After Vladimir Putin resumed his war against Ukraine last month, Germany suspended the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, designed to import natural gas from Russia. But even without this pipeline, Germany, like most of Europe, nonetheless depends on Russia for its energy needs—just as the Russian economy depends on energy exports. Dore Gold points out that the Jewish state has a role to play in reducing this dependence, and making economic warfare against Moscow possible:

In late 2021, roughly 40 percent of the EU’s natural-gas imports came from Russia. In early March, President Joe Biden announced a ban on Russian oil and gas imports into the United States. The EU announced, in response, that it planned to reduce its imports of Russian natural gas by two-thirds by the end of 2022. . . . Currently, other suppliers to Europe by pipeline include Norway (22 percent), Algeria (18 percent), and Azerbaijan (9 percent), but they cannot provide a substitute for Russian gas.

The eastern Mediterranean, as a whole, including Israel, has immense gas reserves that have been estimated to reach 10.8 trillion cubic meters of gas, or roughly 5 percent of the world’s gas reserves. This amount of gas has been estimated to be roughly equivalent to 76 years of gas consumption by the EU.

With the anticipated improvement in Israeli ties to Turkey, Ankara could emerge as an export hub for Israeli gas in the future. Thus, in the aftermath of the war in Ukraine, there are multiple reasons why the work on the East Med pipeline, [which would bring Israeli, Egyptian, and Cypriot gas to Europe], must be resumed, along with gas exploration in the eastern Mediterranean, as soon as possible. Moreover, increasing the supply of gas to the West will also help drive down its price, thereby undermining Russia’s ability to fund its war machine in the future.

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.