My posts usually ramble. This will be short and sour.
The original sin was treating Hamas as a legitimate negotiating partner. The moment you do that, you confer legitimacy. Obviously. Why am I the only person who sees this screamingly obvious foundational mistake?1
Even if you define “legitimacy” narrowly as functional power acknowledgment (“who else should Israel negotiate with?”) it still fails. Acknowledgment is acknowledgment, full stop. At that instant, Hamas won.
October 7 should have been a delegitimizing act. You don’t negotiate with criminals.
But the criminals were holding hostages.
That doesn’t make negotiating with the very power you claim to be removing any less of a brain-cracker. This isn’t like the U.S. negotiating with North Vietnam. We weren’t trying to unify Vietnam. Make it make sense. Wars need clear goals.
So what would you have done?
I don’t think I’m obligated to answer that. I’m pointing out the contradiction, not proposing a grand strategy.
But since you asked: here’s what could have been done. A president could have twisted every arm and every pair of balls from Cairo to the Gulf to get those hostages out.
Yeah, right. The old “leverage” eh? Sternly worded letters. “This is unhelpful.” Pardon me while I barf.
I share your cynicism but that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking thumbscrews.
Here is my personal “Presidential Thumbscrew List.” I’ve been working on it since October 7, 2023. I have an Excel chart. You’re welcome to add to it.
To Egypt: You like your billions in U.S. aid? Then shut Rafah, cut the shit, and squeeze Hamas until they beg. No hostages, no cash.
To Qatar: You’re harboring Hamas leadership like royalty. Either you evict them or you’re done—no jets, no base, no gas deals, nada.
To Israel: You’ll get every missile, every bomb, every bullet. But give me a week to get the hostages out another way. Hold your fire.
To the enablers: Any state or actor caught dealing with Hamas from here on in gets named in public, sanctioned, and cut out of the U.S. dollar system. We’ll announce every instance on the State Department website.
To regional intel: You want to play in the big leagues? Prove it.
To the region at large: Get the hostages out now, and I’ll make you a one-time offer—debt relief, arms, a pass at the UN. You miss this window, it slams shut forever.
To the world: Hamas are hostage-takers. Not a government. Any state treating them like one will be treated like their accomplice.
To Hamas: You fucked up. Give us the hostages or your sons start transitioning. We have the doctors.
But this all assumes that Biden and Netanyahu cared about the hostages.
Did they? I don’t think so. The hostages were just bargaining chips for men in power — and not just Hamas.
Still, you asked, and that’s my answer.
Now here we are, in a Rocky movie written by psychopaths.
I mean “original sin” as a conceptual wrong turn, not a moral indictment.