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The Hostage Deal Means Israel Is Fighting the Clock
(Wall Street Journal) Dominic Green - Michael Oren, Israel's ambassador to Washington during the Obama years, expects U.S. and international pressure for ceasefires to grow "exponentially" in the coming weeks. A ceasefire deprives Israel of military momentum and transfers the initiative to Hamas. Now that Israel has agreed to a short ceasefire to enable the return of some of the hostages, the Biden administration will expect longer ceasefires. Hamas will remain armed and dangerous in Gaza and will use this ceasefire to regroup. The ceasefire's terms allow Hamas to extend the truce by releasing 10 hostages a day. As Hamas starts to trade adult, male and military hostages, the group's demands will rise to release hundreds of Palestinian terrorists. More than 200,000 Israelis are internally displaced from the southern regions adjoining Gaza and the northern border with Lebanon. This ceasefire with Hamas won't return those Israelis home. It will, however, embolden Iran and its proxies. Oren asks, "What's going to happen when the message gets out that we can be hit more or less with impunity, and when we try to defend ourselves, someone's going to slap a ceasefire on us?" Restoring Israel's deterrence is a matter of survival for the Jewish state. Oren hears several clocks ticking at once. There is the "ammo clock": The IDF needs to be resupplied consistently with U.S.-made advanced munitions. There is the "reservist clock": Israel has mobilized an army equivalent to those of Britain and France combined; its young men and women, he says, form "the backbone of our high-tech economy." There is the "economic clock": Foreign investment and tourism have collapsed, and Israel is burning money on the war. There is the "humanitarian clock": Footage continues to show civilian casualties and more than a million displaced Gazans. Israel needs to stop these clocks to survive. The Biden administration should create time and diplomatic space for Israel's forces to break Hamas. That means preventing the terrorists from setting the timetable in the Gaza war.