Is Bibi to Blame?

Hamas, in the eyes of those who took once again to the streets, was irrelevant, lacking any agency. No, the problem was Netanyahu, who, it was charged, had failed to make Hamas a cease-fire offer it could not refuse. Yet as Netanyahu pointed out in a Monday news conference, no less of a Netanyahu critic than Secretary of State Anthony Blinken had characterized Israel’s cease-fire proposals as “extraordinarily generous” as long ago as April 27.

On May 31, Israel acceded to a proposal outlined by President Biden. And again, on August 19, Israel agreed to what was described as the United States’ “final bridging proposal.” “Now, Hamas must do the same,” declared Blinken. Finally, the deputy CIA director said on August 28, just days before the executions, that Israel had shown the utmost seriousness and urged Hamas to show the same seriousness.

In each instance, Hamas rejected the proposals and simply waited for further Israeli concessions. Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar knows better than anyone the extreme sensitivity of the Israeli public to every hostage and the high price that will be paid to secure their releases. After all, he and all the other masterminds of October 7 were among the 1,027 Palestinian prisoners, including many convicted of multiple murders, released by Israel in exchange for Gilad Shalit in 2011.

That one-sided exchange has already cost more than 1,500 Israeli lives and many times that number of those permanently wounded or emotionally scarred for life, not to mention a costly war and the indefinite evacuation of close to 100,000 Israelis from their homes.