While the “who” of the hostage releases remains the most pressing question, the “how” is not to be ignored. Hamas, evidently in response to Israeli complaints, has avoided in the past two weeks the mob scenes that accompanied earlier releases, choosing instead to stick with the sadistic ceremonies where hostages are forced to wave to an audience of Hamas members and read prepared statements. Rachel O’Donoghue comments:

Hamas wanted to send a message to the Israeli public—the very people it had so brutally attacked on October 7—that it remained unbowed and undefeated. . . . That’s why Hamas operatives arrived [at the ceremonies] dressed in stolen IDF uniforms, brandishing Israeli weapons looted from their October 7 massacre. That’s why the hostages were transported to the release point in a vehicle stolen on that same day. It was psychological warfare wrapped in a grotesque display of theater.

Another intended recipient of Hamas’s performance was the international media. With billions of people in their reach, these outlets inform the masses—and as we have seen, many have been all too willing to launder Hamas’ image, buying into its propaganda. That’s why Hamas has eagerly invited journalists to film these grotesque spectacles, confident that much of the press will fail to call them what they are.

CNN, for instance, referred to the perverse gifts Hamas gives the released hostages as “memorabilia.”

Yesterday, Israel’s Channel 12 reported that Israeli representatives have been involved in secret talks, brokered by the United Arab Emirates, with their Syrian counterparts about the potential establishment of diplomatic relations between their countries. Even more surprisingly, on Wednesday an Israeli reporter spoke with a senior official from Syria’s information ministry, Ali al-Rifai. The prospect of a member of the Syrian government, or even a private citizen, giving an on-the-record interview to an Israeli journalist was simply unthinkable under the old regime. What’s more, his message was that Damascus seeks peace with other countries in the region, Israel included.

These developments alone should make Israelis sanguine about Donald Trump’s overtures to Syria’s new rulers. Yet the interim president Ahmed al-Sharaa’s jihadist resumé, his connections with Turkey and Qatar, and brutal attacks on minorities by forces aligned with, or part of, his regime remain reasons for skepticism. While recognizing these concerns, Noah Rothman nonetheless makes the case for optimism:

The old Syrian regime was an incubator and exporter of terrorism, as well as an Iranian vassal state. The Assad regime trained, funded, and introduced terrorists into Iraq intent on killing American soldiers. It hosted Iranian terrorist proxies as well as the Russian military and its mercenary cutouts. It was contemptuous of U.S.-backed proscriptions on the use of chemical weapons on the battlefield, necessitating American military intervention—an unavoidable outcome, clearly, given Barack Obama’s desperate efforts to avoid it. It incubated Islamic State as a counterweight against the Western-oriented rebel groups vying to tear that regime down, going so far as to purchase its own oil from the nascent Islamist group.

The Assad regime was an enemy of the United States. The Sharaa regime could yet be a friend to America. . . . Insofar as geopolitics is a zero-sum game, taking Syria off the board for Russia and Iran and adding it to the collection of Western assets would be a triumph. At the very least, it’s worth a shot. Trump deserves credit for taking it.