What happened to you, Bibi? And how could you do this to us? For fifteen months, you stood immobile, firm, brave, resolute, a wall of granite against terrorist demands, understanding the terrible price of capitulation. You didn't care when Joe Biden told you not to go into Rafah and threatened you with an arms embargo. Not even Yahya Sinwar or Khamenei or Hezbollah could get you to back down. Not the crying hostage families or the nearly 1000 dead soldiers.
So what changed? What finally made you crack?
Your will of iron has crumbled against the might of Trump. One thousand terrorists for our loved ones. Each number represents a potential future attack, another family torn apart, another siren that will pierce the night. We know this. You know this. You, who once spoke with unwavering conviction about never negotiating with terrorists, has signed their names to a deal that will flood our streets with those who sought our destruction.
The bitter irony is that I understand. We all understand. When you see the faces of the hostages, hear their families' pleas, watch as days turn into weeks into months of torment, even iron will bend. This is the cruel genius of taking hostages – they force the most hardened resolve to confront an impossible choice between tactical wisdom and raw human desperation.
Our enemies have learned that our greatest strength – our reverence for human life – is also our most exploitable weakness. They celebrate this deal as a victory, and in military terms, perhaps it is. Each released terrorist represents years of intelligence work, countless operations, and brave soldiers who risked everything to capture them. Now, in one stroke, that work is undone.
This decision will haunt us. Some of these released terrorists will almost certainly return to violence. Future Israeli leaders will face even more impossible demands, knowing this precedent. The strategic cost is devastating, and the families of future victims will trace their loss back to this moment.
But I cannot bring myself to condemn your choice, even as I rage against the circumstances that forced it. Because in the moment of your breaking, you proved what makes us different from our enemies. We choose life, even when that choice comes at a terrible price. We remain human, even when our humanity is used as a weapon against us.
On Sunday, we will start to welcome home our loved ones, and our joy will be real. But it will be a joy tinged with fear, with anger, with the knowledge that this cycle will likely repeat. We will hold our returned hostages close, even as we strengthen our defenses against those we were forced to release.
This is the price of remaining human in an inhuman world. Today, iron bent – not because it was weak, but because even the strongest metal can be forced to choose between breaking and bending. We bent. We remain unbroken. But the cost of this distinction will haunt us for years to come.
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