Donald J. Trump

Would the people that built the nation of Israel, particularly the folks in 67 or 73, would they have made this deal?

Would they have been strung out for two years, part of this, because of a hostage situation, sir?

No, it changed over time.

Back in the 60s, they might have exchanged one terrorist for each individual hostage, like 20.

It evolved over the years up to the point where Bibi Netanyahu released 1,000 prisoners back in 2011 for one Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit, in Gaza that was kidnapped.

And one of them was Sinwar, who became the head of Hamas and perpetrated the war.

So there's great concern when you release these 2,000 terrorists.

It's pretty well known that Hamas believes that when they lost all their leadership to Israeli assassination, they felt, well, they'll just be replaced by these guys coming out of prison at some point.

And that certainly is their intention, that they're going to draw their new leadership from these terrorists who have been in prison all these years.

So, no, back in the 60s, maybe they would release one for one.

Somehow, I think Bibi had a big part of it, was saying, well, okay, we'll give you one for a thousand.

And that's part of what motivated, I think, Hamas even to embark on the October 7th attack in the first place, because they knew if they take hostages, they can hold the country of Israel hostage and ultimately release thousands of their prisoners.

They don't care about losing 60,000 people.

In Gaza, the average family has 10 children.

That's just the average, 10 children, and it's paid for by the UN.

So they don't mind.

They expect if they lose one or two kids per family, to them it's just part of the price of fighting Israel and their shahideen, their martyrs.

So it's a completely different mindset.

It's Israel's strength and it's its weakness that it puts so much value in each individual person.

Ben Harnwell, the president's been there now for a few minutes.