Could Anything Stop Israel From Bringing Them Home?

Also, Hamas gets to comment in The New York Times, and Israeli Arabs take to the streets.

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It’s Sunday, February 1, and before today’s stories, an update on Iran.

According to Galei Tzahal’s Doron Kadosh IDF Chief of Staff Zamir said in recent assessments that we’re in a period of uncertainty, and in his view a U.S. strike could come “within two weeks to two months.” In other words, nothing is expected in the immediate days—at least for now. It also seems that Washington isn’t sharing everything with Jerusalem, keeping Israel at arm’s length from key decisions.

Senior security sources add that the coming weeks will remain tense. Starting today, we enter the “Ten Days of Fajr” (Feb 1–11), marking 47 years since the Ayatollahs’ revolution—from Khomeini’s return to the fall of the Shah. Then, in mid-February, comes the 40th-day commemoration for those killed in early January’s protests—the end of the primary Shiite mourning period and another reason the tension will persist.

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(Hostage Forum)

Eight hundred and forty-three days of captivity brought scenes of horror previously unimaginable: extracting bodies from ice-cream freezers, digging through cemeteries in search of bones. In the second week, it was even considered granting all hostages American citizenship after Hamas hinted it would release foreign nationals first.

But one scene was spared: had the Shamgar Commission report been legislated—the commission that proposed extremely rigid rules for negotiations with kidnappers in 2012—would a stunned Israeli society have allowed it to stand? Or, under Hamas pressure, would the Knesset have convened and repealed the law at Sinwar’s demand?

The commission recommended severing all contact between hostage families and decision-makers to prevent undue pressure—a decree the children of winter 2023 would not have endured. It demanded preventing publication of negotiation details—an innocence that now provokes bitter laughter. And it also reached an interesting conclusion, long before October 7: the state has a greater obligation to return a captured soldier than a civilian.

Did it envision a scenario of a mother abducted with her two soft, red-haired children?

Four prime ministers have served since the Shamgar Commission was established—or by its unofficial name: the commission to end extortion by kidnappers of Israelis. Some prime ministers drifted to the far left, some forged alliances with the radical right, but all shared one thing: none adopted the report. Even before the hostage crisis, there was a prime ministerial principle at work—people addicted to influence and power do not like tying their own hands. As the Israeli author Ephraim Kishon once said: I do not make a habit of undermining myself.

But the main reason the law was never passed is that, like the draft law, culture cannot be changed through legislation. A state’s or a sector’s ethos—right or wrong—will wash over any Knesset or government decision. Even Itamar Ben-Gvir deceives himself when he advances mandatory death penalties. What would Israel look like if such a law were repealed at the demand of the next terror organization?

Israel, as a state, must now clean up after itself and repair the immense damage caused by the hostage-terror arena. One can bask in what happened at Hostages Square and say, “We brought them back.” Or one can look reality straight in the eye and see the terrible price that was paid.

Even the late President Shamgar focused only on the number of terrorists released per Israeli. He never imagined a day when the enemy would demand strategic prices in return—such as withdrawals or an end to the war.

Therefore, the required tool must combine broad national consensus and be less rigid than the Shamgar Commission but tougher than current Israeli policy. Perhaps a charter of basic principles signed by most party leaders, perhaps a public commission. As the Israeli poet Natan Alterman once suggested:
“To place my hand in the craftsman’s guiding hand,
and hear him say, as I approach the task in fervor:
‘Child, hold the tool firmly—but gently.’”

This is an excerpt from my weekly column in Israel Hayom.

Click here to read on my website

Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya in an interview and in his Hamas uniform.

The New York Times featured a terrorist in their op-ed pages. I wish I could say I’m surprised.

According to NGO Monitor, Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya—whom the Times describes as “a pediatrician and the director of Kamal Adwan Hospital”—is, in fact, a Hamas colonel.

Perhaps the Times didn’t know. After all, how could such a venerable newsroom be expected to check Facebook, where Gaza health authorities themselves refer to him by his rank? It’s not as though Hamas is known to infiltrate civil society, demanding extra care with spokespeople. Truly, an unavoidable accident.

Safiya—let’s call him Col. Safiya—wrote two pieces for the paper: “I’m a Pediatrician in Gaza. Please Save Us From This Horror” and “I’m One of the Last Doctors in This Hospital in Gaza. I’m Begging the World for Help.” Heart-wrenching. If only his appeals had been aimed at his own organization’s leadership to stop the bloodshed; they might have been more effective.

Col. Safiya was detained by the IDF in late 2024, at which point the international NGO machine roared to his defense. If you’re sympathetic to the good doctor, you can still sign the Amnesty International petition demanding his release.

We can toss this onto the growing pile of media missteps—like the BBC centering the son of a Hamas minister in its film Gaza: How to Survive a Warzone, and the NYT cropping a healthy child out of their starvation propaganda—or we can ask a question.

Was Col. Safiya an enterprising officer who pitched the NYT on his own initiative, or was this coordinated by Hamas? If it’s the former, it’s a damning indictment of the Times’ editorial standards. If it’s the latter, it’s an indictment as well as a testament to Hamas proficiency in information warfare.

Neither prospect is encouraging.

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Arab protestors in Tel Aviv last night. (Screenshots used in accordance with Section 27a of the Copyright Law)

If the Jewish State were entierly Jewish, its homicide rate would sit in the global top-20 safest. If it were entirely Arab, it would drop about 15 ranks—closer to Central American levels.

Homicides in Arab communities reached a record high last year, prompting tens of thousands of Arab citizens to protest in Tel Aviv last night. The main culprit for the rise: gang crime.

Here are some statistics:

Arab homicides reached record highs in 2025: 252 cases—an increase of over 250 percent since 2018. That’s about 80 percent of Israel’s violent crimes. Per capita, the Arab-to-Jewish homicide rate is over 14 to 1. In 2023, 72 percent of Arab homicides were gang-related, and it has remained about the same since.

This highlights a fact about Israel not often talked about: Israel is a country that excels at addressing external threats but struggles against internal problems.

Large swaths of the southern Negev play like a Clint Eastwood reel: marauding gangs, sweltering heat and a noticeable shortage of lawmen. Swap six-shooters for Kalashnikovs and one-horse towns for unrecognized Bedouin villages, and you’ve got a pretty good picture. In this frontier, certain criminal clans run protection rackets, smuggling operations and even human trafficking.

But it isn’t just the south.

In the Triangle—Arab-majority towns along the Green Line in central Israel—chronic under-policing has left parts of several municipalities effectively under gang control, turning certain public areas into de facto no-go zones.

The fuel for these mass conquests is the endless flow of weapons—automatic guns, grenades, explosive drones—smuggled across borders or stolen from IDF bases.

There is also a political dimension.

Policing budgets were slashed in 2022 as part of across-the-board cuts, five-year plans to address the struggles of the Arab sector were put on hold, and political will inside the coalition to address the issue is practically nonexistent.

It’s a law of nature that lawlessness is fertilizer for organized crime.

Imagine you’re an Israeli Arab in an Arab town that is out of Internal Security Minister Ben Gvir’s notice—namely, all of them. Are you going to stop paying protection money and risk your life, livelihood, and family on government intervention?
I wouldn’t.

The cause of organized crime is simple: lawlessness. The solution is also simple: law enforcement.

That doesn’t make it easy to carry out, but in general, citizens would much rather pay taxes than protection money. But, they can only do that if the government can protect them from the consequences.

Unlike previous protests in Tel Aviv, the solution to this problem is all up to the government.

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