New York Times Columnist Who Hated Netanyahu Now Says Netanyahu is Right!

 One way to know that you’re right, is when your biggest critics agree with you. A New York Times op-ed columnist has published a piece, perhaps somewhat surprisingly reaffirming Prime Minister Netanyahu’s staunch belief that the cease-fire deal he is being pressured to agree to would be detrimental for Israel.

Bret Stephens, the Times’ token moderate, right-leaning opinion writer, wrote a piece entitled “A Hostage Deal Is a Poison Pill for Israel”. Stephens made a strong case explaining why the current cease-fire deal being discussed would likely lead to more Israelis being hurt, and it is not realistic to believe that Israel would ever be able to retake the Philadelphi corridor once they withdraw.

Stephens’ began by referencing how since ancient times, the Torah and Jewish tradition has placed “supreme value on the redemption of captives”.

At one point he wrote: “Netanyahu is right, and it’s important for his usual critics, including me, to acknowledge it. He’s right, first because the highest justification for fighting a war, besides survival, is to prevent its repetition. Israel has lost hundreds of soldiers to defeat Hamas. Thousands of innocent Palestinians have died and hundreds of thousands have suffered, because Hamas has held every Gazan hostage to its fanatical aims. Hamas was able to initiate and fight this war only because of a secure line of logistical supply under its border with Egypt.

“Israel’s control of the Philadelphi Corridor largely stops this. To relinquish it now, for any reason, forsakes what Israel has been fighting for, consigns Palestinians to further misery under Hamas and all but guarantees that a similar war will eventually be fought again. Why do that?”

He continued: “The answer, many of Netanyahu’s critics (including Yoav Gallant, his defense minister) would rejoin, is that the imperative to save the hostages supersedes every other consideration — and that Israel can always retake the corridor if Hamas fails to fulfill its end of the bargain or if Israelis feel their security is again at risk.

“That last argument is a fantasy: Once Israel leaves Gaza, international pressure for it not to re-enter for nearly any reason short of another Oct. 7 will be overwhelming. And Hamas will ensure that any Israeli effort to retake the corridor will be as bloody as possible, for both Israelis and Palestinians, whom Sinwar treats as human shields. Those risks, too, should weigh on the moral scales of what Israel does next.”

At one point Stephens wrote: “…sympathy cannot be a replacement for judgment. Israelis — the hostage families above all — have spent the past 11 months suffering the bitter and predictable consequence of the Shalit deal, which also came about on account of intense public pressure to free him.

He continued: “A good society will be prepared to go to great lengths to rescue or redeem a captive, whether with risky military operations or exorbitant ransoms. Yet there must also be a limit to what any society can afford to pay. The price for one hostage’s life or freedom cannot be the life or freedom of another — even if we know the name of the first life but not yet the second. That ought to be morally elementary.”

“Also elementary: Whatever one thinks of Netanyahu, the weight of outrage should fall not on him but on Hamas,” he wrote.