By New York Post (Opinion) | Created at 2025-01-27 00:27:27 | Updated at 2025-01-27 17:00:14
16 hours ago
With a second round of hostages released from captivity among the vicious terrorist butchers of Hamas, the relief in America and Israel is palpable — but underlain by deep uncertainty.
It’s not just that Hamas is already breaking its word (at least two civilian women should’ve been freed last weekend, yet weren’t), but that Israel has not yet completely eradicated Hamas in Gaza.
Indeed, Hamas is playing this cease-fire as victory.
Blame the refusal of the Biden administration to back Israel to the hilt in its efforts against the would-be genocidaires, and Biden’s longer-term backing of Iran, plus President Trump’s hard focus on getting a hostage deal done above all else.
And admit the formidable difficulties in completely beating a force like Hamas — a terror group controlled by a foreign state that operates outside of every law of war and yet enjoys the moral sanction of Western diplomats, academics, politicians and other power-players (including Joe Biden, who went out of his way to legitimize Hamas at every turn).
This all leaves major questions open.
Will the cease-fire even make it out of this first phase, which is to see some 33 hostages return to Israel over six weeks?
Seven have come home, but Hamas has already missed one deadline, and in response Israel has postponed one scheduled pullback of its forces.
Hamas says it will spring one civilian woman, Arbel Yahud, in the next week — but isn’t listing Shiri Bibas or her sons Ariel (5) and Kfir (2) for release, indicating the most vulnerable hostages of all may be dead: How many more actually yet live?
That the terrorists are using every hostage release for propaganda, staging huge rallies of uniformed membership, bodes ill for the substantive, longer-term talks set to start soon.
Hamas plainly hopes the process brings a complete withdrawal of Israel’s troops without any provision to replace it as Gaza’s rulers: That would mean an Israeli return to a policy of observation and strong containment, troublingly close to the status quo ante Oct. 7, 2023.
Mohammed Sinwar, brother of the unlamented terror chief Yahya, has supposedly restored Hamas’ ranks: How seasoned and capable is this new brood of killers, and how much danger does it pose?
While Trump is unquestionably a far better friend of Israel than Biden, how much room will he give Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (or any successor; Bibi is facing a revolt within his coalition over the cease-fire deal) to respond to the Hamas provocations surely forthcoming in the next months?
Even more crucially, perhaps: How well will his policies restrain Iran?
A return to the “maximum pressure” posture of his first term is beyond necessary, and more may be necessary: In that light, it’s great news that Trump has resumed export of “bunker buster” bombs to Israel, which may need them to target Tehran’s nuclear program.
Trump’s focus for the moment is overwhelmingly domestic, but he still needs to ensure above all that Tehran does not get within spitting distance of nuclear breakout.
Which leads us to the balance of power in the region.
The Hamas war served Iran by derailing Israel’s growing alignment with the Gulf Arab states; is that derailment permanent, or will it get back on track with Trump’s return?
A linchpin of Iran’s so-called Axis of Resistance — Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian dictatorship — has been knocked out (though his replacement, the Salafist rebel commander and ex-al Qaeda fighter Ahmed al-Sharaa, seems unlikely to be any friend of Israel).
And the Lebanese cease-fire is also unsettled, as government troops have yet to fully replace Hezbollah forces in the nation’s south.
Every hostage who comes home is a victory for Israel, but the larger picture remains uncertain on all fronts; Trump is even suggesting an evacuation from Gaza to Egypt and Jordan.
Coming days and weeks will bring some clarity, but full-on peace seems far out of sight.
