Unfortunately, in the Arab world in particular, polls and surveys indicate that most do adhere to it. It is also common, but to nowhere near the same extent, in the non-Arab Muslim world.

The fact that there are moderate Muslims and even apostate Muslims doesn’t change these sobering and very dangerous facts.

Oh, they’ll stop fighting. They’ll plead for peace, and even agree to it. And that peace will last right up until they think your attention has started to wander. Then they’ll once again go for the Israeli (and it’s not just Jews; any Israeli, regardless of ethnicity, is seen as a valid target by these people) throat.

It happens every time.

With regret for them, I think it’s time for the IDF and government to stop playing the hostage game with Hamas or any other terrorists.

My husband was a fairly high-level executive with a large multinational company. He went all over the world. I think his company had clandestine kidnapping insurance. However, he told me clearly and emphatically that I was never to pay ransom for him if he were taken. On occasion his business visits were done accompanied by guards with machine guns.

I know it is a difficult concept, as these people have spouses and families, but the leverage the Muslims hold would be nullified.

Gaza should be carpet bombed. They are not signatories to the Geneva Convention, so can be legally carpet bombed.

Erronius

It has not worked out as the Left planned – although many of the families are themselves left-leaning, many Israelis are appalled by the manipulation of these peoples’ distress. And they have been countered by many parents who – at least in the Israeli media – have expressed support for the rigorous prosecution of the war.

In addition, families of fallen soldiers have unfortunately learned the drill – and almost every one of them calls for continued war until victory. Particularly pointed are the calls of parents that “our son’s loss not be for nothing, as it was for those who fell in the previous ‘limited engagements’ that did not solve the problem”. Ouch.

The return of some hostages – and the unfolding revelations of their abuse – has taken a lot of the urgency out of this issue. I must admit that it increases doubt that many have survived – and there is a slow reduction in the official count as more bodies from October 7th are identified.

Taking the larger view, many Israelis are disgusted by the Left’s political maneuvering during war – on the hostages, on the judicial reform issue, attacking Bibi but ignoring the Left-wing generals who precipitated the worst aspects of the attack. Et cetera.

Barry Meislin:
To be sure the number of Israelis killed (approximately 200) so far is heart-wrenching …
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If it were not for the hostage issue, Israel could be carpet-bombing.
Instead they are deploying infantry soldiers trained for urban conflict – as in the ineffectual “limited engagement” wars that targeted the terrorists and left the “innocent” civilians.

https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/israel-s-wars-and-operations

Does anyone remember those names? Historians will call them “the Oslo wars”… this is the 5th or 6th depending how you count.

For many Israelis the Army is fighting the last war – based on the false Oslo “conceptzia” that we have partners for peace – and causing needless casualties.

And the urban-style conflict is the source of most of the casualties… the cities are being leveled anyway, so what’s the point?

The people are way ahead of the Army and bureaucracy in changing their attitudes and goals. And in being willing to take the bien-pensant gloves off.

Some people here have even expressed the grim notion that the failed rescue attempts we’ve seen will slap the Army out of heroic Entebbe-type pipe dreams and direct their attention to the work at hand.

Not for this fellow!
“Top EU Diplomat Meets With Hezbollah Terror Group As War in Lebanon Looms”—
https://europeanconservative.com/articles/news/top-eu-diplomat-meets-with-hezbollah-terror-group-as-war-in-lebanon-looms/

For him, extreme wishful thinking—IOW DENIAL—is the be-all and end-all of existence….
(To be fair to him, though, he’s a Spanish socialist…)