[Order Michael Finch’s new book, A Time to Stand: HERE. Prof. Jason Hill calls it “an aesthetic and political tour de force.”]

Gregg Roman considers the hostage release, and the huge price Israel has paid for their freedom, here: “Israel’s Hostages Come Home, But At What Price?,” by Gregg Roman, Middle East Forum, October 8, 2025:

Every person of conscience celebrates President Trump’s announcement [Speak for yourself — Ed.]. After more than two years of agony, Israeli families will finally embrace their loved ones. Children will see their fathers, parents will hold their children, and spouses will be reunited. This is a moment of pure joy that resonates across the free world. Those who have prayed for this day, demanded this day, now see it arrive.

To the families who have camped outside the Prime Minister’s residence, who have marched every Saturday night, who have lived in suspended animation since October 7—their nightmare is ending. Their strength has moved mountains. The entire Israeli nation stands with them as they prepare to welcome their loved ones home. No one, absolutely no one, questions the imperative of bringing them back.

And yet, even as the world celebrates, we must ask: at what price? And more critically: what comes next?

The arithmetic of this exchange should give everyone pause. Israel will release over 1,700 Palestinian prisoners, including 250 serving life sentences for the most heinous acts of terrorism. These aren’t stone-throwers or protesters. These are the architects of the Park Hotel Passover massacre, the planners of the Sbarro pizzeria bombing, the orchestrators of attacks that turned school buses into crime scenes. Each has blood on their hands and expertise in their heads.

Hamas is trading 48 hostages—20 living and 28 dead—for 1,700 experienced operatives—a massive force multiplication that transforms tactical defeat into strategic victory. Every released prisoner returns to Gaza or the West Bank as a hero, a symbol of resistance, armed with years of additional training and burning with renewed purpose.

History provides a grim preview of what comes next. Yahya Sinwar, the architect of October 7, spent 22 years in Israeli prison studying Hebrew, analyzing Israeli society, planning his revenge. Released in the 2011 Shalit deal among 1,026 other prisoners, he used his freedom to orchestrate the deadliest day in Israel’s history. Today, Israel is releasing another generation of potential Sinwars.

The framework speaks optimistically of Hamas agreeing to disarm, to leave Gaza, to accept peaceful coexistence. But Hamas has committed to none of this. They’ve agreed only to Phase 1—the hostage exchange that strengthens their position. Points 2-20 of Trump’s plan remain aspirational, contingent on Hamas’s voluntary compliance with demands no genocidal movement has ever accepted without military defeat….

Hamas has made clear it will not disarm completely. It wants to remain a fighting force. Nor has it agreed to have its leaders in Gaza removed from the Strip. It clearly wants to remain in a condition to claim that it has emerged victorious from the war — with victory being defined as having thousands of its combatants still standing despite the massive IDF effort to destroy them. Hamas, though battered, has not yet been completely defeated, and still has 15,000-20,000 combatants, in Gaza, their numbers being swelled by new recruits to the terror group. These refusals are so far being glossed over in all the understandable jubilation over the release of the hostages.

History teaches that ideological movements committed to genocide don’t negotiate themselves out of existence. The Allies didn’t offer Nazi Germany a twenty-point peace plan hoping the SS would voluntarily disarm. They demanded unconditional surrender, destroyed Nazi military capability, and rebuilt from scratch. Hamas, whose charter calls for Israel’s annihilation and whose leaders promise to repeat October 7 “again and again,” requires the same treatment.

So yes, let the world celebrate these hostages’ return. Let Israel embrace them, heal with them, and honor their survival. But no one should mistake this tactical success for strategic victory. Israel is purchasing today’s relief with tomorrow’s security, saving current hostages while creating conditions for future ones.

Of those 250 convicted murderers that Israel is now freeing, how many will promptly return to plotting the murders of more Israelis, the way that Yahya Sinwar did after being freed in 2011, becoming the mastermind of the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023? How many of the 1,700 others the IDF took into custody during this war who are also being freed, had been, or will now become, after being freed, Hamas terrorists? The Shalit exchange of 2011, in which more than a thousand terrorists were exchanged for one soldier, and among those 1,000 were many who went on to murder hundreds of Israelis, provides a cautionary example.

The families waiting at border crossings deserve their reunions. But other families—not yet formed, children not yet born—deserve more than becoming the next generation’s hostages. They deserve the permanent peace that comes only through Hamas’s complete defeat….

If Hamas balks at disarming, as it is required to do under Phase 2 of the deal, Israel should declare that constitutes a material breach of the peace agreement and renew its fight against the terror group in Gaza, including retaking territory it had puled back from as part of Phase 1. If that angers President Trump, so be it.