Hamas celebrates
As Israelis cease firing and release terrorists to bring hostages home.
By Clifford D. May
JNS
Jan 22, 2025
As the ceasefire agreement went into effect over the weekend, Hamas terrorists—now wearing uniforms and green headbands, no longer disguising themselves as civilians—emerged from their multimillion-dollar tunnels, held their weapons high and rode through the streets of Gaza in fully fueled vehicles.
Actual civilians also were out on the streets celebrating. In online videos you can see that they’re well-fed and energetic. Many have cell phones and some carry fancy cameras.
Ask yourself: Do these people look like victims of genocide?
On Sunday, 23-year-old Romi Gonen, 28-year-old Emily Damari and 31-year-old Doron Steinbrecher—Hamas’s hostages for 471 days—were shoved into Red Cross vehicles while an angry mob pressed in. Some taunted the women, waving guns.
You’ll recall that Hamas never allowed Red Cross representatives to visit the hostages. You’ll recall that Red Cross officials never vociferously complained.
If you’ve been following these events in most media, you probably didn’t hear a translation of what many in the streets were chanting: “Jews, remember Khaybar, where Muhammad massacred the Jews!”
For those whose grasp of history is shaky (graduate students in Middle East studies at Harvard, Columbia and Penn?), I’ll explain: This was a reference to the Battle of Khaybar, 628 C.E., when Jewish tribes living in an oasis in what is now Saudi Arabia were wiped out by the first Muslim army.
There are those saying this deal is a step toward peace. They’re sadly mistaken.
Khalil al-Hayya, a senior Hamas official in Qatar, vowed upon signing the ceasefire agreement: “We will proceed on the path of the martyred leaders until we achieve victory or martyrdom, Allah willing.”
He called the Oct. 7, 2023 invasion of Israel and the massacre that followed a “military miracle” and a “source of pride.”
Iran’s Ayatollah Ali Khamenei claimed that the Tehran-supported “resistance” had forced Israel to “retreat.” His Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps hailed the deal as “a clear victory and a great victory for Palestine and a bigger defeat for the monstrous Zionist regime.”
Ask yourself: Does it sound like Israel’s enemies are interested in a two-state solution?
Of the 251 hostages abducted on Oct. 7, fewer than 100 remain in captivity, seven Americans among them. Hamas has not revealed how many hostages are still alive and how many they’ve murdered.
Hamas is to release another four hostages next weekend, then three per week until, at the end of the first phase of the deal, 33 hostages have been repatriated.
In exchange, in addition to suspending hostilities, Israel on Sunday released from its prisons 90 terrorists who had been serving time for various bloody terrorist acts.
Most Israelis, according to the polls, see this agreement as bad but necessary—a deal with the devil, as I’m not the first to say.
The redemption of captives is not a new idea for the Jewish nation. “Let my people go!” is how Moses expressed it to Pharaoh in Exodus. To bolster his argument, Moses added: “Thus saith the Lord God of Israel.”
What should be most disturbing from an American perspective: This deal defines diplomacy down.
Alan Dershowitz provides an apt analogy: “Would you call it a deal if somebody kidnapped your child, and you ‘agreed’ to pay ransom to get her back? Of course not. The kidnapping was a crime. And the extortionate demand was an additional crime.”
Hamas is not a legitimate negotiating partner with grievances that deserve to be addressed and differences that can be bridged.
The first phase of the deal is to last 42 days. Aid will flow into Gaza in even larger quantities than it has over the past year. Hamas will steal and sell much of it at a profit.
Hamas’s supporters on American campuses will continue to insist that Gazans are victims of Israeli oppression and cheer Hamas.
For the deal to move into a second phase—which would include extension of the ceasefire, release of the remaining 61 hostages, and Israel freeing almost 2,000 convicted terrorists in total—will require that negotiations not break down. It’s not difficult to imagine why they might.
Hamas’s goal is to resume power in Gaza, get the “international donor community” to write big checks for reconstruction while U.N. agencies provide Gazans with social services including education accredited by the Muslim Brotherhood. That would leave Hamas free to begin planning new atrocities.
Israel’s goal is to bring home as many hostages as possible and ensure that never again does a terrorist army rule Gaza.
Ask yourself: Is there any way to satisfy both Hamas and Israel’s goals?
And is it not both immoral and demoralizing for American diplomats to prod the citizens of a free and democratic ally to compromise with openly genocidal Islamic supremacist terrorists?
I’ll end today’s column with three pertinent facts—not opinions—that most of the media consistently neglect.
One: On Oct. 6, 2023, Gaza was not occupied. No Israelis lived there. No Israeli soldiers patrolled there.
Two: Gaza was not then an “open-air prison” as Hamas manipulated the media into reporting. Gaza had hospitals, schools, libraries, malls, supermarkets, restaurants, a zoo and sandy beaches. Members of Gaza’s elite lived in villas with swimming pools and could come and go via neighboring Egypt.
Three: Hamas leaders could have brought a halt to this war at any time over the past 15 months by simply releasing its hostages and laying down their weapons.
Ask yourself: Who is responsible for the death and destruction on both sides—in the past and, in all probability, in the future?
If you know the answer, you also know that it won’t be through ceasefires and deals that this long war is brought to a conclusion.
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