Earlier this month, Saudi Arabia allowed the first ever direct flight to the kingdom from Tel Aviv, and invited a delegation of Israeli reporters to cover President Biden’s visit. One of these journalists took the opportunity to travel to Mecca, Islam’s holiest city, and then circulated videos of himself there. Harold Rhode believes this “shameful” act will likely lead “Israel-Saudi relations to cool down” for the time being:

According to Islamic law, only Muslims are allowed to enter Mecca. Non-Muslims who violate this prohibition are seen as religiously contaminating the holy city, and are therefore punished severely. Whatever non-Muslims might think, Muslims do not see the world as non-Muslims do. It is therefore hard to explain in Western terms how serious this transgression is and the extent to which it will set back Israel-Saudi relations.

The Saudis do not have a free press and, like others in the Muslim world, have great difficulty accepting that Western governments cannot rein in their journalists. Even Muslims who know the West well often have difficulty understanding this.

Where does the above-mentioned Israeli-Jewish journalist who went to Mecca fit into this picture? To the best of our knowledge, he is a secular Jew who [perhaps] has little appreciation of the concept of holiness in any religion—including his own.

The Saudi rulers’ claim to fame in the Islamic world is that they protect Islam’s two holiest places—Mecca and Medina. To Muslims, it now looks as though Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman was unable to do so. This shames him and Saudi Arabia, thus undermining their claim to be protecting the holy cities. That’s how Muslims view what happened. Even worse, as the videos he filmed demonstrate, [the Israeli reporter] clearly had fun sneaking into Mecca. From a Muslim perspective, he and by extension all of Israel have undermined the Saudi regime.

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.