Netanyahu – don’t get the hostages killed

August 25, 2025 – 689 days since October 7

When Netanyahu says “now only a full deal” to return all 50 hostages, what is he really talking about? Netanyahu is not referring to a deal with Hamas that will be reached through negotiations. He is finished negotiating. A week ago, Hamas gave their agreement to the same deal with minor changes that was on the table for months. The deal that Israel claimed to accept weeks ago, but then walked away from the table blaming Hamas for adding new conditions, is now on the table waiting for Netanyahu to say yes, but Netanyahu will not say yes (unless Trump tells him to say yes).

Netanyahu is talking about retrieving the hostages only when Hamas is brought down to its knees. The Israeli plan is to force Hamas to raise a white flag and to surrender. Netanyahu’s model is Nazi Germany and Japan at the end of World War II. This will not happen. I have no idea who is advising Netanyahu on this issue, or if Netanyahu listens to anyone who might be advising him. What I am quite sure of is that among the so-called experts on Hamas, none of them have ever actually talked with Hamas leaders, except when they are inside of Israeli prisons. They may read a lot about Hamas, or even read everything that Hamas published on the Telegram accounts – but they have actually never had a real discussion with Hamas leaders about anything. If any of these so-called experts and telling Netanyahu – Hamas will surrender, it is further evidence that they know nothing about Hamas. They may think that Hamas leaders are not rational, that they don’t think logically, that they have no strategy. But they are very wrong – Hamas leaders are rational actors with a clear logic and strategy – the problem is that their logic and rationale are completely different from our logic and rationale, and that makes it difficult to understand them.

Netanyahu’s strategy will fail and the lives of the remaining living hostages are at immediate risk. Hamas will never surrender to Israel. Hamas will never raise a white flag. If Hamas comes to the conclusion that Israel will never make a deal with them, Hamas is fully prepared to execute all of the hostages as well, and to make it impossible to ever find the bodies of those hostages no longer alive.

Hamas is prepared to make an agreement to end the war, to return all of the hostages within 24-48 hours. Hamas is ready to step down from governing Gaza. Hamas is even willing to come to some arrangements where their weapons will be decommissioned. They are willing to do this with a negotiated agreement with Israel that will be guaranteed by the United States and the Arab countries. Without an agreement, they are willing to continue to fight and to continue to try to kill Israeli soldiers. And they are prepared to see many more Gazans killed as well. They actually believe that their strategy is a winning strategy for the Palestinian people. They believe that eventually Israel will be a totally outcasted nation that no other country in the world will want to be associated with. They see this as a longer process but they also see that this is already unfolding before their eyes.

This war must end now. Too much death and destruction has already taken place.