The celebrated American soul musician Ray Charles visited Israel three times during his life. During the first, in 1972, he discovered that he was wildly popular in the Jewish state. So enthusiastic was his reception in Jerusalem that in his autobiography Charles recalled that “in 30 years on the road, I had never experienced anything like this.” Shalom Goldman writes:

During his two-week tour, Charles also visited former Israeli prime minister David Ben-Gurion at Kibbutz Sde Boker in the Negev. . . . Israel’s founding father was then eighty-seven years old. The meeting between the “King of Soul” and “the Old Man,” as he was known affectionately by Israelis, has been preserved on film, [so that today] we can hear the children of Sde Boker join Charles and Ben-Gurion singing “Hava Nagilah.” Ray then sang Stevie Wonder’s song “Heaven Help Us All” for Ben-Gurion and the kibbutzniks.

In 1976, four years after he had visited Israel, B’nai B’rith honored Ray Charles as its man of the year. Accepting the award at a dinner in Beverly Hills, Charles said, “Even though I’m not Jewish, . . . Israel is one of the few causes I feel good about supporting. Blacks and Jews are hooked up and bound together by a common history of persecution. If someone besides a black ever sings the real gut-bucket blues, it’ll be a Jew.”

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.