Last Friday, the Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky visited the Canadian parliament. For the occasion, the speaker of the house invited a ninety-eight-year-old Ukrainian World War II veteran to attend, and introduced him as a “hero”—prompting a standing ovation. It was soon discovered that this guest of honor had served in a Ukrainian-manned SS division that fought the Soviets under Nazi command. Terry Glavin observes that the incident has only given “new life” to official Russian propaganda about Kyiv’s supposed domination by Nazis, which has also been directed against Ottawa. Nor is it unique:

[This] happened on the eve of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, of all days. And in the presence of the gallant Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, himself a Jew, during what should have been a triumphant visit to the House of Commons. We are all suitably chastened, of course. The consensus is that parliament should now turn to sensibly banal questions like this one: how can we ensure that something like this never happens again?

There were also apologies all round last year because of the horrible optics of the Liberal MP Salma Zahid and the cabinet minister Omar Alghabra along with MPs from all the parties gathering for a Palestine Day event on Parliament Hill with characters known for regurgitating praise of terrorists and publishing outright Holocaust denial. Sorry, won’t happen again. Unacceptable.

Last year there was also the case of Laith Marouf, a grossly anti-Semitic apologist for the Syrian mass murderer Bashar al-Assad whose proposal to hector federally regulated broadcasters about how not to be racist was championed by cabinet heavyweight Ahmed Hussen and funded lavishly. Marouf’s various projects were eventually found to have hoovered up hundreds of thousands of dollars in [government] consultation funds.

The remedy? A promise that nothing like it would happen again. There would be workshops for senior federal officials in how to spot Jew hatred when it’s shouted in their faces.

The negotiations that secured the release of Edan Alexander were conducted by the U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Adam Boehler, with reportedly little or no involvement from the Israelis. Amit Segal considers:

Does Edan’s release mean foreign-passport holders receive priority over those only with Israeli passports? He is, after all, is a dual American-Israeli citizen who grew up in New Jersey. While it may not be the intended message, many will likely interpret the deal as such: foreign-passport holders are worth more. In a country where many citizens are already obtaining second passports, encouraging even more to do so is unwise, to say the least.

Another bad look for Israel: Washington is freeing Edan, not Jerusalem. . . .

Then there’s the question of the Qatari jumbo jet. At this point we can only speculate, but it’s hard to ignore the fact that as Hamas is set to release a hostage, Trump is also accepting a super luxury jumbo jet from Qatar worth around $400 million. Are the two connected?

Still, Segal reminds us that in one, crucial way, this deal is superior to those that preceded it:

The fact that Hamas appears to be freeing a hostage for nothing in return is indeed a victory. Don’t forget: in February, in exchange for the bodies of four hostages, Israel released over 600 Palestinian prisoners, not to mention the Palestinian terrorists—many of whom have Jewish blood on their hands—released in other deals during this war.

As serious as the concerns Segal and others have raised are, that last point makes me think that some of the handwringing about the deal by other commentators is exaggerated. The coming IDF offensive—tanks have been massing on the edge of Gaza in recent days—the many weeks during which supplies haven’t entered the Strip, and Israel’s declared plans not to allow Hamas the ability to distribute humanitarian aid cannot but have made the jihadists more pliable.

And the deal was made on a schedule set by Israel, which said that it would embark on a full-bore offensive at the end of the week if the hostages aren’t released. Moreover, in the parameters Hamas has set forth until now, Alexander, a male soldier, would have been among the last of the hostages to be exchanged.

What of the claim that President Trump has achieved what Prime Minister Netanyahu couldn’t? Again, there is some truth here. But it’s worth noting that the Hostages Forum—a group representing most of the hostages’ families, consistently critical of Netanyahu, and supported by a broad swath of Israelis—has since at least January been demanding a deal where all the hostages are freed at once. (This demand is an understandable reaction to the sadistic games Hamas played with the weekly releases earlier this year and in the fall of 2023.) So Trump let them down too.

In fact, Trump previously promised that “all hell would break loose” if all hostages weren’t released. Neither has happened, so I’m not sure if Trump looks all that much stronger than Netanyahu.

My takeaway, though, isn’t a defense or criticism of either leader, but simply a cautionary note: let’s not jump to conclusions quite yet.