FREE PRESS
Israel’s Prisoner’s Dilemma
Matti Friedman
January 17, 2025

In Israel, news of an imminent hostage deal with Hamas grips the country. Fifteen months after the attack of October 7, 2023, when Palestinian terrorists seized 250 civilians and soldiers from Israeli territory, nearly 100 hostages remain in Gaza. The oldest is 86. The youngest is 2. Most seem to be dead, murdered by their captors, or killed inadvertently by Israeli forces, but Hamas refuses to divulge how many. The hostages’ faces have become familiar to everyone in Israel. They’re on posters in bus stops, on telephone poles, hanging from highway bridges. We all feel we know them. Even though not all details of the deal are clear, Israelis are broadly behind it—a poll on January 15 put the number at 69 percent, with 21 percent unsure and only 10 percent opposed. READ MORE

FUTURE OF JEWISH Joshua Hoffman: The Cruel Math of Palestinian Prisoners for Israeli Hostages In the cynical calculus of global expectations, one nation stands out as an aberration: Israel, a country that has repeatedly freed hundreds of convicted terrorists — responsible for the cold-hearted killing of civilians — in exchange for the safe return of a single soldier or citizen.

JAKE WALLIS SIMONS SUBSTACK Why did Israel release so many murderers? Three innocent Israeli women. Ninety Palestinian terrorists. Such were the terms of the grim human transaction that took place last weekend. Granted, this was a very different deal from October 2011, when 1,027 prisoners – including Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind of the pogroms that darkened the globe 12 years later – were traded for a single Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit. But many around the world looked on in bewilderment. Hamas has been on the ropes. Why did Israel, by far the stronger party, make such concessions?