With Israelis going to the polls next week, Haviv Rettig Gur comments on the predicament party leaders now find themselves in:

If Prime Minister Netanyahu manages to eke out a slim majority, it will likely be so slim that he will find himself forced to cater to the whims of the most right-wing lawmakers on the ballot. Netanyahu’s opponents, meanwhile, theoretically led by Yair Lapid of [the secular, center-left] Yesh Atid, may well be too divided and diverse to produce a manageable coalition.

Many . . . factions are trying to take advantage of the standoff in the hope of playing kingmaker after election day. The Islamist party Ra’am, for example, has detached from the Arab-majority Joint List to mount its own run, promising to deal with anyone who wins the election, even the disliked Netanyahu, in order to deliver budgets and government attention to its marginalized Bedouin and Arab constituents.

This competition at the margins has caused mudslinging between parties who are by no means competing for the same voters: the ḥaredi United Torah Judaism, led by Moshe Gafni, and the right-wing and anti-ḥaredi Yisrael Beytenu, led by Avigdor Lieberman. Each has found in the other the perfect enemy with which to rally voters:

Lieberman and . . . Gafni face the same problem. Their respective parties and broader political camps seem close to victory; nevertheless, they have each remained maddeningly far from it for two long years. Each is threatened from within his own camp—Lieberman, from secularist challengers like Yesh Atid and others, UTJ by frustrated ḥaredi voters streaming toward the religious Zionist parties. Each badly needed a nemesis, a threat to his respective constituents’ way of life, to rally the ranks and draw the apathetic out to the polls.

Over the past few days, with . . . accusations of “anti-Semitism” and “fundamentalism,” they have found in each other the answer to their troubles.

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.