Ariel Hermoni\/Defense Ministry<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Previous hostages have been freed in relative health \u2013 albeit, doctors say, malnourished and traumatized. With the release of the three gaunt men this weekend, Hamas appeared to be sending a message at a critical moment. <\/p>\n
\u201cSeeing the three hostages this morning as if they had been liberated from World War II concentration camps should compel us all to accelerate the release of all hostages,\u201d the veteran Israeli negotiator-turned-peace activist Gershon Baskin said on Saturday. <\/p>\n
It should be noted, of course, that many Palestinian prisoners who have been released from Israeli jails say that they were deliberately starved. Mohammad El-Halabi, an aid worker who was charged in 2016 with funneling money to Hamas in a case disputed by international human rights groups, was among those released earlier this month. <\/p>\n
Just as some see in the Holocaust an argument to accelerate a deal for more hostages, others draw on a deep strain in Israeli culture \u2013 that, no matter what, Jews will never again be victims. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe became a nation of victims \u2013 we were the perfect victim,\u201d Netanyahu told Fox News this weekend. \u201cI don\u2019t seek wars \u2013 I seek to end wars. But if a war is foisted on me, like these monsters foisted on us, we will defeat them. And we will achieve total victory over them. No question about that.\u201d <\/p>\n
Speaking on Holocaust Remembrance Day last year, he said that \u201ca straight line, as sinister as can be, connects the murderers of old to the murderers of today.\u201d <\/p>\n
Though his foreign minister, Gideon Saar, also drew the comparison between the Holocaust and the gaunt Israeli hostages released this weekend, Netanyahu has so far avoided their comparison. <\/p>\n
His extremist finance minister is similarly skeptical. \u201cThe suffering of our hostages in Hamas\u2019 brutal captivity is heartbreaking,\u201d Bezalel Smotrich said this weekend. \u201cBut comparisons to the Holocaust are a grave mistake and are based on the contempt for the Holocaust.\u201d <\/p>\n
His opinions carry weight. Smotrich is at the height of his powers. After Itamar Ben Gvir quit his post as national security minister over the Gaza ceasefire, Smotrich\u2019s right-wing Religious Zionism party became the keystone to Netanyahu\u2019s ability to govern. <\/p>\n
He has also threatened to quit, if Israel doesn\u2019t return to war in Gaza. It is little surprise that Netanyahu waited until this weekend \u2013 a week after a deadline for further ceasefire talks \u2013 to send a delegation to Qatar. Israeli media is rife with speculation that he is simply running out the clock until phase one of the deal expires on March 1. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to get 75% of the living hostages out,\u201d he told Fox News, before hastening to add: \u201cWhich \u2013 and I intend to get all of them out.\u201d <\/p>\n
If Netanyahu does return Israel to war in Gaza, Trump\u2019s desire for Palestinians to leave will become unavoidable. <\/p>\n
Trump\u2019s plan is radical. If Palestinians were forced to leave \u2013 or encouraged, by prolonging dire humanitarian conditions \u2013 it would almost certainly constitute ethnic cleansing under international law. But Trump has recognized, in the simplistic way of a populist, that paying lip service to the two-state solution has only entrenched the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to finish Hamas off,\u201d Netanyahu said in that interview. \u201cAnd what happens then? Do we leave the people there with all that devastation? Do you say, \u2018Well, they have to stay in, confined?\u2019 Because nobody lets them leave. Everybody describes Gaza as the biggest open-air prison in the world. You know why? Because they\u2019re not allowed to leave.\u201d <\/p>\n
Never one to waste an opportunity, Ben Gvir \u2013 a far-right politician who carries a conviction of incitement to racism and supporting a terror organization \u2013 also seized on the hostages\u2019 appearance. \u201cThis is a holocaust,\u201d he said. \u201cEncourage voluntary immigration now.\u201d <\/p>\n
Abeer Salman, Lauren Izso, Dana Karni and Eugenia Yosef contributed to this report. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
This post appeared first on cnn.com<\/div>\n
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