Q&A: Ending the war in exchange for the return of the hostages
Ending the war in exchange for the return of the hostages
Question
Is the Rabbi in favor of this deal? It feels like if we keep fighting, in the end the war won't achieve any of its goals, so maybe it's better to end it and get all the captives back?
Answer
The question isn't well-defined. The question is: which deal? I doubt whether any deal is possible at all, unless Hamas is promised a complete and permanent end to the fighting, and that can't be guaranteed. Maybe some kind of deal can be made for some of the hostages, but certainly not for all of them. Hamas has intelligent leadership, unlike ours.
Discussion on Answer
First of all, because you can see that these are not intelligent people. Second, because the way this is being handled is not intelligent, for the reasons you mentioned. Though here it's possible that they're consciously lying in order to achieve objectives. Say, they claim they'll destroy Hamas without actually intending to do so, just in order to create pressure to get the captives out of them. But it doesn't look that way, and I also don't think they'll succeed.
The military conduct as well is not being carried out in a way that advances us toward the goals that were defined. Right now they've abandoned the northern Gaza Strip, and Hamas and the residents are returning there. It doesn't seem like they have an orderly policy about what they want to achieve and an orderly tactic for how to achieve it.
Why is our leadership not intelligent? Because it didn't define realistic goals, and in fact defined goals that contradict each other? Or because it had opportunities to sign a hostage-release agreement and missed them? How would it have been better to act differently?