposing it. The reasons I will raise here are not the product of one propaganda or another but my own analysis, which is not especially complicated, and only rarely does some journalist write something that I feel really aligns with my view.
I will begin with the obvious: everyone would prefer both that Hamas be toppled and that all the hostages return. The hostages’ families too were patient at first, willing to give that possibility a chance. Only a few declared at the outset that these were contradictory goals. I will not elaborate here on what perhaps could have been done at the beginning and was not done…
The question is what to do now, when for a long time it has been clear that these are contradictory goals. What does one do in the present reality? Here the conflict enters. (It is דווקא here that opponents of the deal fall into hypocrisy, acting as if their plan of action will bring both of these goals, instead of saying honestly that it cannot.)
However, my impression is that a very great chance was given to the attempt to topple Hamas. And it must be said that the success is very low relative to the time and forces invested. I hear many voices saying that if only we stop the aid, and if only we establish settlements, Hamas will be defeated, and I think these are unfounded fantasies. The clear fact is that Hamas is very determined and nowhere near collapse. And if it collapses, it will rise again and again and again.
This may be a defeatist position that hurts national feelings (yes, yes), but in your column you asked to restrain feelings, and if we are honest, we tried and failed. At least in this way.
And here I want to discuss the hostages. And not only because I have lost hope of toppling Hamas and am trying to earn some points out of defeat (the terrible defeat, which began on 7.10 and even before), but as a value statement.
We have a prior obligation toward them. And a prior obligation is given precedence even over values and goals more exalted than it. If I have a prior obligation to my children over other people’s children, I will care for them first and more, even though others may need me more. I will not leave my work obligation in order to gladden a bride and groom just because that is a more exalted value than answering phones. These are priorities that strategically are not correct, but they are obligatory for the sake of the broader view of building a future and not acting on whims. And in the context of returning kidnapped civilians, I see here an obligation that is not only chronologically prior but prior to a basic promise given to every citizen of the state, that he will be guaranteed personal security from the enemy. And here that promise was blatantly violated, and we must repair that. For them and for all of us.
To those who claim that releasing prisoners is many times more dangerous for many other Israelis, I say:
A. Can you guarantee me that if no deal is made there will be no more hostages? Until when is that guarantee valid? Is it known that Hamas kidnaps only serially and not in parallel? Can Hamas not exist without precisely those specific thousands?
B. How can you claim that you care so much about imagined hostages who have not yet been kidnapped when you are choosing not to free actual hostages who already exist?
By the way, I too, as a supporter of the deal despite all its glaring flaws, think I have been wrongly accused of falling into sentimentality. As much as a person can testify about himself in matters of feeling, I do not see any catharsis in it at all. Unlike the previous deal, it is clear to me that those returning will be like shattered pottery. The joy at their return does not provide the expected dopamine. This period is nerve-racking, and Hamas celebrating (there are not enough curses) drives one out of one’s mind. We were defeated, that is true. First on 7.10 and then again and again since. We can afford to be just a little more defeated for the sake of our tormented brothers. In any case, we have a great deal to repair.

To sum up what I am saying, there is a real conflict here, one that until now our generation encountered at most through Bnei Akiva activities ("If there had been an air force in the Holocaust, would you have bombed Auschwitz?").
It is not right to accuse only one side of emotionality, and I do not envy the decision-makers. But in my view, in the current state of affairs, we will need the hostages at home so that we can continue to be ourselves — ethical, believing in the justice of our path, and solidaristic. And also so that we can continue fighting Hamas.

Sorry if I have wearied you and stolen your time.
But the last column caused me to rise up and defend my position.

Shabbat shalom!

Hello K. Great to hear from you. Of course you are welcome to comment on the site for the benefit of all the readers. I hope to respond in more detail later, but I will say in advance that I have no problem with other positions that support the deal on the basis of arguments. Clearly there are such arguments (even though I do not agree with them). My problem, to which the column was devoted, is with the emotional discourse surrounding the matter, and with the impossibility of raising arguments and being heard. I wrote this explicitly in my column.
That is the main point.
As said, I will try to address your actual points later.
Goodbye, and may we hear good news.

Later I wrote:

Hello K’. I have now gotten to it.

First, allow me to comment on what you wrote at the beginning, that unlike me you are exposed to opposing positions. I do not know on what basis you assumed that I am not exposed. I most certainly am.
Both sides are lying energetically, and I wrote about this in the column and in responses on the site. Opponents of the deal (mainly in the government, but also outside it) talk about achieving both goals, and that is of course a lie, and it was clear from the start that it was a lie. But supporters of the deal are telling exactly the opposite lie: that first we will make a deal and then we can always come back and destroy Hamas. No less of a lie. I object to the lies on both sides, because they are part of the same disregard for arguments and the enthronement of emotions. If feeling determines matters, nobody bothers seriously to examine the arguments.
I do not know whether Hamas can be destroyed, but I definitely oppose despairing of it a priori. By the way, at the beginning of the war I wrote that it could not be done, because it was clear to me that we were not prepared for it (and not because it is impossible). The war surprised me in that it seemed we were prepared to try, and today I am actually more optimistic. The past year and more have strengthened, in my eyes, the possibility of eliminating them.
Until now we have not achieved this because we have not seriously tried to do so. For example, if you take territory away from them (yes indeed, settling in Gaza — not for mystical or redemptive reasons but for tactical ones), that causes them to understand that they will pay a price. If we are willing to continue fighting for decades, not in raids but in a total war, just like them, and if we do not sound notes of a priori despair, that is definitely a plan I would give a chance. So the conclusions from the past year and more do not really convince me, though I agree that this is an argument and certainly worthy of consideration.
I do not evaluate positions by whether they are defeatist. The national mood interests me like last year’s snow. I deal in arguments and positions. I do not reject your words because they are defeatist but because I do not agree with the arguments.
I completely agree that the importance of a value does not necessarily determine its place on the scale. How is that connected to our issue? My claim is that the obligation to the hostages should not override our global interests. On the contrary, a position like mine insists precisely that the importance of a value does not determine that one must focus specifically on it. I am willing to give up people’s lives (the most important value) in order to secure normal life for the public as a whole. It sounds cruel, but that is how a state works and how it should work. We allow driving on roads despite the heavy price it exacts. We invest in culture and sports although there is not enough money for hospitals.
The fact that this was the state’s blunder is true. But I deny that this fact should affect the judgment of all of us. The state sinned, and therefore I need to suffer for others? Or Reuven should suffer for Shimon? Does that sound like a substantive argument to you? To me, that actually sounds like emotion (unlike other arguments in your words, which are indeed arguments).
The claim that releasing prisoners is many times more dangerous for many other Israelis is, in my view, not an argument. I have written about this at length, so I will not defend it here.
In closing, I will repeat that you were not accused of sentimentality. What was accused was our general public discourse. I wrote to you that I have no principled problem with arguments supporting a position different from mine. On the contrary, it is very important to voice and weigh them. My problem is with the ignoring of arguments and the hysterical, psychotic appeal to emotion in the media and in our discourse generally. So do not take it personally, because it was not personal. It is true, however, that usually (not always, of course) positions that tend toward the left and toward secularity suffer from excess emotionalism, contrary to the common image that it is precisely religious and right-wing people who are awash in emotion. There are countless examples that show this, and many of them appear on my site.
There is indeed a conflict here, and I am the last to deny it. But as with any conflict, it must be handled through discussion and weighing of arguments — not through shallow emotional discourse and presenting people with other positions as monsters.
Goodbye, Michi

Again, K’,

First, an apology. I reread what I wrote afterward and realized that I phrased it badly. At the beginning of the column you wrote that the voices of those opposing the deal are not heard enough because of the loudness of its supporters. I only wanted to note that in my own environment (WhatsApp, Facebook, etc.) I actually am exposed to the positions and arguments of those who oppose the deal. I understand that this did not come out well in the wording. (But it was not anything fundamental to the discussion either.)
And regarding the end of your remarks, I certainly did not take it personally! And I am very glad for the unapologetic, non-ingratiating discourse of your writing in all the columns! It is impossible to conduct a substantive discussion among people whom one must be careful not to offend — and on that too we agree.
I agree with most of your response. You understood my claims well, and also the point of dispute between us regarding the ability to topple Hamas (and I will leave that aside; that is another discussion).
And I am trying to think what I would think about the deal if I thought, as you do, that Hamas can be defeated — for example by settlement, which would without a doubt also exact a price in human lives.
That sharpens the dilemma, especially because one must analyze how and at what price this would be sustained, and what the reality is without Hamas. The PA? The IDF? And when?
But without going into the thick of the beam, it seems to me that even then, when our security would be greater, these would still not be more normal lives: in the knowledge that we consciously chose to forgo them.
To me, that is a jarring reality.

I wrote that I am not talking about ideological settlement but about exacting a painful price. Human lives and destruction of houses probably do not really trouble them. Loss of a kilometer of territory for every action they take would hurt them more. Simply move the fence and the perimeter one kilometer inward. There is no security problem in that which does not already exist at the fence’s current location. We need to defend our border aggressively. Loss of territory is the thing that hurts them most, and they know that will not happen. So there is no lever of pressure that can bend them. Very simple. Just a little determination, and that’s it.

A response from Rabbi Ido Pachter’s Facebook page:
The supporters of the deal are being accused of acting from emotional rather than rational motives (Rabbi Michi now, following Rabbi Lundin and Yedidya Meir and others). The opponents, according to this view, are those acting from value-based motives — that is, from clear-headed thinking about the future and the common good.
I have much to say about the way we are activated, whether emotions really are not motives for action, but I will leave that aside for now and return to the central argument that led me to support the deal:
From all the rational opponents, I have still not seen any rational plan (and no, slogans about conquering the Strip without saying how we would govern another two million people are not a plan) that shows us the path to solving the problem of the Gazan quagmire. They talk about the soldiers who will fall there in the future, and ignore the fact that soldiers kept falling there every day.
So what here, and who here, is rational?

There is one aspect here that can be argued over, but on second thought it is empty of content (there is no claim here). And there is one aspect that is either a logical error or a failure of reading comprehension. I will start with the latter.

When I say that people are conducting emotional discourse, that does not necessarily mean that their conclusion is wrong. It may be true (by chance). It certainly does not mean that everyone there, every last one, is emotional (I am characterizing a general discourse and not making a claim about every individual who holds some position), and it certainly does not mean there are no arguments in favor of the deal (I wrote explicitly that there are). Hence, raising arguments in favor of the deal says nothing whatsoever about the character of the discourse and is therefore irrelevant to the discussion. Claims that show I am wrong or that the others are right, even if they were correct (and in my opinion they are not — see below), do not touch the matter. That covers the mistaken aspect.

As for the claim itself, ostensibly one can argue about it, and therefore ostensibly it is not a simple mistake. But on second thought I cannot understand it even before agreeing or disagreeing with it. What exactly is Rabbi Pachter proposing? Does he have someone to run Gaza? If so, who said I would not agree with his solution? Did I write anything about that? Perhaps he is proposing that Hamas remain there? Fine — if that is the alternative he is presenting, then my situation is actually quite good.
And if we assume that there really is no solution, neither for me nor for him, then what does this argument say? That I am emotional and he is rational? Why? When there is no solution, accusing someone of lacking a solution is no accusation. That is the situation, and now one must think how to conduct oneself within it. It reminds me of what Shimon Peres used to say: What is their alternative? (meaning the right wing that opposes compromise.) He assumes that if I have no alternative, then his must be accepted. But of course there is also the possibility that there is no alternative at all, for anyone.

The conclusion is that Rabbi Pachter’s claim (which ostensibly expresses that he has a logical reason for the policy he recommends) suffers from two defects: A. It is irrelevant to the discussion (about the emotionality of the discourse), even if it were correct. B. It is not really a claim at all. In light of this, I ask myself whether in such an argument one can see rational reasoning. I very much doubt it. It is self-contradictory.

By the way, if we are already talking about policy in this complicated situation, I did have a proposal that in my opinion is at least worth considering: continue fighting and killing and destroying them for decades without breaking, despite the prices. Let them think about what the solution is, and let them ask whether they have an alternative, and whether they can defeat us by force. Why must we always pull their chestnuts out of the fire and assume that there is no forceful solution and that they will not break? One can of course argue about that, but at least it is an argument and not just an emotional outburst.

https://www.facebook.com/share/r/18Txw5rJTy/
An interesting video I came across on the subject.

Exactly.

I think this is the most outrageous column you have written.
The main claims in your column are:
1. The media ‘carnival’ in favor of the deal.
2. Silencing the voices of the opponents.
3. The surrender of reason to emotion.

I assume you do not watch the news panels (except perhaps for cherry-picking clips people send on WhatsApp…) because if you did watch, you would discover (to your surprise?) that there are discussions and that arguments are raised for and against the deal, and that the ‘carnival’ is far less significant than you imagine.
2. This is really nonsense. Voices are not being silenced. Personally I am already tired of all the eternal victimhood of ‘they ate my lunch, they drank my drink, no one listens to me’…https://m.youtube.com/watch ?v=dy4i1oXaslw starting from minute 7:20
3. I will explain later why, in my opinion, opposing the deal is the less rational thing and making a deal is much more logical. But as for the point itself — I do not understand what exactly you expect the demonstrators in favor of the deal to do. Hold a debate or a course in logic? A demonstration, by its very nature, is a much more emotional event than an intellectual one — so there is no point coming to demonstrations with such complaints. As for the media channels, as I noted in section 1, there are indeed panel discussions, and even if there are also reports or interviewees who speak more to emotion, that should not overshadow the fact that there are discussions at a reasonable level (to the extent that the level of a studio panel is reasonable…). And in my view it is precisely the opponents of the deal who appeal mainly to emotion and bring almost no logical arguments. The opponents mainly bring the emotion of fear (to no small extent lacking logic) from the ‘restoration of Hamas’s power,’ or the emotion of national honor that Hamas is subduing Israel, or the emotion of revenge — Hamas has not paid the price.

As you yourself said at the beginning of the war, the two war aims contradict one another and form a zero-sum game. That is, anyone who understands this and still opposes a hostage deal is in effect supporting their deaths. However you turn it around, that is exactly what opposition to the deal means. And in a perfectly symmetrical way — anyone who supports the deal and understands the zero-sum game is in effect supporting the continued rule of Hamas in the Strip. And yes, I admit openly that in my view bringing back the hostages is far, far more important than toppling Hamas.

I know this is not the purpose of the post, but I have trouble understanding the rationale of those who oppose the deal — and for some reason it seems self-evident to you — so I will detail all the arguments in favor of it.
As I see it, opposition to the deal is built on two foundations.
1. Unwillingness to release terrorists / prisoners.
2. The desire to topple Hamas (which, as stated, contradicts returning the hostages).

1. The claim that releasing prisoners will build the next leadership does not really stand the test of reality…
A. Sinwar himself was in prison for murdering Palestinians — that is, the leadership was quite random, and in the Shalit deal he was not even a bargaining point…
B. Most of the terrorists will not be released to Gaza.
C. There are 2 million people in Gaza; they do not really need those hundreds / thousands (however many there will be) of prisoners.
2. The claim of losing deterrence — we already lost deterrence on 7.10, and in any case if there is one thing we are supposed to learn from the massacre, it is that one must not rely on deterrence… In addition, on the other fronts deterrence more or less exists, so maybe that offsets it? In any case, in my view this is not a good enough argument for abandoning the hostages to their deaths.
3. There will be terror attacks in the future — this is the best argument there is for opposing the deal. But: A. There are attacks even without releasing prisoners. B. It may be that the security forces will know how to deal with the terrorists who were released (it may also be that they will not), but the lives of the hostages are certain.

As for the second claim, toppling Hamas’s rule:
1. Hamas at the height of its power, at a timing that surprised all the security systems (IDF, intelligence, Shin Bet, government), succeeded in causing a death toll that is not even close to the deaths from COVID or from four years of road accidents. A state has to manage risks and not panic because of ‘a gang armed with RPGs and rifles.’ Hezbollah, by comparison, was and remains a much more significant threat than Hamas (militarily — in terms of determination, apparently less so).
2. The war exacts prices — and the marginal benefit of the war is declining. One has to know when to stop.
3. I have not even mentioned the consideration that we do not live in a vacuum and there is a world around us that may force us to end the war (if it has not already), the other threats that are much more significant right now — Judea and Samaria, Hezbollah, Syria (perhaps even Egypt and Turkey), and the social-moral consideration of mutual responsibility and not abandoning ‘wounded men’ in the field. Nor even the consideration that hostages themselves prevent the IDF from operating and defeating effectively in certain places — meaning that ironically, releasing hostages might actually help topple Hamas’s rule…

There are of course more considerations this way and that, but these are the main ones (unless I missed something). So in my opinion the mistake in the post is double, and the post falls precisely where it intends to criticize.

I am sorry that you were upset, but in my opinion not at all justifiably.
The three claims you listed are indeed my claims. But you did not list — and rightly so — the claim that there are no arguments in favor of the deal. Rightly so, because I wrote explicitly in the column that there are such arguments, and that I have no complaint at all against those who raise them. My claim was against the media discourse in general, and certainly not only at demonstrations, but in almost all the news journals and programs (except those hosted by right-wing people like Libskind or Akiva Novick or Amit Segal). No host asks deal supporters hard questions. They immediately melt emotionally there over the need to bring them back, sometimes accompanied by pseudo-arguments that do not hold water, and there is no other side. Obviously, if there is a panel devoted to the matter, you will hear not only wailing but also arguments (usually pseudo-arguments, but that is of course just my opinion). But the general atmosphere is exactly like in the Gilad Shalit case, and this time on steroids. As I wrote, afterward all those people will appear who always opposed the deal, just as happened with Shalit (some perhaps really did oppose it and were not given airtime because of the silencing; others did not really oppose it and only now understand that they were wrong).
It is strange to me that you accuse me of cherry-picking and point me to arguments in favor of the deal, although that of course proves nothing. Obviously one can find people raising arguments, and obviously there are such arguments (in my view unconvincing ones). The question I dealt with was how the discourse in general is conducted. What is even stranger is that you accuse me of cherry-picking when in fact I did no such thing — you did. Notice that I did not bring concrete examples precisely because of the concern over cherry-picking. I am talking about a general impression from the media and public discourse, and this is a clear impression. Anyone who does not see it is simply blind.

As for your arguments about the deal itself, that is not my topic in the column and not our topic here either (and indeed you noted that yourself). Therefore I will respond briefly.
2. Here is your most blatant cherry-picking.
3. I was not talking only about demonstrations. I know how demonstrations are conducted (unfortunately).

I have written more than once (including in responses to this very column. Too bad you did not read them) that releasing terrorists is not, in my view, the problem. I support a deal of releasing all the terrorists in exchange for all the hostages (which cannot happen, because Hamas will not agree. To such a deal an overwhelming majority of the public and politicians would agree). Indeed, the focus is the achievements vis-à-vis Hamas. The claim is that if we do not topple Hamas, we have achieved nothing. In a few years we will be in exactly the same situation again, and all we will have done is yet another pointless operation, one among many, that merely cost us casualties and achieved nothing. Now the question is what can and cannot be achieved. In my estimation this can be achieved, but even if in your opinion it cannot — then from the outset the whole move was pointless, and we should have focused on a deal for the hostages and nothing else. Once those goals were set, and especially since we have already achieved not a little of them, it is wrong to give everything up in return for the goal of releasing the hostages. A state is not supposed to relinquish territory and its security because a few dozen residents are being held hostage, cruel as that sounds. That is exactly intellect versus emotion.
You speak in terms of diminishing marginal utility, and here lies your main error. You see the utility in the number of people killed. That is nonsense. The number of deaths is not interesting at all. They will always have others. You need to reach a state in which the organization, as an organization, ceases to exist. There is a good chance of that, and unfortunately it has greatly diminished because of the deal (it may still happen. The government claims so. Time will tell).
We do not live in a vacuum, and still in my opinion we could have continued a determined war for years and years, as long as we had hostages and as long as there was a terror organization that had not disarmed. If we had shown such determination, the chance of achieving the goal would have risen enormously. The despair of people like you feeds itself.

In sum, the post does not fail in anything it seeks to criticize. And you certainly have not shown that it does.

I would just add one point that Michi did not address in his reply:
The way you measured the threat from Hamas by the death toll is a fatal mistake. By that metric, Iran is not a threat.
As Michi noted, a functioning Hamas will cause us to give up inherited land, security and tranquility, security and political resources, and yes… human lives as well. COVID was actually a good example in my opinion; road accidents somewhat less so.
I do not know anyone who wants to live in a country that tolerates the negligible loss of 1,200 people every few years from a terrorist raid. Mathematics does not help here.

Your three claims are connected to one another.
If one assumes / reaches the conclusion that there is a media carnival and that opponents’ voices are being silenced, then the obvious conclusion is that support for the deal stems from emotion taking over reason.
I dispute each of the claims.
Apparently I am simply blind, as you say, because the "general impression of the public discourse" seems to me to be much more tilted in favor of the deal’s opponents (relative to their share in the public). If there are enough blind people like me, that probably means your own media consumption is relatively biased.
This also touches on the alleged silencing of voices. The whiny, victimized claim of silencing voices is so ridiculous and absurd in an age of free media — where every third person has a podcast about nothing in particular, and where one can easily open a digital newspaper or a Telegram page.
When you say that the public discourse is a carnival for the hostages except for "journals and programs hosted by right-wing people," and I will add — except for Channel 14, and except for right-wing podcasts, and except for i24, and except for popular Telegram channels, and except for, and except for… Do you now understand why I think the claim of silencing voices is self-pitying?
And as you noted, you are not even talking about demonstrations — only about the media discourse (whatever that means… mainstream channels except 14? podcasts? YouTube channels? Telegram? Twitter? I truly do not know what you include as media discourse and what not…). Let us assume for the sake of argument that we are talking only about Channels 12-13. Even on those channels my claim was that the ‘carnival’ is much less than you describe. The cherry-picking is only a refutation of the claim of silencing voices, because for that it is enough to bring one counterexample…
And I truly do not understand how one can claim silencing of voices when Amit Segal literally has a show (with Ben Caspit) and appears on basically every news panel.
Now, obviously I am not claiming that the discourse is a purely philosophical discussion — it cannot be. And it is also clear to me that the use of emotion (including on Channels 12-13) happens — I am not denying that. I am simply arguing that the opponents of the deal also use emotional arguments no less (and in my view even more) than the supporters of the deal do (for some reason you completely ignored that…).
In any case, once one understands that the ‘carnival’ is not as dramatic as all that, and that silencing voices does not exist and is probably even impossible, one can assume that supporters of the deal are not supporting it out of emotion — there is a great deal of logic in supporting the deal (and in my opinion, even a lack of logic in not supporting it).
In my view, as I noted earlier, the best argument against the deal lies on the plane of opposition to releasing prisoners. According to you, that is not the central consideration, so I will ignore it for now.
From the beginning of the war it was clear that the war would have three stages: 1. Destruction of Hamas’s military capabilities as a military organization.
2. Destruction of pockets of resistance.
3. Finding an alternative to Hamas rule in the Strip.
According to the Pareto rule and the last-mile principle, one can estimate that 80% of Hamas’s capabilities (people and weapons) were destroyed in the first 20% of the months of fighting. Already from around March-April it was fairly clear that the IDF had moved in most places to the second stage (except for the central camps and Khan Yunis, where it apparently has not yet moved to the second stage to this day).
Therefore, the claim that if we did not destroy Hamas completely then we did nothing is simply ridiculous and absurd. Do you really think that if the IDF withdrew from Gaza today, the threat from Hamas would remain what it was on 6.10? We truly achieved nothing?
If you want a relatively reliable and neutral information source, I recommend the channel Le’umanut (on YouTube; from the name alone you can understand it is not some dove). It covered the war from day one until the (second) hostage deal, and you can see quite clearly the declining marginal benefit of each additional day of fighting — with a relatively stable number of soldiers killed — my conclusion is that the IDF exhausted the fighting, and eliminating pockets of resistance is a stage too expensive relative to its benefit.
I have no idea why not to see the war against Hamas in terms of marginal cost — it is only natural and logical, because every additional effort to eliminate Hamas has a cost — "and if Hamas strengthens, we will strengthen more than it does" (Bibi, State Control Committee after Protective Edge).
And as I already said, the aspiration to eliminate Hamas at any cost is an irrational aspiration. Hamas was and remains (certainly after the battering by the IDF) a gang armed with RPGs and rifles, a negligible threat to Israel’s security. There is no logic in investing all national resources in a secondary, nearly risk-free arena, certainly not for a state with much more serious threats from almost every possible direction. If we invested the resources required for the total elimination of Hamas in improving road infrastructure, the expected utility would be far higher… But when fear takes over people, they become irrational. (Is it now clearer where the post falls exactly into what it seeks to criticize?)
And finally, as an aside, personally until April-May I thought Hamas posed a threat to Israel and that if destroying it required the hostages to die, then we had little choice — we could not allow another attack like 7.10. But since April-May I have understood that most of Hamas’s capabilities (according to Pareto) were destroyed, that Hamas no longer poses a threat to Israel, and that it is time to realize the war’s second objective.
Unlike you, who are willing to admit that you think Hamas should be destroyed even at the price of the hostages’ deaths, everyone who advocates destroying Hamas is unwilling to admit it. And when one tells the truth, they begin whining and saying, "Why are you saying we don’t care about the hostages?" In my view this is hypocrisy of the highest order (Smotrich, for example, who is aware that the goals contradict each other), or at the very least stupidity and an inability to understand that the goals contradict each other.

The "hypocrisy" you see in those who say, "Why are you saying we don’t care about the hostages," is your inability to understand the necessary ambivalence. Someone who thinks he needs to amputate his own hand because of illness — does he not care about the hand?

I understand the "ambivalence" very well, but in the end anyone who decides that the lives of the hostages are less important than toppling Hamas has decided that the lives of the hostages are less important than toppling Hamas…
And in a perfectly symmetrical way, the opposite side as well — except that there are people willing to say that toppling Hamas is less important, whereas there are no people willing to say explicitly that the lives of the hostages are less important…
Regarding human life, it is exactly the opposite (!) of what I said… Risk is not measured by the number of people killed in the past but by the potential for damage. Hamas, as we saw, at the height of its power and with a colossal failure of the security system succeeded in causing the deaths of 1,200 people — in other words, that is Hamas’s upper bound.
Iran, on the other hand, could without blinking reach much greater damage — it is chilling just to think what would have happened if all the missiles they sent in the last attack had landed in a civilian area. By comparison, a single Houthi missile caused more than 50 injuries in a civilian area.
Hamas today cannot carry out a major attack like it did on 7.10, and it is doubtful whether it will ever rebuild its power to what it was on the eve of 7.10. Therefore, in my opinion, it is worth leaving Hamas to itself and releasing the hostages.

And by the way, welcome to Israel… the place where there is no year without a terror attack and almost no month without attempted attacks / foiled attacks since 1920… (and that is without counting all the wars since 1948…).
I do not think there is anyone who opposes releasing hostages and thinks we will not live by our sword…

Smotrich and the other "hypocrites" explicitly say that toppling Hamas is more important than bringing back the hostages. You simply are not really listening to them.

Whether opposite or not, you are again measuring risk by the number of deaths (admittedly you upgraded it to potential deaths). Read again what I wrote about a functioning Hamas. And read an English-English dictionary entry for "terror."

And finally, I will repeat: pay attention to what people are actually saying, not to what is convenient for you that they say:
There is a difference between terror attacks (which, by the way, are not really tolerated) and massive terrorist raids. Indeed, the State of Israel is already difficult for many people to live in, but terrorist raids on entire communities are a different story.

I did not understand the last sentence. Indeed, there does not seem to be anyone who opposes releasing hostages. Indeed, those of us who are sane understand that we will live by our sword. What does the sabbatical year have to do with Mount Sinai? (Perhaps again you used insensitivity to scale and replied to my point about the resources Hamas will require by noting that in any case resources are spent on terror? After all, we all buy a Rolex because in any case one needs to know the time.)

Forgive me…
The equation of a terror attack with a road accident because of the number of dead sounds like the sort of mistake GPT would make.
Or like someone trying to rationalize a position he has imposed on himself.

If I return for a moment to the topic of the post, my claims were:
1. That there is no silencing of opinions opposing the hostage agreement.
2. And that there is no carnival around the deal.
Therefore, it is mistaken to say that the discourse is based mainly on emotion rather than reason. (Of course emotion has quite a bit of influence — but emotion influences opponents of the deal no less, and in my opinion even more, than those who support it.)
When I brought examples showing that the views of Smotrich and Segal are heard even on the commercial channels, that is cherry-picking (all I came to do was refute the claim that voices are being silenced — so what exactly is wrong with that cherry-picking?)
And when I argued that it is impossible to silence voices and that, in my assessment, the voices of opponents of the deal are actually more common (relative to the number of people who oppose the deal), the rabbi said I am blind…
The whole point of the post was to oppose the media ‘carnival,’ but when someone dares to argue that there is no carnival, then he is simply blind…🤷

Notice that I wrote, "there are no people willing to say explicitly that the **lives** of the hostages are less important," and you wrote, "that toppling Hamas is more important than **bringing back** the hostages." Even you are not willing to admit that if the hostages are not brought back, one is in practice sentencing them to death. That is an interesting and important distinction, because that is exactly my point: opponents of the deal say they are in favor of bringing back the hostages, but "not at any price," "not if Hamas remains in power," "humanitarian for humanitarian," and all sorts of other excuses (in my view), because they simply cannot cope with the implications of their choice. But nobody is willing to say (which is of course also politically inconvenient…) that he is willing for the hostages to die together with Hamas. (The premise of this post is that the two war objectives stand in contradiction — I agree with that premise; I do not know whether you do…)

Let us see what we can agree on…
1. All the stars aligned for Hamas on 7.10 and that led to the massacre.
2. Hamas is among the smaller threats to the State of Israel — both in terms of damage potential (deaths from terrorist raids), and even the damage from its missiles is rather minor. In my opinion this was true even before 7.10, but at least today we can agree on it (after most of its capabilities were destroyed).

If one agrees to these two premises, the obvious conclusion is that the State of Israel’s risk management should focus on the bigger problems (Hezbollah, Iran, and in my opinion even Judea and Samaria) and not invest all its resources in trying to eliminate Hamas (note that this is true even if you leave the hostages out of it).
Even if Israel ends the war and "surrenders" to Hamas, that does not mean relinquishing stretches of land. The measure, in my view, is whether people are willing to live in the Gaza-envelope communities — I personally am willing to live there today (which was not true a year and a half ago). People who are not willing to live there are like people who are afraid to fly in a plane but have no problem driving a car — that is, they are afraid irrationally.
By the way, what is the big difference between terror attacks and "massive terrorist raids"? In my view it is only a quantitative difference. Nobody cares whether he dies in a terror attack, a massive terrorist raid, or a road accident. The only difference that might matter is in the State of Israel’s risk management. If Hamas can carry out a massive terrorist raid, that means it has reached semi-military capabilities, and that is something the State of Israel absolutely cannot accept. Today Hamas has lost that ability and returned to its original size of "a gang armed with RPGs and rifles" (which was not true a year ago).
I see that for some reason you got stuck on the example of road accidents. If by some miracle I gave you the choice to completely eliminate either a massive raid by a terror organization that would cost the lives of 1,200 Israelis once every 20 years, or all road accidents that kill an average of 350 people per year — it is legitimate to choose the first option, but it is not rational…
Now, that is not at all my claim that life is binary. On the contrary, I am constantly trying to argue that one must look at achievements — in the war against Hamas and in reducing road accidents — as cumulative achievements against marginal cost. And precisely for that reason I think supporting a hostage deal is the rational thing — because the marginal benefit, in my view, is too low relative to the cost (soldiers and hostages).

You keep thinking that people are saying what is convenient for you that they say.
I see no need to be blunt on such a painful subject, but you are playing semantics with me so I am forced to: "The lives of the hostages are less important to me than toppling Hamas." Is that clear enough this time?

You did not check the dictionary for "terror." The literal meaning is "fear," and it is precisely you, who is dazzled by the lives of a tiny number of people (the hostages), who should not have been taken captive by mathematics and started talking about death tolls from choking on grape pits compared to those murdered in terror…
You can say until tomorrow that it is not rational to fear terror. I am not a psychologist and do not specialize in sociology, but terror is meant to instill fear, and it indeed succeeds. More than once a single serial killer who murdered a tiny handful of people shut entire cities indoors in the U.S. and Russia. That is why I compared you to GPT. It seems a bit detached from basic acquaintance with human beings.
By the way, you cannot at times refer to quantity as an argument and at times dismiss it, depending on what suits you. I feel you are working overtime at rationalization, and no one can blame you — all our hearts go out to the hostages. ("I don’t understand why they say we don’t care about them.")

I expect you to say honestly, as you explain elsewhere, that sixty living captives is a lower number than those who die every year from heat stroke, and therefore we should ignore them entirely and conduct the war on other planes.

I will answer only your rhetorical question: if I were miraculously given the option to eradicate either 350 deaths from road accidents each year or 1,200 murdered in a terrorist raid on a region of the country once every 20 years,
then in a thoroughly "irrational" way I would definitely choose eradicating the terror.

And between our universe and a universe in which I chose to eradicate deaths in accidents, I think you would choose to live in the Israel of our universe.

A reminder: the word "terror" does not mean "death." And human beings are not rational — no matter how irrational it is to be irrational.

It is really amazing that you are actually proving what I am saying… I will explain. This entire post that we are commenting on laments the fact that public discourse is being conducted according to emotion, and that this emotion is biased toward releasing the hostages. I argued that this is not true, that support for the deal is rational, whereas opposition to the deal is far less rational and more emotional. And now, after several comments, you have said quite explicitly that fear of attacks (terror = fear) causes people to make irrational decisions to the point of giving up the lives of the hostages.

Now, you are the second-and-a-half person to admit openly that the lives of the hostages are less important than toppling Hamas. Most opponents of the deal are not willing to admit this, so this is not just a semantic issue; it is substantive.

I am not "dazzled" by the lives of a tiny number of people. I think human life matters, whether people are killed as hostages, in road accidents, in war, or by choking on pits. If I thought saving the hostages would mean that certainly (or almost certainly) many more people would die in the future, I would strongly oppose the deal, and that is indeed why at the beginning of the war I did not support ending the war, even if that meant hostages would die.

By the way, there is a not-insignificant chance that even if there were no hostages, I would support ending the war — because the question is whether one or two dead soldiers a day (on average) are worth continuing the fighting.
In summary, I am aware of the meaning of the word terror, and as you more or less admitted yourself, irrational fear of Hamas causes people to oppose the deal, even though it is probably the rational thing to do — meaning that you are actually rather refuting the post (anecdotally, of course) and proving my point…

https://x.com/avishaigrinzaig/status/1883300168206110788

Well said, Rabbi Michael, for the correct, upright, clear, and lucid things you wrote.
And so as not to end only with pain over the situation, this is an opportunity to remind anyone who forgot — if emotional psychoses are indeed the domain of secular rather than religious thinking, then the only way to prevent them from continuing to embitter our lives and destroy our state is through as many people as possible returning to religion, so that they may finally acquire sense and begin to act from the brain and not from the heart, as our holy Torah teaches us. Without such a process, whether fast or slow, sadly we are doomed to destruction.

Could you address here in the comments or in a future article the question: does this surrender agreement mean that the sacrifice of the fallen was, God forbid, in vain?

In addition, could you please address whether it is worthwhile to enlist in the IDF when you know they will risk your life in order to protect the lives of enemy civilians and your sacrifice may (probably) go down the drain?

Thank you,

It is evident that you are speaking from the gut. The emotions are speaking, not the logic. If you want to discuss something, try to operate and think from your head and not from your gut.

This is not a surrender agreement, but it is quite a bad agreement in my estimation. Of course I do not have complete information, so it is hard to say anything clear.
The question whether the sacrifice was in vain is not well-defined. It achieved a fine result, but not a complete one. Almost no military action achieves a full and absolute result. So there is no such thing as "in vain." That is just an emotional and ill-defined statement. Were the fallen in all wars in vain because we still have enemies? What kind of ridiculous statement is that?!

There is no question here of whether it is worthwhile or not. There is an obligation to enlist in order to defend the state, and we have no other way to defend it. Neither you nor I determine what is worthwhile and what is not, nor the obligation. Armchair experts like all of us, who determine which military action is necessary and which is not, cannot determine anything. There is an obligation to enlist and to try to do the best possible. The fact that the result is not achieved in full does not mean that enlistment is unnecessary or in vain. If everyone does not enlist, we will all be in the sea. Is that a better result? What kind of warped thinking is this?!

Thank you for the response,
It may be that I am indeed speaking from a position, since I enlisted in a non-combat role and my heart smites me when I see the sacrifice of the combat soldiers.

To the point:
Of course the state needs to recruit soldiers, and if there is no army then "we will all be in the sea."
My question referred to the individual: if the central achievement of the war is the release of the hostages, then in simple arithmetic it comes out that the state "sacrificed" about 500 soldiers for the release of about 130, and why do you assume your fellow’s blood is redder? Then I have a value-based reason not to enlist in a combat role — in addition to the fact that, in my estimation (and according to Torah authorities as far as I have checked), the IDF’s combat doctrine is extremely biased toward protecting the lives of enemy civilians over the lives of IDF soldiers. Or maybe I am simply selfish.

You are not only selfish, you are also talking nonsense.
The main achievement is not the release of the hostages. Nor is the state sacrificing soldiers only for the release of the hostages. As stated, there are many other achievements. And there is also deterrence against future kidnappings.
And if no one enlists in combat, that is like no one enlisting at all.
And I have not yet even touched your absurd declaration about protecting enemy civilians.
This discussion is an insult to intelligence, so I will end here.

With all your knowledge, and your religious powers of understanding, you still haven’t managed to understand that what interests the Gazans is religion, God, and commandments?
You claim that continuing to fight is a solution? It is a solution, but the solution of a child: in the name of the Holocaust, let young people be conscripted by force into the army and die… more and more and more. Such idiocy as is reserved only for… I’ll keep that to myself.

The only way is to take land from them. Take land from them and they will have to return the hostages according to their religion, without any release of terrorists. Thank them for losing, act responsibly, understand the other side without being condescending. After they return, decide whether you feel like fighting, flattening the Strip, and taking territory again — which is what I would do. Learn them (Islam) and their pressure points before you talk about solutions. I can’t believe this is what I read from you.