What do you do when, after you start a war by invading a neighboring country, slaughtering 1,200 – 1,400 of its civilians and taking hundreds of them hostage…and the neighboring country responds by systematically taking you apart while finding, and neutralizing, your leadership?
Well, if you’re hamas, you make demands.
From Ronny Reyes’ article for the New York Post:
Hamas on Sunday threatened to kill all of its remaining hostages if demands such as more aid for Gaza and prisoner exchanges were not met, after suffering repeated losses in its battle with Israel.
The Palestinian terror group is still holding the bodies of 20 hostages who died in captivity, Israel said over the weekend.
Abu Obeida, a spokesman for Hamas’ armed wing, claimed Sunday that not another single kidnap victim will leave Gaza alive unless Israel agrees to all its demands in negotiations that broke down at the start of December.
At least some of those demands have been for more aid for Gaza residents and the freeing of Palestinian prisoners.
“Neither the fascist enemy and its arrogant leadership … nor its supporters … can take their prisoners alive without an exchange and negotiation and meeting the demands of the resistance,” Obeida said in a televised broadcast.
The ultimatum came as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office said that of the 137 hostages believed to still be in Hamas custody, 20 are dead.
Fascinating.
Wasn’t there a cessation of fighting…until hamas stopped handing over the hostages it had taken and started attacking Israel again?
And aren’t hamas fighters surrendering to Israel by the hundreds?
And isn’t it true that we don’t actually know how many, if any, of the hostages taken from Israel are alive? But we do know that the hostages turned over (in exchange for a far higher number of convicted gazan criminals, let’s remember) have told us that they were abused and tortured while in captivity?
THESE are the people making demands? From what? Their position of strength?
Look, I acknowledge that I might feel differently about this if one or more of my family members were among the hostages. But, absent that personal component, I don’t know how anyone can trust a word hamas says about these hostages – including not just whether they are alive at all, but whether hamas would give them back even if Israel were to accede to these demands.
hamas doesn’t give a damn about the lives of its own people. What possible reason do we have to believe they give a damn about Israeli hostages?
The bottom line: if Israel effectively tells hamas to stuff it and continues dismantling its control over Gaza, I understand completely.
