Does Hamas think this is a good look for them?
I suppose to their followers it looks like a show of strength. But to anyone the least bit objective, it looks like a pack of larping bullies lording it over a slight young woman:
Welcome home, Agam Berger – the woman in the video – as well as Arbel Yahoud, similar but slightly different optics:
Also 80-year-old Gadi Mozes comes home:
I’m pretty sure ham-ass doesn’t care, and doesn’t have the intelligence, to be concerned with optics.
Praising With Faint Damns:
I strongly disagree. In fact, they are hyper-concerned with optics. Just consider Pallywood. In this case, they are not trying to appeal to the West, however. But they often are.
God bless the released women and men and may He help them heal.
Yes, it is all about the audience. Hamas is no different than any other dictatorship. The prime directive is to stay in power. They cannot risk looking weak to the people they lord over.
What Rufus said, in triplicate!
I’d agree with the Boss here…I think these optics are for Palestinian consumption… especially the ratios of the trades… hostages/Palestinian releases.
I also would think Israel can use these same optics to their advantage. There are no neutral innocents among the Palestinians. The videos are evidence of supportive mobs… women children one and all. Peace is a myth with them. Quarantine and overwatch is how it has to be.
It would be a mistake to think that Islamic societies view things the same way as a modern emasculated, self flagellated, formerly western, now multiculturalist society views things.
The Roman used to parade their prisoners in parades.
there is a reason Jesus called people like them dogs
Is the average Gazan fully behind Hamas, or is it a matter of not wanting to be the first to stop clapping after Comrade Stalin speaks? I expect it’s a mixture.
From the river
to the sea
Hamashites
must cease to be
Yasser Arafat provided the canonical example of saying one thing in Arabic to Arabs, then something entirely different in English to Westerners.
Even the “LA Times” wrote an article titled:
_____________________________________
Listen to Arafat in Arabic, Not in English
Opposition to the Oslo accords is not opposition to peace, but distrust of the man who has yet to reject a criminal agenda.
–“Listen to Arafat in Arabic, Not in English” (1996)
https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1996-02-27-me-40531-story.html
Parading prisoners through a hostile civilian crowd is a war crime.
Aw, bear with ‘em.
They just want to show the world how emaciated they all are…after over 15 months of being starved to death by the ZIO-Nazis.
Why does Israel make such lopsided deals?
Are Trump ‘n Vance about to pull an Obama ‘n Biden? Trump administration reveals how long it could take to rebuild Gaza
Trump ‘n Vance promised to cut spending. I hope they don’t make the American taxpayer pay for anything in Gaza.
Good! Let the Gazans wait 21 years before rebuilding starts—they fully supported Hamas so let them experience that their actions have consequences.
Ditto on Good! Get our money ‘n buttocks outta Gaza – this disaster is for the UN to fix…
“This disaster is for the UN to fix.” I respectfully dissent. The Gazans broke it. The Gazans need to fix it. Alternatively, Iran can bail them out. It’s hard to view the videos of the Gazans taunting the returning Israeli hostages and not understand that Hamas is an evil organization that enjoys broad popular support. Hamas made the bed–the Gazans need to lie in it.
The Israelis have an odd culture. There’s broad popular support for disproportionate hostage trades. Moreover, 65-80 percent of American Jews voted for Harris. Releasing thousands of murderers won’t end well. Kind of reminds me of rebuilding houses in a flood zone. Do it with your own money–but don’t come crying to me when another flood happens. Seems like a significant minority of Israelis want to play hardball with the terrorists that surround their country–and a comparable sized group is in the appeasement business. Perhaps our military aid should be keyed to a non-appeasement consensus.
Chad King:
The Israelis have an odd culture. There’s broad popular support for disproportionate hostage trades.
—————————
No there isn’t.
Most Israelis understand what a disaster this is, but are biting their tongues and seeing it through because nothing else can be done.
Most Israelis understand that the people pushing this release are the same selfish, short-sighted cadre of Leftists that pushed the Shalit deal – another emotional mau-mauing appeal to free Israelis “at any price”, which released Sinwar and the other terrorists who planned and executed the October 7 attack.
The sane majority – including some families of hostages – wanted the IDF to go full-bore in Gaza and free the hostages from a position of strength.
Instead Bibi stupidly left in command the woke Oslo-era generals whose tunnel vision caused this massacre. So after over a year of fighting, we still have not cleared or taken control of any areas of Gaza…. because these blockheads are still clinging to the old concept of “limited engagement” with our “partner for peace” instead of taking territory.
And the Israeli Left has poured billions into demoralizing, anti-Bibi media campaigns that exploited the hostage issue.
So the sane majority is sucking it up and hoping that this will be the end of it – that interest and momentum will dissipate when the live hostages are released.
And hoping against hope that we don’t lose momentum or will to continue the war until Hamas is finished – that the international community will not pounce on this opportunity to tie Israel’s hands…
This is why I have refrained from posting on the hostage threads this time around… like many Israelis I am deeply conflicted about the deal and disgusted with how we got here, and am not interested in encouraging the Left-wing media circus.
Many Israelis like me are waiting to find out exactly what President Trump and Bibi agreed to in exchange for this deal going through.
+
Barry M-
Not realistic to expect the poor Gazans to appear emaciated, after having been genocided to death and stuff…
Just saying…
it’s a complicated question, because the rot in the IDF and even probably the security services, is rather extreme, we knew about eisenkot and halevi somewhat but even Gallant turned out to be a rotten egg,
now the al thanis that run Qatar, pretend to be embarassed about such things, but they allowed ksm sanctuary in their own bureaucracy, they provided a safe house for Zarquawi, similar arrangements for the Taliban,
remember Hamas’s battle cry about Khaybar, and you realize this is the point of the exercise, terror, intimidation et al,
and it goes way before the founding of the state of israel, to the head man, izzat al Quaddim (sic)
It appeals to all the psychopathic scumbags who sympathize with Hamas over Israel of which there are unfortunately far too many.
It was a no win situation for Israel. Torture hostages to unspeakable evil until Israel pays the ransom.
Ben David:
You’re aces in my book. Feel free to comment however you see best.
I support Israel, but I really don’t understand its internal politics.
Sometimes, looking on from far away and well outside, it isn’t clear the Israelis themselves taken altogether understand Israeli politics all that well either.
But I’m willing to bet us Americans still have them beat regarding our failure to understand our own.
then there is this
https://melaniephillips.substack.com/p/netanyahu-derangement-syndrome
of course, the so called palestinian faction compete for their zealousness, not only hamas, but palestinian islamic jihad, popular front et al
Quotes from an interview that appeared in this weekend’s Makor Rishon newspaper with Israeli MP and minister Orit Strook – a member of Smotrich’s Religious Zionist party…. Likud MPs are saying similar things.
“With all the seriousness of the current deal, if it remains an interim act and in the end we return (to the war) and win, then it is indeed a terrible mistake, but a tactical one. If the deal signals the end of the war, then we have failed in everything we promised the soldiers. We have failed in our historical role, we have failed in our duty to eliminate this threat from the State of Israel… We have made the State of Israel a hostage for many years… And when I see the enormous pressure that has been on the prime minister and a significant part of the Likud ministers for many months, and (on) a significant part of the public in Israel and even on religious Zionism, I feel that there is pressure here to brainwash and silence.”
“As hard as it is to say, [the terrorists freed for] every soldier who is released will cause the next soldiers to be kidnapped, just like that. That’s what we’re broadcasting. And that’s even before we talk about what we paid in the field… Soldiers many of whom did not return, many of whom I unfortunately meet in hospitals. Thousands of wounded. I met hundreds of families in cemeteries and mourning condolences this past year, and almost all of them, had only one request:
not another round.
People went to this war knowing that they could give their lives, and everyone’s request was that we end the story of Gaza. The goals of the war are a kind of agreement between us and the soldiers.”
If your browser supports translation, this is recommended.
https://www.makorrishon.co.il/news/812600/