The hostage “negotiations” are going nowhere fast, for the simple reason that we are dealing with a degenerate bunch of lunatics, the kind of people who kidnap dead bodies. What’s the problem? Israel is apparently insisting on the list of hostages that are alive and are going to be released before making any promises. Israel is also in no way, shape or form going to agree to allow Gazans freedom of movement to take their weapons with them within the Strip. Also, Israel isn’t leaving the Philadephi Corridor, not after finding hundreds of smuggling tunnels going into Egypt, which can be used to refuel, rebuild, and rearm Hamas. This is what Israel has consistently demanded.

But Hamas says no. NO, no, no, no, no. So what’s left to talk about?

Whose idea were these “negotiations” anyway?

Still, my daughter and I both agreed in our telephone conversation this morning that we were happy with these fake “negotiations” because it seems that the terrorists “red flag of revenge” will be held in abeyance as long as they continue. Since her son, my grandson, is getting married on Tuesday in Tel Aviv, this is welcome news.

Blinken has just landed in Israel. Again. If he wants to be useful, he needs to pressure intransigent Hamas this time.

Anyone who wants to blame Prime Minister Netanyahu for the stalemate, is sorely mistaken. Bibi has simply held firm to the barest minimum of demands. After all, we are trying to free hostages, otherwise we’d be bombing these degenerates nonstop. But if they won’t even tell us who they are going to release, there is no point in it at all.

The “Release the Hostages Now” people, marching relentlessly with their fruitless slogan through our streets, piously handing out yellow ribbons, are infuriating. As if they, and they alone, want the hostages released now! They are the latest incarnation of those benighted souls who demanded “peace now!” in their time, even though no one was offering peace to Israel at any price. The insistent “right now!” is the battle hymn of the unreasonable child. They want their ice cream NOW, even though you are in the middle of the highway. They want to get there NOW, even though you are only in the middle of the trip with kilometers to go. I am trying to find some compassion for those among them who have family members in Gaza. How horrific must that be! Of course they want this nightmare to end now. But the rest? Hard to understand what they are thinking.

The surviving kibbutzniks of hard-hit Kibbutz Nir Oz in the Gaza Envelope, which was attacked by 300 terrorists and left to fend for themselves for seven hours, on October 7, have now left their hotel rooms and returned to their homes. Only six houses were left intact by the onslaught, in which people were murdered, raped, tortured and burned alive. Many volunteers helped to paint and refurbish their homes.

Osnat Peri, who is the head of Kibbutz Nir-Oz, wrote in the weekend paper Makor Rishon: “Our Kibbutz, which for decades was a symbol of Zionism, love of country, working the land and defending the border, has metamorphosized against our will into the symbol of destruction. 56 of our people were killed, twelve of their bodies kidnapped to Gaza; another 61 kidnapped alive to Gaza, of them 40 returned in the hostage exchange deal. Out of a population of 400, there were 117 casualties. We are a community that was on the verge of extinction.

“But I am here to say: they will not defeat us! Nir-Oz will become a symbol of regeneration and rebuilding. As one of our founders, Meir Ya’ari, said when the Kibbutz was established in 1955: ‘We are not road-weary; we are forgers of a new path.’”

This week the IDF eliminated terrorists involved in the heartbreaking murder of Yohanan Deutsch, the young soldier on his way home to see his lovely fiancée, in a terror attack in the Jordan Valley. Abu Ali Express: “The ISA and IDF eliminated two senior Hamas terrorists in Jenin who were involved in planning the shooting attack in the Jordan Valley.” In the joint operation, an aircraft blew up the two in their vehicle in Jenin: Ahmed Abu Ara from Aqabah, who has lots of blood on his hands and was a senior operative in the production of explosives for terror attacks; and Rafet Dawasi from Silat al-Harithiya, a senior Hamas operative in the Hamas military infrastructure of the Jenin area.

In an unusual move, the IDF made public that it was terrorist Yassin Ghanem – arrested earlier by the ISA and IDF – who pointed the finger at the two. We are wondering what this means.

And just in case you are curious about our neighbors in Lebanon, they are running out of fuel to produce electricity (should I offer to loan them my solar cooking pot?). Algeria has now offered them fuel supplies to run their power plant. These are the folks thrusting out their chests belligerently at us! A primitive society on the verge of collapse.

Meanwhile, Abu Ali points out that there is a decrease in the number of anti-tank missiles launched at us by Hezbollah: May – 5 launches, June – 4 launches, July – 3 launches. August – no launches as of August 18. Perhaps, as Abu Ali suggests, the many Hezbollah operatives killed by Israel in southern Lebanon has decreased the skilled manpower necessary to operate the anti-tank system, leading to fewer launches. Since they were launching these missiles not against tanks, but innocent Israeli civilians in their homes, we are happy to have made headway in putting them out of commission.

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