“Banning Al Jazeera,” reads one characteristically shrill headline, “moves Israel one step closer to dictatorship,” as if there were reason to believe that Israel was already moving in that direction. Seth Mandel explains what such criticisms get wrong about the law the Knesset passed on Monday, which allows for

the temporary license-suspension of media organizations that are found to aid materially a wartime enemy outside of its practice of journalism. The bill is clearly aimed at Al Jazeera, the Qatari state propaganda mouthpiece. It is not, however, a reaction to the propaganda itself. . . . Al Jazeera has crossed two non-journalism-related lines.

The first is that Israeli intelligence agencies claim to have caught Al Jazeera passing along Israeli troop locations to its Hamas allies, which are funded by the same regime as Al Jazeera. That is, Qatar is simply coordinating between its military wing and its propaganda wing. The second is that Al Jazeera has been found giving press credentials to multiple people who turned out to be soldiers in Hamas’s war on Israel. That would be indisputable grounds for suspending an agency’s credentials.

CNN claims the bill stems from the fact that “Netanyahu’s government has also long complained about Al Jazeera’s operations, alleging anti-Israeli bias.” Now, CNN can very easily fact-check the suggestion that Netanyahu is shutting down media with anti-Israel biases. Has CNN been shut down? The CNN reporters should very quickly get an answer to that question.

The real question isn’t why Israel is trying to shutter Al Jazeera. It is why the U.S., which has granted Qatar status as a major non-NATO ally, doesn’t demand that Doha shutter the outlet itself.

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.