Here’s my reasoning: at this point, the most important factor is whether Hamas is destroyed by Israel. If Israel fails to do that, any refusal to do a hostage deal probably wouldn’t have given Israel much future advantage. After all, if Hamas continues to function, jihadis will do their best to repeat October 7 whether or not terrorists are released for hostages. Hamas has made that clear. So it rests on whether Hamas is destroyed. Of course, to the extent that this deal will make it harder for Israel to do that, it’s a bad deal. But I’m not sure that in the long run, stopping the fighting for a few days will matter all that much. Either Israel has the will and the ability to get the job done or it does not.

Reportedly, the released prisoners in this deal would not – unlike in the Shalit deal – include high-ranking terrorist masterminds. I read somewhere (although I cannot find the source at the moment) that although some of the list of hostages to be released have aided murderers, none have themselves committed murder. They are for the most part teenagers and women – not that that means they can’t be very dangerous, of course. But given the attitude of most of the current Gazan population and how devoted to terrorism and Jew-murder they are, I think that these foot-soldier terrorists on the list could easily be replaced with others if they were kept in prison, so I’m not sure their release will matter all that much. Gaza seems to have a nearly inexhaustible supply. What will matter most of all is whether Israel is victorious in the war on Hamas, and whether it does what needs to be done after that victory to make it less likely that future attacks will happen. I don’t think that depends on whether these particular terrorists stay in prison or not. And if Israel is successful in that endeavor, other terrorist groups might take notice.

[Fair points, and I’ve raised similar arguments in defense of this swap as a one-off. The issue, though, is whether Israel gets pressured into more and more concessions on the other hostages that either (a) exhaust their will to complete their mission, or (b) alienate their allies by refusing them. We’re already seeing that Israel’s not getting any credit at all for the deal at hand on the Left. — Ed]