Not Doing It

We’re told in an article from The Times Of Israel that Prime Minister Netanyahu isn’t bending just to get a hostage deal:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says Hamas rejected over the weekend a proposal for the return of half of the remaining living hostages and many of the slain hostages it is holding in Gaza, because it is demanding the end of the war and an Israeli military retreat from Gaza.

He explained why he won’t move to get Hamas to agree to a deal:

“If we capitulate to the dictates of Hamas now, all the great achievements of the war, which we achieved with the merit of our soldiers and our fallen and our heroic injured, all these achievements will disappear,” says Netanyahu in a recorded message.

“As your prime minister, I will not capitulate to the murderers who committed the worst massacre against the Jewish people since the Holocaust. Capitulation like this will endanger the country and endanger you,” he adds.

Netanyahu went on to state that what Hamas wants and why he will never agree to allow it:

“Hamas demands an end to the war and that it stays in power,” he says. “It also demands a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza and the rehabilitation of Gaza, with an influx of vast sums of money that would enable it to rearm and again prepare attacks on us.

“Ending the war on those terms would send the message to all of Israel’s enemies that by kidnapping Israelis, the State of Israel can be brought to its knees, that it can be defeated,” he says. “It is also a devastating message that terrorism pays, something that would harm the security of the entire free world.

The PM also brought up US President Trump and his Gaza plan in this context:

“Obviously, with those conditions, President Trump’s important vision could not be realized — the vision that would change the face of Gaza once and for all, and enable our state to live in security.”

He then doubles down on only ending the war with Hamas not in power or physically in Gaza:

“Therefore,” says Netanyahu, “I clarify: We will not end the ‘war of rebirth’ until we destroy Hamas in Gaza, until we return all of our hostages, and until we ensure that the Gaza Strip will not again constitute a threat to Israel.”

Being Irresponsible

Netanyahu then turned to his own citizens and added this strong statement:

“Those in Israel who so irresponsibly call for an end to the war with a surrender to Hamas’s demands,” he charges,” are echoing Hamas propaganda… and fueling the cruel psychological war” that Hamas is fighting. “And they are putting off — not advancing — the release of the hostages.”

This would seem to be aimed at those who want the hostages back regardless of the cost. He then says almost defiantly that no Israel leader would surrender under Hamas’ conditions:

Hamas’s “surrender terms” are not new, he says. “But what Israeli leader could accept them after October 7? I certainly won’t. And I’m sure you wouldn’t either.”

Netanyahu details that ending the war to get the hostages back isn’t in the cards:

He denounces what he terms calls to “surrender” to Hamas’s terms, which he says have grown of late — an apparent reference to a stream of letters urging that he prioritize the return of all the hostages even at the price of ending the war.

He said what should be obvious to those of us who have been paying attention:

If he had heeded those calls, he says, Israel would not have entered Rafah, taken control of the Philadelphi Corridor, carried out the exploding pager attack on Hezbollah, killed Hamas’s leaders, created the conditions for the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, or dealt “the harsh blow” it has delivered to Iran. Instead, he says, Israel would have continued “to live under existential threat.”

Netanyahu adds that Hamas can’t be fooled into giving back all the hostages if the war doesn’t end:

The prime minister also rejects claims that Israel can trick Hamas into returning all the hostages and then return to war, and says the international community would not allow it and those advocating for such a tactic do not understand how international relations work.

The PM is exactly correct about all of this. Hamas can’t suddenly deserve to exist in any form after what they did on October 7th of 2023 and especially after they even talked about using the last ceasefire to get ready for a similar attack. Their charter boldly states that they want to kill all Jews and destroy the state of Israel to take back the land. These people can’t be trusted in any negotiations as they have broken the last two deals and have a history of doing the exact same thing in previous deals. In short Israel needs to defeat Hamas and kick them out of the land if any of them survive the current offensive. And that’s actually seen in a prophecy in Zephaniah 2 which I detailed in a previous video which could mean that the Trump proposal could actually be prophetic. Overall, the days of Hamas having power on Israel’s doorstep will end and most likely soon. And the Gazans who support them will likely need to relocate as well. I know that’s not a well liked opinion, but I can support it with Scripture and when push comes to shove, I’ll side with the Bible any day and twice on Sunday.