Israel is willing to pay an extremely high price for a return of their hostages in Gaza, even if it is easy "to criticize a deal when one of the results is the release of brutal terrorists," former Ambassador to Israel David Friedman told Newsmax on Wednesday.
Appearing on "National Report," Friedman explained that "Israel is a small country. Everyone in Israel now knows these hostages, knows their families, shares in their suffering, shares in their grief. We all want them home, ultimately that is the dominating sentiment in Israel ... [and] Israel is willing to pay an extremely high price for that."
But Friedman emphasized that "the most important takeaway is that this deal doesn't end the war" and those who are criticizing the agreement are wrong that it will allow Hamas to continue controlling the Gaza Strip, regroup and rearm to threaten Israel again in the near future, saying that none of that is part of the deal.
Friedman stressed that "these are life and death decisions that nobody wants to make" and "when you are negotiating with terrorists to get hostages back, you got to hold your nose."
Talking about another aspect of the deal, Friedman also contended that "what the entry of President-elect Trump has done is it has made Hamas understand that their days are numbered and that they better make a deal now or it will only get worse from here."
The former ambassador pointed out that "this was a deal that Israel was prepared to make seven months ago and Hamas backed off. Hamas now is agreeing to what they were supposed to have agreed to before. Why are they at the table now, why are they doing it now, because they know there is no upside to continuing, it will only get worse" under the Trump Administration.
Friedman reiterated that "the Trump administration has made this deal that probably could not have been made otherwise."
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Brian Freeman ✉
Brian Freeman, a Newsmax writer based in Israel, has more than three decades writing and editing about culture and politics for newspapers, online and television.
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