No. of Recommendations: 10
A common reaction circulating within the talking head moronosphere is that the Hamas attack on Israel of October 7, 2023 was encouraged in large part by an interest by Hamas in capturing additional Israeli hostages for use in deflecting or restricting any retaliation executed by Israel or its allies. This theory points to recent prisoner swap deals reached involving Russia and US for an American citizen, Iran and the US for five American citizens, etc. The underlying point of this argument is that American weakness is INCENTING additional terrorist operations to take more hostages.... Because we are rewarding the hostage takers.
To the extent this trend might have encouraged this Hamas operation, then okay... Such deals might have been incredibly short-sighted, shame on us and shame on Joe Biden. But any such conclusion lacks any context or perspective and thus any such conclusion lacks any truth. The decision by Hamas to combine mass murder AND hostage taking can be DIRECTLY tied to prior interactions not only between Hamas and Israel but Hamas and Israel's current Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. In 2011, Israel made an agreement to return 1,027 prisonors in exchange for the return of ONE Israeli soldier.
From Wikipedia:
The Gilad Shalit prisoner exchange (Hebrew: עסקת שליט; Arabic: صفقة شاليط), also known as "Wafa al-Ahrar" ("Faithful to the free"),[1] followed a 2011 agreement between Israel and Hamas to release Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit in exchange for 1,027 prisoners ' almost all Palestinians and Arab-Israelis, although there were also a Ukrainian,[2] a Jordanian[3] and a Syrian.[4] Two hundred and eighty of these had been sentenced to life in prison for planning and perpetrating various attacks against Israeli targets.
That's a 1027:1 return on terror. That deal was approved by.... Benjamin Netanyahu, who was Prime Minister at the time and is Prime Minister now.
And while we're on the subject of domestic American partisan politics regarding hostages and holding the line with terrorists who use hostages, it's important to remember ALL of America's history with hostages, including the history of St. Ronnie, the Republican Party's patron saint of Fractured Fairy Tales and Hysterical History. Ronald Reagan's campaign team NEGOTIATED directly with the Iranian students holding American hostages PRIOR to the November 1980 election to ensure Iran retained the hostages past the election to avoid an "October Suprise" that could aid a possible win by Jimmy Carter. But they didn't stop there. Reagan's team NEGOTIATED with the Iranian students to KEEP the American hostages until Inauguration Day -- an extra TEN WEEKS of imprisonment for American citizens -- to not only further humiliate Carter as President but to further attach a brand of "weak" on the entire Democratic Party to help Republicans for several election cycles.
WTH
