I have written amply on the Netanyahu-Trump-Hamas-Witkoff Deal here. I have amplified with my comments on YouTube here and here. Everything is proceeding pretty much as I expected. The obvious comes with being over age 70, watching and coming to know the Netanyahu of the past 20 years, the Likud of the past 30 years, the Trump of the past 10 years, and Arabs of Forever. The only thing that surprises me — but not really — is how many are surprised by what unfolds.
First, Jewish leftists. In America, they hate Trump for no reason: Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS). In Israel, they hate Bibi for the wrong reasons: Bibi Derangement Syndrome (the other “BDS”). They all cannot be trusted: the Jewish left, Trump, and Bibi.
If you want truth, you go to a rabbi you trust, an honest medical doctor, or someone on a deathbed. Politicians in a democracy cannot maintain truth, partly for legitimate reason: Too many people around them are out with the knives — even in their own party, even their friends, and certainly their opponents — waiting to slay them and take their places. Yes: “Slay,” not merely “kill” but “slay” like Mattityahu (the other Mattityahu) and the Greeks (the other Greeks). So Trump and Bibi have to hold their cards close to their chests, even play with five aces. They have to fudge the truth and outright lie. They would not accomplish anything if they honestly revealed what they are up to. Just look at all the prosecutions and how their closest intimates turn on them when evil prosecutors threaten and torture them. The astute observer needs to regard that.
When Trump announces a 25 percent tariff on Canada and Mexico, there is no way to know what he really is saying. That “tariff” actually meant he wanted each to send an additional 10,000 soldiers to their borders, to upgrade border defenses, and to establish fentanyl czars. Nothing to do with tariffs. When he set a 25 or 50 percent tariff with Colombia, his real meaning was to dump the worst of Colombian illegal aliens back in Colombia. When he says he will retake the Panama Canal, maybe he means it, and maybe it is just his ploy to get American goods through without charge and to get China out. A man, a plan, a canal, Panama. Maybe he spells the letters of those words left to right, but maybe right to left. A man, a plan, a canal, Panama.
Bibi also has to prevaricate all day and night. All his associates sooner or later will testify against him, based on everything he tells them in confidence, or they themselves will be jailed for years, have their private peccadilloes revealed to their wives, kids, and an entire nation, and be psychologically tortured in jail. Thus, with Netanyahu, as with Trump, Biden, Obama, Rabin, Gantz, and Bennett, you know they are lying as soon as their lips start moving. The voter must decide: which liar do I trust the most?
Of course there are politicians whom we can trust. Smotrich. Ben-Gvir. Arab parties who pledge to destroy Israel. But those never get to the top and never will. The character dimension of pure honesty is a sign of a politician whom many will love but who never will be chosen by enough voters to lead. The only ones who reach leadership despite pure honesty are the autocrats who cannot be taken down by democracy: Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and their ilk. Even they did not show all their cards until they were safely in. The early Hitler did not reveal he would murder the Jews, just that he would expel them. The early Stalin did not begin with purges. And such.
Democracy and autocracy each have their respective advantages. With autocracy, you can get a King David and a King Chizkiah (Hezekiah), but also can get a King Yaravam (Jeroboam) and a King Menashe. With democracy, it is muted: you can get a Menachem Begin and an Abraham Lincoln, but you also can get a Yitzchak Rabin or an Obama. So now we have Trump and Netanyahu. Those liars are better than many, worse than the best. As they would say in 1940’s Brooklyn, “Take it or lump it.”
The deal with Hamas is a despicable disaster. Netanyahu learned little from the Gilad Shalit and Jibril deals.
Or maybe he did. No way to know.
Was the deal this time predicated on the guaranteed knowledge — not just guessing so, but knowing so — that it never would get past Shlav Aleph (Phase One) and maybe not even get that far? Was it to change the narrative so that “Israel gave up so much for peace but Hamas broke the deal” — so now Israel finally can obliterate Hamas? With Trump replacing Biden and Harris, was that built into the deal? Could be. Can’t say no.
The deal happened post-Biden, post-Kamala. Was an unspoken built-in part of the Witkoff deal that Trump would sabotage the deal after a few weeks by publicly announcing his Arab transfer plan? Who knows? Clearly, he does believe what over half of all Jews believe: They Must Go. They . . . Must . . . Go.
Was that an unspoken part of the deal? Is it further part of the deal that he formally will recognize in four weeks Israel’s unequivocal right — permanent right — to its Judea and Samaria holdings? Maybe. It seems he is moving toward that direction. Each time the media ask him “Are you — is America — still committed to a Two-State Solution?” all he would be expected to say — as Ford, Kissinger, Carter, Cyrus Vance, Reagan (yes, Reagan), Bush I, James Baker, Clinton, Bush II, Condoleeza, Obama, Hillary, Kerry, Biden, Blinken, and Kamala have said: “Yes.”
Instead, he takes out a pen, puts it on his very large office desk, tells the media that Israel has as little territorial size and is as small proportionately in the Mideast as that pen on that desk, and he will have more to say on the subject in four weeks, as soon as the Hamas Deal ends. That sounds like something new brewing. So was that also part of the present deal?
It surely is clear that Phase Two will go nowhere, and maybe was predictable that Hamas would terminate Phase One at some point. Was that certainty built into the deal?
Our rabbis debate why a fair and just G-d Who is committed to allowing all people Free Will nevertheless hardened the Pharaoh’s heart repeatedly, effectively removing Free Will from him. Many answer it is because Pharaoh had acted so frequently the same evil way, when posed with the exact same decision-making challenges time and again, that G-d knew what Pharaoh would choose with Free Will anyway, so G-d simply “cut to the chase.”
Hamas is the same. But how do we know they cannot change?
First, we know they never will compromise. Through a century. Arab terrorists never compromise. Not the Grand Poobah of Jerusalm. Not Arafat. For that matter, neither has Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas) ever compromised through a rapidly diminishing lifetime. Their raison d’etre is to destroy Israel. They will not compromise. One of the biggest favors the Arabs and their anti-Semitic American college backers ever did for Israel was to create and popularize the slogan “From the River to the Sea, Palestine Will Be Free.” Good for them. In the open. No “Two States.” Just one single country from the River to the Sea. Good for them. And good for us. No “Two States,” only one country. Finally.
So was that also part of the Trump-Witkoff-Netanyahu Deal, an unwritten secret annex that Phase Two never will reach fruition? Sort of like the “Voyage of the Damned,” where Hitler never intended for the S.S. St. Louis to find safe harbor. An understanding that Hamas will sabotage Phase One or at least will blow up Phase Two. Only this time, instead of Biden, Kamala, Blinken, and Democrats blaming and embargoing Israel, the new sheriff would change the rules and blame the bad guys instead of the Jews.
It seems from those on the mainstream right that Israel maybe will not compromise on the underlying insistence this time, unlike Sharon’s 2005 Disengagement and Barak’s withdrawal from Lebanon and Rabin’s 1993 Oslo, that Hamas will not govern again and will be removed from Gaza, one way or another. Just as certainly, Hamas will not compromise on demanding to remain and govern. We see that with their pomp and ceremony at each exchange.
So was the deal from Day One premised on Hamas blowing up the Deal? And if so, was there an understanding between Trump and Bibi that Israel then would be given a green light to fight as it did the first two weeks of thr war and maybe to stop or sharply reduce the “Humanitarian Aid”? No way to know.
Regardless, why has Hamas acted now?
I think it is simple. Hamas was supposed to first release the living women, then the living men, then the corpses. Living women have been freed; now Hamas are at the point of releasing the last men, the ones who look like they came out of “Schindler’s List,” “The Grey Zone,” and “Son of Saul.” The weekend Hamas spectacles on that Gaza platform — where they parade the hostages, have them wear that certificate around their necks and wave to the crowd of cutthroat “innocent Gaza civlians” — soon will not be featuring living Jews but, instead, Jews in boxes or wrapped in shrouds. That will be one heck of an Associated Press photograph.
When that happens, the Israeli Left will fill Kaplan Square in Tel Aviv and blame Netanyahu because that is all they know how to do and the fact that it is Hamas who refused to come to the negotiating table is irrelevant to them. Gantz and Lapid and maybe Gallant will egg on the crowd, as if they would have done any better. Bennett will have the cynical political acumen to lie low and let all the others politically knife each other.
Amid all that — to say this as delicately as I can — I simply will write: “Kfir Bibas.”
At that point, it would seem that a green light of sorts may be given to Israel, and Trump may elevate his Transfer Plan. Hamas knows it is coming. Witkoff knew. Maybe Netanyahu and Trump, too. Secretary of State Rubio will not be Blinken. Secretary of Defense Hegseth will not be Austen. UN Ambassador Stefanik, Ambassador Huckabee, House Speaker Johnson, Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Brian Mast.
Was it Bibi’s and Witkoff’s and Trump’s plan from Day One to count on Hamas blowing up the deal before Phase Two ever would be implemented? We cannot know. We can only guess. And we may take partial comfort that at least two parties can be trusted on our side of the aisle to follow conscience: Smotrich and Ben Gvir. They are slightly different in how they strategize and act, and it is good to have them both. Two who can be trusted in a world of lies.
Subscribe to Rav Fischer’s YouTube channel here at bit.ly/3REFTbk and follow him on X (Twitter) at @DovFischerRabbi to find his latest classes, interviews, speeches, and observations.
His recent statement on the Disastrous Hamas-Netanyahu-Trump Deal is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uWkyLMRoJJY
His recent statement on the exasperating Hamas Celebrations during each hostage-murderer exchange is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P12TlJHUM2U
His recent statement on the proposal to transfer Gazan Arabs to Jordan and Egypt is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JinWymIQbuw
To attend any of his three weekly Zoom classes — Sundays on the past week’s events impacting Israel and world Jewry, and Tuesdays and Thursdays on the Tanakh (Bible) and Jewish law — send a request to rabbi@yioc.org
To attend any of his three weekly Zoom classes — Sundays on the past week’s events impacting Israel and world Jewry, and Tuesdays and Thursdays on the Tanakh (Bible) and Jewish law — send a request to rabbi@yioc.org