This weekend’s edition of Makor Rishon published a fascinating article by Israeli Nobel Prize winner (Economics, 2005) Robert J. Aumann, who received the prize together with Thomas Schilling, “for having enhanced our understanding of conflict and cooperation through game-theory analysis.”

So, who could be more of an expert about negotiations with terrorists?

This is what Aumann wrote: “The land of Israel was devastated by the announcement that six imprisoned hostages had been murdered in cold blood. Dear Readers, we ourselves killed them when we bellowed publicly time and again to ourselves and the rest of the world: “Here is our soft underbelly. This is the place where you can hurt us.

“For eleven months the country has been inundated by the fate of the hostages. You can’t make a move without hearing their personal stories and seeing their photos in every grocery store, street corner, bus stop, train station, workplace, army camp, school. It would have been most appropriate if this was directed just at ourselves. But it isn’t. Our enemy is also listening. He hears: ‘Hostage deal now!’ which amounts to surrender. The IDF will leave the places we have taken over in Gaza at the cost of losing the best of our soldiers and Hamas will move in and once again rule. This we cannot do. But with these constant protests, we have encouraged the enemy to ask more of us than we can possibly give, which is how we killed the six hostages.

“This didn’t start with October 7,” Aumann says. “It started with the Gilad Shalit deal in which the public campaign to free one soldier put tremedous pressure on Netanyahu so that in the end he released 1,027 terrorists, including Sinwar. In exchange, a few years later, we got 1,200 murdered Israelis and hundreds of kidnapped. Sinwar and his murderers understood back then that this was the path to victory. “Those who didn’t understand this back then when they were demanding a deal for Gilad Shalit , must surely understand it now,” writes Aumann. (Eh, not really – NR)

“Our present Prime Minister was responsible for the Shalit deal. Back then he didn’t withstand the pressure. He has to understand now what a catastrophic mistake it was, and not repeat it. If we want to have a future in this country we have to stop encouraging and rewarding kidnappings – immediately. If we want to save our children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren from standing before a similar cruel fate, we must change the equation. We cannot strengthen the idea in our enemies’ heads that this is the way he can defeat us; that he doesn’t have to fight us and be victorious over us on the battlefield. That it’s enough to just kidnap a few Israelis, issue demands, and get everything he’s asking for.

“We are dealing with an enemy who is evil, bitter and cruel and who has created for our society an unbearable, painful, heartbreaking dilemma. Hamas is holding one hundred hostages. At least a third of them are already not alive. Hamas is toying with us in its negotiations because it knows that every scrap of hope followed by disappointment ruptures Israeli society.

“Hamas took these hostages, and Hamas murdered them in cold blood last week. It is impossible that the murder of these hostages will lead to advancing the negotiations and concessions on our part to the enemy, instead of eliciting severe punishments. Everyone calling for ‘A Deal Now’ is endangering the lives of every remaining hostage. In addition, it will reveal to Hamas, and all future terrorists, that this is the way to defeat us. We must not do it.”

You don’t need to be a Noble Laureate to understand this simple idea.

The death of three Israelis working at the Allenby border with Jordan by a Jordanian truck driver (immediately killed by IDF security) who was identified by Palestinian sources as Maher al-Jazi, from the city of Ma’an, in southern Jordan, a member of the Bedouin al-Khawitat tribe, is completely Jordan’s responsibility. The dead: Yohanan Shchori, 61, a father of six from the town of Ma’ale Efraim, Yuri Birnbaum, 65, from the town of Na’ama, and Adrian Marcelo Podzamczer, from the city of Ariel. All three worked at the border crossing facilitating deliveries.

Palestinians in Hebron and Jordan gave out candies to celebrate the death of Israelis.

Just as terrorists in Gaza were being supplied through the Egyptian border, terrorists in Judea and Samaria are being supplied through Jordanian border. For the moment, Israel has sealed its border with Jordan, pending Jordanian clarifications on how this happened.

I had a Zoom today with relatives in Florida, very intelligent people. When I said that they musn’t vote for Kamala Harris because she is against Israel, urging a cease fire now deal that means Israeli surrender and further rapes and murders, she said: “I don’t understand. Aren’t thousands of Israelis marching in the streets demanding a cease fire deal now?”

The damage these Israeli idiots are causing, is immeasurable.

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