On Tuesday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo made an unprecedent direct flight from Tel Aviv to Khartoum, amid speculation that Sudan would be the next Arab country to make peace with Israel. While the Sudanese government then clarified that nothing of the sort was to happen, its statement on the matter left the possibility open in a way that until recently would have been unimaginable. Benny Avni sees Pompeo’s visit, and even the rumors about peace, as evidence that Sudan, having freed itself of the genocidal dictator Omar al-Bashir, is ready to reconcile with the West:

[Sudan’s] premier, Abdalla Hamdok, said that the current government has no authority to make peace with Israel before an election. Yet [his country’s] location on the shores of the Red Sea would certainly make it a strategic ally for Israel and America.

Sudan, meanwhile, is desperate for foreign aid and Western investment. To start getting that, it needs to be off the State Department’s terror list, where it was placed in 1993 for harboring top terrorists, including Osama bin Laden. Several America-based terror-related lawsuits against Sudan remain pending, while others have been resolved.

Delisting with respect to terrorism goes beyond technicalities. It’s a political issue with wider implication than ties with Israel. As everywhere else in the world, China’s influence in the Middle East is growing. Unless America competes in this new cold war-like struggle, countries like Sudan will fall under Beijing’s spell.

Washington [should try] to make Sudan, once a cruel terrorist state, into an American ally. Delisting and relations with Israel can mark the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

Even if the agreement with Hamas to secure the release of some, and possibly all, of the remaining hostages—and the bodies of those no longer alive—is a prudent decision for Israel, it comes at a very high price: potentially leaving Hamas in control of Gaza and the release of vast numbers of Palestinian prisoners, many with blood on their hands. Nadav Shragai reminds us of the history of such agreements:

We cannot forget that the terrorists released in the Jibril deal during the summer of 1985 became the backbone of the first intifada, resulting in the murder of 165 Israelis. Approximately half of the terrorists released following the Oslo Accords joined Palestinian terror groups, with many participating in the second intifada that claimed 1,178 Israeli lives. Those freed in [exchange for Gilad Shalit in 2011] constructed Gaza, the world’s largest terror city, and brought about the October 7 massacre. We must ask ourselves: where will those released in the 2025 hostage deal lead us?

Taking these painful concessions into account Michael Oren argues that they might nonetheless be necessary:

From day one—October 7, 2023—Israel’s twin goals in Gaza were fundamentally irreconcilable. Israel could not, as its leaders pledged, simultaneously destroy Hamas and secure all of the hostages’ release. The terrorists who regarded the hostages as the key to their survival would hardly give them up for less than an Israeli commitment to end—and therefore lose—the war. Israelis, for their part, were torn between those who felt that they could not send their children to the army so long as hostages remained in captivity and those who held that, if Hamas wins, Israel will not have an army at all.

While 33 hostages will be released in the first stage, dozens—alive and dead—will remain in Gaza, prolonging their families’ suffering. The relatives of those killed by the Palestinian terrorists now going free will also be shattered. So, too, will the Israelis who still see soldiers dying in Gaza almost daily while Hamas rocket fire continues. What were all of Israel’s sacrifices for, they will ask. . . .

Perhaps this outcome was unavoidable from the beginning. Perhaps the deal is the only way of reconciling Israel’s mutually exclusive goals of annihilating Hamas and repatriating the hostages. Perhaps, despite Israel’s subsequent military triumph, this is the price for the failures of October 7.