Two decades ago, the IDF instituted what became known as the “Hannibal directive,” according to which soldiers should do everything possible to prevent the enemy from taking a prisoner, even at the risk of killing the potential hostage. Shlomo Brody assesses this policy from the standpoint of halakhah:

[In] a well known talmudic passage, . . . a convoy of Jewish travelers is attacked by gentile marauders and ordered to hand over one Jew or face the annihilation of the entire party. The Talmud rules that all should be killed rather than deliver a Jew to his death. A Jew should not actively cause the death of another, even if this act of omission might endanger others. Accordingly, Rabbi Yuval Cherlow has argued that Jewish law would oppose any version of this directive that would call for the direct targeting of the captured soldier. . . .

That said, Jewish law does permit army maneuvers or operations that might endanger our soldiers, be it the captive or those coming to save him. As Rabbi Shaul Yisraeli has noted, the mitzvah of waging war [in self-defense] inherently calls upon soldiers to risk their own lives while allowing the government to endanger them for the sake of the greater good. As such, a Hannibal directive that takes on risks of unintended harm remains permissible to prevent the national angst caused by the capture of soldiers.

Given the profound ethical dilemmas created by the Hannibal directive, however, it pays to remember that the sum of the national trauma caused by the capture of soldiers is self-inflicted. Since . . . 1985, Israel has repeatedly released hundreds of imprisoned terrorists to return our boys home, dead or alive. Many experts contend that the continued willingness to release dangerous prisoners has only encouraged more terrorism and kidnappings. . . . The Hannibal directive is just one more reminder of the dangerous consequences of well intentioned but ultimately misguided prisoner-exchange policies.

While conventional wisdom in the Western press believes that the war with Hamas has left Jerusalem more isolated and scuttled chances of expanding the Abraham Accords, Gabriel Scheinmann points to a very different reality. He begins with Iran’s massive drone and missile attack on Israel last month, and the coalition that helped defend against it:

America’s Arab allies had, in various ways, provided intelligence and allowed U.S. and Israeli planes to operate in their airspace. Jordan, which has been vociferously attacking Israel’s conduct in Gaza for months, even publicly acknowledged that it shot down incoming Iranian projectiles. When the chips were down, the Arab coalition held and made clear where they stood in the broader Iranian war on Israel.

The successful batting away of the Iranian air assault also engendered awe in Israel’s air-defense capabilities, which have performed marvelously throughout the war. . . . Israel’s response to the Iranian night of missiles should give further courage to Saudi Arabia to codify its alignment. Israel . . . telegraphed clearly to Tehran that it could hit precise targets without its aircraft being endangered and that the threshold of a direct Israeli strike on Iranian nuclear or other sites had been breached.

The entire episode demonstrated that Israel can both hit Iranian sites and defend against an Iranian response. At a time when the United States is focused on de-escalation and restraint, Riyadh could see quite clearly that only Israel has both the capability and the will to deal with the Iranian threat.

It is impossible to know whether the renewed U.S.-Saudi-Israel negotiations will lead to a normalization deal in the immediate months ahead. . . . Regardless of the status of this deal, [however], or how difficult the war in Gaza may appear, America’s Arab allies have now become Israel’s.