The Beginning of the End

Some early thoughts on the US-brokered hostage deal between Israel and Hamas.

Today, October 13, 2025, is a very good day for those of us who support the nation of Israel. We have seen the release of all 20 living hostages that remained imprisoned by Hamas in underground tunnels in which they were tortured, starved, and mistreated for over two years. The joy in Israel is palpable, even from afar. The return of these innocent civilians was long overdue, but it has thankfully and finally happened. There will be a lot to say about this release and the deal that it is just one constituent part of as time goes on – and it will surely be a major topic on this week’s Rational Policy Podcast – but there are some things that are worth mentioning in its immediate aftermath. Here are a few that I’ve been thinking about today.

• First off, this deal would never have happened without the impressive use of military force by Israel. The only times that Hamas has ever come to the table to discuss hostage releases are after devastating Israeli military actions. This was the case in November and December of 2023, January and February of this year, and the final release of living hostages this week. Hamas – and this is applicable to the broader region as well – only understands and respects the language of force. They have not taken the steps to release hostages willingly and of their own volition. They were forced into concessions by the irrepressible logic of military action. This should be a lesson to Israeli policymakers, as well as any other country that seeks to make hay out of the mess that is the Middle East – America included.

• When it comes to Israeli force, the application thereof to areas not within Gaza has been just as effective, if not even more so. The destruction of Hezbollah, the culling of Syrian military power, the killing of terrorists abroad, the destruction of Iran’s air defenses and nuclear capabilities, and the attack on Hamas leaders in Qatar all paved the way for this deal. If not for these demonstrations of the willingness and ability to defend Israeli interests, no matter where they lie, there was no way that this release would have happened. The strikes on Iran and Qatar, the main backers of Hamas and the 10/7 massacre, crippled the terror group’s ability to rearm, refinance, and gain much-needed support. Iran is not going anywhere; its antisemitism is deeply ingrained into the regime and serves as a major source of its faltering legitimacy. As for Qatar, they believed that they could use America as a shield for their promotion of antisemitic and anti-Western hatred and terrorism – and given the recent moves by the Trump administration, they may be able to in the future – but the Israeli strikes shattered that illusion, at least for now. Qatar talks a big game and acts like a major power in the region, but when it was smacked in the face by the cold hand of reality, it cowered and conceded. If not for that particular attack and the resulting Qatari pressure on Hamas – something they were never forced to do by any US administration – the hostages would remain in Gaza today.

• On a related note, this deal would not have happened had the 2024 US presidential election gone the other way. There’s a very good reason that Hamas remained intransigent after the initial hostage release all the way back in 2023, and that’s because they realized that the Israelis would not be fully supported by a Democratic White House. The rhetorical, diplomatic, and military support – including the bombing of Iranian nuclear sites – that the Trump administration has provided to Israel has made this deal a reality. I have a lot to criticize about the current president, including on foreign policy topics and the Middle East itself (cut off Qatar, already!), but America’s involvement here seemed decisive. Under a Kamala Harris administration, we would likely have seen a massive reduction in support for Israel, pressure put on Jerusalem instead of Doha/Tehran/Gaza, and a forced end to fighting that would cement a Hamas victory. Indeed, the former vice president just recently labeled this just war a “genocide,” buying into the false narrative pushed by the pro-Palestinian activists since the moment Israel retaliated for the 10/7 pogrom. The difference between the potential outcomes here is night and day. As a supporter of Israel, all I can say is that I am very glad that President Trump won last year instead of his rival. There will be plenty more to go after this administration for – and I’ll surely do it – but today they deserve plaudits.

  

• Another person who deserves immense credit here is the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. I was a huge skeptic of Kushner during the first Trump administration, where he was tasked with a whole host of diplomatic issues. I thought he was just a nepo-baby who had no business in the realm of international affairs and would quickly be outclassed by his interlocutors. Boy, was I wrong. Over the past decade, Jared Kushner has proven himself to easily be the greatest American diplomat of the post-Cold War era. He negotiated the Abraham Accords, the most important regional peace deal in decades. He broke a deadlock that had existed for nearly 80 years, simply by virtue of coming in with an entirely different set of priors and using his business acumen to make real, lasting deals. And now he has crafted this deal, gaining the release of Israeli hostages and forcing Hamas on to the back foot, all with the tacit or outright support of several critical Muslim and Arab nations. This is an epochal achievement, even if Hamas chooses to renege on the remainder of the deal – more on which in a moment. The fact that America’s diplomatic architecture, run by the same people who have been wrong about 90% of geopolitics for the past 35 years, is overwhelmingly jealous of this accomplishment makes me smile. Couldn’t happen to a worse bunch of people. Now, let’s bring Jared in to the Ukraine process as well; he surely couldn’t do any worse than Steve Witkoff!

• A great deal of credit also should go to Israel’s leader, Benjamin Netanyahu. He has been maligned, demeaned, attacked, and undermined from within and without for the whole of the past two years. He has been accused repeatedly of prolonging this conflict for his own political gain. He has been called a war criminal, a genocidaire, and has even been blamed for the killing of Charlie Kirk. He has dealt with a level of pressure that no Israeli leader has been under since at least David Ben Gurion in the earliest days of the Jewish state. And he has come out on top. He has succeeded in a fashion that nobody would have predicted on October 8, 2023. Israel’s enemies have either been totally defeated or are in such shambles that they pose no major immediate threat. Israel has won this war, decisively. To be sure, Netanyahu will certainly face a large share of the blame for failing to deter the murderous antisemitic spree that started this war. But so will almost every Israeli government and military leader for the past 20 years, and deservedly so. Still, what Netanyahu has been able to do, in the face of domestic, American, and international pressure, is nothing shy of miraculous. His reputation will be tarnished by the start to this war, but should be burnished by the way he has handled it since.

• Another takeaway from this deal is that it was almost scuttled by the efforts of a variety of Western nations to preemptively recognize a Palestinian state and thus reward Hamas while pressuring Israel. The cowardly actions of Canada, France, the UK, Australia, Spain, and others all were intended to force Israel into a bad deal that harmed its interests and kept the hostages imprisoned, all without doing a thing to punish Hamas. Their choices made this deal much harder to achieve and likely set it back several weeks at the very least. And now some – here’s looking at you, Britain – have tried to retroactively claim credit for this ceasefire. The fact that they are trying is positively galling. The fact that they genuinely believe this is a strong sign that Western leftist governance is an unmitigated foreign policy disaster. Shame on them.

  

• These nations were not the only Western actors who failed in their quest to reward and promote antisemitic terrorism; there are lots of activists, media outlets, commentators, politicians, and others who have repeatedly aided and abetted Hamas in its murderous Islamist radicalism. The people who have been crowing about “genocide” for two years are now claiming that this deal is not enough – an absurd claim if you actually believe there was a genocide. Anyone who actually believed the genocide lie has been shown to be an abject fool. But that’s not the only lie they proffer. They claim that this deal is a “hostage swap,” creating a false equivalence between the convicted murderers released by Israel – many of whom will likely go right back to their terroristic ways – and the innocent civilians kept captive by Hamas. They argue that Israel could have had this deal months ago, or even in October 2023 – leaving out the crucial details that, in neither case, would Hamas disarm or release any hostages they consider ‘soldiers’ (almost every single man in captivity). These people are still out marching in Western cities and spewing this antisemitic bile. Nobody should forget what they are doing. They deserve nothing but scorn. And the foreign actors that are pushing these demonstrations should be punished for it.

• The last thing that is worth mentioning here is that I absolutely do not believe that this deal will result in regional peace, or even an end to this conflict. Hamas will not follow through on its promises. It will not disarm, it will not surrender, it will not return the bodies of murdered hostages (it already has failed to do this), it will keep fighting, and it will continue fomenting chaos in Gaza and the West Bank. It has shown for decades that it is not a good faith actor and never will be. Their promises are not worth a thing. Unfortunately for President Trump’s ego, this will only be a temporary pause in the fighting, not the creation of some new kumbaya situation in the Middle East. And that’s okay. Israel satisfied one of its primary war aims in getting out every last living hostage. That was a critical step in this process and something that the president and prime minister Netanyahu deserve immense credit for. Now that the living hostages are home, the gloves can be taken off by the IDF. No more will they have to avoid imploding Hamas’s terror tunnels. No more will they have to focus first on avoiding harm to Israeli civilians. No more will they have to play nice with Hamas and its backers diplomatically. Hamas will break this deal, sooner than anyone thinks. And Israel will be ready to punish them for it.

There will be many more developments over the coming days, weeks, and months. Much can change in this region in an instant; we saw that on October 7, 2023. But this deal is a triumph for Israel and should be seen as such by its supporters. The hostages have returned and have been reunited with their loved ones. For those of us who simply cannot forget the awful images of how this war began, including the kidnapping of the same innocent civilians who came home today, that is a welcome relief and a source of profound gratitude. The job is not yet done, but a major victory has been won. Israel must continue to stand tall and fight for its very existence. I cannot imagine a nation and a people more up for that immense task.

Am Yisrael Chai.