The demonstrators in Israel are backed by assorted military and intelligence types in a treasonous attempt to lever Netanyahu out of office by creating division and demoralization while Israel is fighting for its life. Their core claim is that Netanyahu is prolonging the war and condemning the hostages to death solely to appease extremists in his coalition and thus remain in power.
Of course, everyone desperately wants the hostages brought back home. But the idea that the ceasefire deal would achieve this is sheer fantasy.
Only a few of the hostages would be released in the first phase. Hamas would then use the ceasefire to regroup and rearm, spinning out the continuing negotiation farce to keep the rest of the hostages trapped and thus retain control of the Gaza Strip.
It would only ever release all the hostages (if at all) with Israel's total surrender. That's what those calling for an immediate ceasefire deal are actually promoting.
The only way to save the hostages is through military pressure. That's one reason why it's imperative for Israel to retain control of the Philadelphi corridor, the area of Gaza that borders Egypt.
The importance of this corridor cannot be exaggerated. Israel's capture of it has uncovered deep below its surface an extensive infrastructure of giant tunnels into Egypt — thus revealing the principal route through which Hamas imported its rockets, weapons and ammunition. [Emphasis added]
Hamas needs to control the Philadelphi corridor in order to resupply itself. Without that, it will be finished. That's why it's insisting that there will be no deal while Israel remains in control.
The vast majority of the military and security officials who belong to the authoritative Israel Defense and Security Forum are adamant that Israel must not cede control of the corridor. The forum's chairman, Brig. Gen. Amir Avivi, said last week that tens of thousands of rockets and thousands of Hamas Nukhbah terrorists were waiting inside the Egyptian Sinai to go into Gaza through Philadelphi.
Even if Israel made only a short retreat, these troops and equipment could be brought in within a week. Egypt had made billions of dollars from the smuggling trade into Gaza and wants to continue.
Moreover, said Avivi, only 30 out of more than 100 hostages were slated to be released in the first phase of the deal — and Hamas reportedly planned to take the rest of them through the Philadelphi tunnels to Sinai and then to Iran.
In a security cabinet row, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant reportedly called Philadelphi "an unnecessary constraint that we've placed on ourselves." Gadi Eizenkot, a former chief of staff of the Israel Defense Forces, said it wasn't strategically important. Former Defense Minister Benny Gantz said Israel could return to the corridor if it deemed it necessary once the hostages were home.
Other arguments have included getting Egypt to safeguard Philadelphi against Hamas and using electronic sensors to monitor it.
This is all utterly delusional. For two decades, Egypt was complicit in the construction and use of the Philadelphi tunnels; entrusting it with Israel's security would be to put the fox in charge of the henhouse. Israeli reliance on electronic sensors was one of the reasons the October 7 pogrom happened.
Despite the thousands of people in the streets, most Israelis get this. In one opinion poll, 79% agreed that Israel needed to control Philadelphi permanently to prevent weapons smuggling from Egypt to Gaza. When asked more emotively whether Israel should control Philadelphi "even at the expense of a hostage deal," more respondents said it should than those who balked at preventing a hostage deal.
Gantz, Eizenkot and Gallant are part of a military and security establishment whose morally and intellectually bankrupt "conception" brought about the Oct. 7 catastrophe in the first place.
...America itself bears a significant measure of responsibility for the hostages' fate.
The Biden administration forced Israel to proceed in Gaza far more slowly than the IDF judged necessary to defeat Hamas and thus save the hostages. Worse, for three months, the administration stopped Israel from entering Rafah — below which the six hostages were murdered this month. If Israel had been free to proceed at its own pace, those six captives and many others might have been saved.
Whatever happens to Netanyahu, the left will almost certainly discover that, for the second time, it has made a terrible strategic error.
The first such error was the 1993 Oslo Accord, which gave the Palestinians political power and status — with the Americans even training their security forces — on the assumption that they intended to live in peace alongside Israel.
These same types of people have been doing the work of Hamas for it by promoting Israel's surrender....
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Melanie Phillips, a British journalist, broadcaster and author, writes a weekly column for JNS. Currently a columnist for The Times of London, her personal and political memoir, Guardian Angel, has been published by Bombardier, which also published her first novel, The Legacy, in 2018. To access her work, go to: melaniephillips.substack.com.
Reprinted by kind permission of JNS.
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