For the moment, Bibi backs off

The genocidal mania of Hamas and its supporters revels in murder and humiliation of the enemy. The ecstatic bloodlust is palpable. The impetus of degradation is manifest. Thus Hamas has staged the release of hostages under the current ceasefire with Israel in a manner that comports with the mania. They have turned each release into a celebratory production that degrades and humiliates hostages captives who have been starved and tortured in captivity. Hamas lets them go, but Hamas gets the last laugh. The silence of “the world” is remarkable.

Last week’s events brought us Hamas’s staging of the production of four corpses. CNN characterized it as a “macabre handover ceremony.” That doesn’t capture the quality of the event, but it’s hard to capture. We need a psychiatric successor to Freud who can give us The Psychopathology of Everyday Islamism.

Following the “ceremony” and the delivery of the corpses, the Israelis discovered Hamas’s alleged mixed-up confusion about the corpse of Shiri Bibas. Hamas had turned over a random Gazan in place of the corpse of Mrs. Bibas. The creative juices of the genocidal psychopathology are flowing.

The corpse production was followed on Saturday by the staging of this week’s release of living hostages. The hostages appeared onstage attired in fake army uniforms, though they were not soldiers when kidnapped. One of the hostages was ordered to kiss two of his masked captors on the head while holding his official Hamas release certificate. Only the Israeli Arab hostage was excused from the onstage production.

And that’s not all. Eve Barlow comments: “In one of the most barbaric acts since October 7, Hamas today brought two hostages, Eviatar David and Guy Gilboa-Dalal[,] to witness the release of the six other hostages onstage and filmed them adjacent in a van pleading to camera for their release before they were returned to the dungeons of Gaza…” She adds: “The people of Gaza are the most depraved people on the planet and the people of the West have allowed them to sink to lower levels of depravity by choice and by complicity.” And this: “We will never forgive you or take your ‘humanitarian’ work seriously ever again.”

 

Ms. Barlow reflects the intensified anger that this week’s humiliations have aroused in Israel. Early this morning Prime Minister Netanyahu halted the scheduled release of this week’s tranche of 602 convicted terrorists from prison in exchange for the six living hostages.

The Prime Minister’s Office has posted on X: “In light of Hamas’s repeated violations, including the ceremonies that humiliate our hostages and the cynical exploitation of our hostages for propaganda purposes it has been decided to delay the release of terrorists that was planned for yesterday until the release of the next hostages has been assured, and without the humiliating ceremonies.”

The use of the passive voice is unfortunate. One infers that this is Netanyahu’s decision for the moment. The Times of Israel has much more here. If they are not mutually irreconcilable, Israel’s goals of recovering hostages and eradicating Hamas remain difficult to reconcile.