Whether or not Donald Trump gets to welcome home hostages released under the Gaza ceasefire deal, there are clear parallels with the 1981 end of the Iran hostage crisis that saw Ronald Reagan begin his presidency by greeting 66 Americans held in Tehran for 444 days.
On Jan. 15, 466 days after the hostages were taken, President Joe Biden noted that the deal was the same as the one he proposed in May. So, why didn’t it happen eight months ago? Because Trump won reelection and told Hamas terrorists that “all hell will break out” if they don’t free the hostages by the time he takes office.
The incoming administration has hailed the deal, claimed credit, and pointed out that it is showing its effectiveness even before the Jan. 20 inauguration. Trump’s Middle East envoy, Steve Witkoff, did more in one meeting to sway Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to compromise than Biden did in more than a year.
Trump’s return riveted terrorist minds — their sphincters probably twitched nervously, too. They know they’ll face a more bloody-minded America for four years, and, with no short- or medium-term relief likely, a deal now makes sense for the bad guys.
But the ceasefire is as much a cause for concern as for celebration. The hostages’ plight has been appalling, and the anguish of their families is understandable. No one can criticize them for the demands they made. But one can doubt meeting them was worth compromising Israel’s long-term security.
A deal that swaps hostages for a ceasefire and will spring a thousand Palestinian terrorists from Israeli prisons will prompt terrorists to keep taking hostages. They can see that it works. If Israel and the United States had abided by the old rule of not negotiating with terrorists, if they had threatened to turn them to ashes absent the release of all hostages and then carried out that threat, more hostages would have died. But any terrorists who survived would have been skeptical about the worth of taking future hostages. Now, it’s a no-brainer.
The key to judging the deal is to understand that Israel had two incompatible war aims. One was freeing the hostages. The other was to destroy Hamas permanently. But that won’t happen now. Hamas may live to fight another day. It is crowing about victory, and Palestinians in Gaza are celebrating. Their joy is not hollow. The terrorists are weaker but are not gone. Their raison d’être is the destruction of Israel, and that will persist. Hamas murders and bombings will surely return even though higher Israeli alertness will probably prevent another pogrom on the scale of Oct. 7, 2023.
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It will now be crucial for Trump, as president, to care more about Israeli security than he does about having a historic deal to boast about. He must back the Jewish state if it judges that it must go back to war against Hamas.
Saving hostages is a pure good, but to be blunt, it is not clearly more important than annihilating their captors and preventing more kidnappings and killings. Douglas Murray once noted in this context that one does not put out 80% of a fire. Trump must support Israel in making sure that is not what has just happened.