Is any price too high?

Who wasn’t moved by the sight of the reunion of the first three Israeli hostages held by Hamas with their loved ones? Who doesn’t want to join the celebration of their reunion? Not I. I’m thrilled for the women and their families. Maybe no price is too high to pay.

Yet I doubt the deal resulting in the release of the Israelis is to be celebrated. It is at best a sad necessity for an Israeli government that is (also of necessity) pursuing what appear to be mutually irreconcilable ends in its war on Hamas.

President Trump claims credit for the deal. He certainly wasn’t just bragging, but it is nothing to brag about. If trading convicted terrorist murderers for innocent civilians is not wrong in itself, evil consequences nevertheless likely inhere in it. See, e.g., the release of the late Yahya Sinwar along with 1,026 other such prisoners held by Israel in the 2011 exchange for Gilad Shalit. Indeed, the Shalit deal had more than a little to do with Hamas’s abduction of Israeli hostages on October 7.

President Trump must be thinking of his role in this hostage deal as akin to President Reagan’s inducement of the mullahs to release the American hostages during Reagan’s inauguration on January 20, 1981, for which we gave up nothing. That obviously isn’t the case here.

At What the Hell Is Going On?, Danielle Pletka draws on the work of GLZLZ’s (“Army Radio on Wheels”) Doron Kadosh and IDF radio’s Galei Zahal to provide some detail about a few of the 900 Palestinian prisoners Israel is releasing in order to secure the hostages dead and alive. Pletka asks readers to forgive translation errors. If she did not make the translation herself, I infer that she ran a Doron Kadosh X post through Google translate for the summary below the break:

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1. Ibrahim Abed Elhai, commander of the cell that sent the suicide bomber to carry out the attack at the Em Moshavot Mall in Petah Tikva in 2002, in which a grandmother and her one-year-old granddaughter (Ruthi Peled and Sinai Keinan) were murdered, and about 50 other people were injured.

2. Osama Ashkar and Muhammad Naifa, terrorists responsible for two attacks during the Second Intifada in October 2002 in the town of Hermesh and Kibbutz Metzer, attacks in which 8 Israelis were murdered – including 4 children.

3. Ahmed Abu Hader, a senior Tanzim official who planned a suicide attack at Sheba Hospital in Tel Hashomer and sent terrorists during the Second Intifada.

4. Ahmed al-Sheibani and Hussam Abed sent the suicide bomber who exploded in the 2003 Ha’amakim Mall attack, in which 3 Israelis were murdered and 70 were injured.

5. Ahmed Aslam and Hussam Halabi, members of the Fatah terrorist cell that murdered the couple Avi and Avital Valensky in Samaria in 2002.

6. Ahmed Dehidi – one of the leaders of the Islamic Jihad in Judea and Samaria, who was convicted of the murder of Eli Biton in 2003 in the town of Gadish.

7. Mahmoud Atauna (squad commander) and Ahmed Aref Al-Assafra – the squad that murdered the late Dvir Sorek in 2019 near Migdal Oz in Gush Etzion.

8. Ahmed Ovid, a terrorist serving seven life sentences for aiding the terrorist who murdered 7 Israelis in a 2003 attack at the Hillel Cafe in Jerusalem.

9. Iyad Masalma, a Hamas terrorist who sent the terrorist who carried out the shooting attack in Karme Tzur in 2002, in which 3 Israelis were murdered: the couple Eyal and Yael Sorek, and the late reserve soldier Shalom Mordechai.

10. Ayham Sabbah, one of the terrorists who carried out the stabbing attack at the Rami Levy branch in the Shaar Binyamin industrial zone and murdered an IDF soldier.

11. Akram Hamed – Head of the Fatah cell that was responsible for a series of shooting attacks in the Binyamin area during the Second Intifada, including the murder of Assaf Hershkowitz and Idit Mizrahi in 2001.

12. Amjad Hamed, Faiz Hamed, and Abdullah Ishaq, members of the cell that carried out the 2015 shooting attack near Douma in which the late Malachi Rosenfeld was murdered.

13. Abd al-Karim Awis (one of the commanders of the Al-Aqsa Brigades) and Amjad Takatka – the terrorists who were involved in the suicide bombing at the Mahane Yehuda market in Jerusalem in 2002, in which 6 Israelis were murdered. Awis was also responsible for additional attacks in Afula and on King George Street in Jerusalem.

14. Anwar and Mezuz Basharat, members of the cell that murdered in 2003 Masoud Alon, a 72-year-old Israeli who was missing from his home for a day and whose body was found next to his burned-out car in the Jordan Valley.

15. Isaac Arafa, the terrorist who carried out a bomb attack on the United Nations Buildings in Jerusalem in 2011, murdered a woman and a girl and injured 37 Israelis.

16. Ismail Radaida, who murdered a Greek Orthodox monk near Jerusalem in 2001.

17. Ashraf Abu Sarur, who murdered the late soldier Shahar Waqar near Rachel’s Tomb in 2000.

18. Ashraf Alloui, who murdered two soldiers in a 1993 attack in Deir Balut, was released in the Shalit deal and re-arrested.

19. Basel Mahlouf and Jasser Radad, the terrorists who murdered soldier Yaron Pickholtz near Tulkarm in 2002. 21. Bahjat Ashkirat, one of the terrorists who murdered two security guards in the Kidron Valley in Jerusalem in 2003.

20. Bilal Abu Ghanem – the terrorist who carried out the attack on bus line 78 at the Hanatziv Palace in Jerusalem, in which 3 Israelis were murdered, in 2015.

21. Bashir Haruv – the terrorist who murdered Col. (res.) Sariya Yaya Ofer, the late, in his home in the village of Brosh in the Valley in 2013

22. Jihad Najjar – the terrorist who murdered Yair Har Sinai from the southern Hebron Hills in 2001.

23. Jamal Ja’ara – the terrorist who drove the suicide bomber to the attack at the Stage Club in Tel Aviv in 2005, in which 5 Israelis were murdered.

24. Ja’far Abu Hanani, a terrorist who murdered Dina Guetta in Haifa in 2001, as part of an admissions test for Hezbollah.

25. Hani Khamaisa, a terrorist who was an officer in the Palestinian Authority, who murdered the late Stanislaw Sandomierski near Ramallah in 2001, and hid his body in the trunk of his car.

26. Haitam Tat, a member of the Hamas cell that carried out two attacks in which 4 Israelis were murdered: the attack near the IDF Southern Command in which two female soldiers were murdered, and a shooting attack near Hebron in which two Israelis were murdered.

27. Wael al-Araj, one of the terrorists who murdered Asher Palmer and his one-year-old son, Jonathan, in a 2011 stone-throwing attack in Kiryat Arba.

28. Khaled Kutina, who carried out the car bombing attack at the French Hill intersection in Jerusalem in 2015, in which the late Shalom Yohai Sharki (son of Rabbi Uri Sharki and brother of journalist Yair Sharki) was murdered.

Or this guy…

Don’t forget Arafat Irfaiya, above. He raped and decapitated a Jewish girl. This was Ori Ansbacher, his victim. He will be going home to a society that celebrates him.

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