Although the prophet Samuel declares that “the Glory of Israel does not lie,” most medieval Christian theologians, going back to Augustine, believed that although God would not (or could not) tell outright lies, He did deceive—for instance, in telling Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac. Only with the Scientific Revolution, argues Dallas G. Denery II, did philosophers begin to argue otherwise, and they did so in order to bolster not their religious beliefs but their rationalist ones:

[T]he commitment of the Scientific Revolution to rational causes for all events, even exceptional or seemingly anomalous ones, robbed God of the power to deceive. Losing the power to deceive, God lost the power to speak, to interfere and interact with the world. From the perspective of scientists this was almost necessary, interested as they were in a stable and constant world reducible to mathematical equations and inviolable principles. God became the source of universal order at the cost of no longer having anything much to do with the universe.

This change brought real consequences. More and more, scientists came to imagine the entire universe as a vast machine, a complex mechanism akin to a clock. God, having designed and created it, wound it up, then stepped back and let it run its course.

Tamir Hayman analyzes the latest reports about an offer by Hamas to release three female soldiers in exchange for 150 captured terrorists, of whom 90 have received life sentences; then, if that exchange happens successfully, a second stage of the deal will begin.

If this does happen, Israel will release all the serious prisoners who had been sentenced to life and who are associated with Hamas, which will leave Israel without any bargaining chips for the second stage. In practice, Israel will release everyone who is important to Hamas without getting back all the hostages. In this situation, it’s evident that Israel will approach the second stage of the negotiations in the most unfavorable way possible. Hamas will achieve all its demands in the first stage, except for a commitment from Israel to end the war completely.

How does this relate to the fighting in Rafah? Hayman explains:

In the absence of an agreement or compromise by Hamas, it is detrimental for Israel to continue the static situation we were in. It is positive that new energy has entered the campaign. . . . The [capture of the] border of the Gaza Strip and the Rafah crossing are extremely important achievements, while the ongoing dismantling of the battalions is of secondary importance.

That being said, Hayman is critical of the approach to negotiations taken so far:

Gradual hostage trades don’t work. We must adopt a different concept of a single deal in which Israel offers a complete cessation of the war in exchange for all the hostages.