Counting the cost: Joel Rosenberg reflects on hostage release, ceasefire deal, and its impact on Israel

While the country remains divided on the overall hostage release and ceasefire deal, Joel Rosenberg, New York Times bestselling author and editor-in-chief at ALL ISRAEL NEWS, shared his thoughts with News Nation in a candid interview.

The people of Israel have waited on pins and needles to see if the most recent hostage release and ceasefire deal would be approved by all parties and go into effect. Once it was announced that it did pass, Israel started preparing to receive its sons and daughters home.

The Ministry of Health started preparing hospitals and social workers, and putting together a framework for receiving the hostages who have been in captivity for more than 400 days and what that would mean to care for them both physically and mentally. It has proven to be no small feat to ensure adequate personalized care for each person returning.

“Israel is making huge concessions. It's a painful thing for us to release hardened Palestinian terrorists. But we want our people back. This deal provides it,” Rosenberg shared.

U.S. President Joe Biden and President-elect Donald J. Trump have come together in a rare bipartisan effort to help this deal go through.

Rosenberg remarked, “When do we see Trump and Biden working together on almost anything? [This] is what they've done.” He reiterated that both Biden and Trump think this is the best deal that can be reached at this time.

“Netanyahu, I think, is conflicted but feels like, you know, it is the time. And what he doesn't want to do is surrender in Gaza. He wants our hostages back. But if Hamas breaks this deal in any way, we're going back to war,” he continued.

Trump warned Hamas shortly after he was elected for a second presidential term that the hostages must be released by the time he takes office or there would be “hell to pay.”

When asked by News Nation if Trump should receive the credit for the hostages being released, Rosenberg stated, “President Trump deserves the vast amount of credit. Now, the Biden team has done a lot of work here to lay the groundwork, but they could not get the deal done.”

“The dynamic changed once Trump won in November. Once Trump began making these threats to Hamas and their Iranian backers that there would be all hell to pay if Hamas doesn't release all the hostages by the inauguration. The dynamic changed once Trump won in November,” he added.

The reality is that the hostages will not be released all at once, but rather it will happen over the course of six weeks. The hostages that are on the list are not all alive, but according to Israeli officials, “most are alive.” It was a directive from Israeli officials that most of the hostages needed to be alive and they must be released first.

Rosenberg continued to share that even the most critical voices and opinions of either Biden or Trump realize what it took to bring this deal to fruition, and he states, “Now I will tell you, I hate this deal, but I support it. I mean, it really is a lot of concessions on our part, but we're over a barrel. We want our people back and we will fight Hamas another day. They will not get away with this.”

“You cannot let elderly people, children, babies, Holocaust survivors get taken out of their bed in their pajamas and put in dungeons and tortured every day for 470 days and not do everything possible to get them back,” Rosenberg added.

Biden and his team insist this is the same deal that was proposed in May 2024. News Nation asked Rosenberg what the difference is between that deal and the one that just went through.

Rosenberg replied, “It's a perfect question and I really appreciate it. There are some important nuances in terms of the specifics, but the real difference is the strategic environment.”

Rosenberg went on to expound on the severe blows it dealt Israel’s enemies as a result of Netanyahu's decision to keep fighting.

“Look at where we are today because Netanyahu said no and kept fighting. Ismail Haniyeh, the head of Hamas (is dead), [the IDF] assassinated Yahya Sinwar, the chief strategist of the October 7th invasion in Gaza, assassinated Mohammed Deif, the chief military operations director commander of Hamas in Gaza, assassinated like 80 to 85% of Hamas forces have been killed or severely wounded,” he said.

Stressing that Biden wanted Israel to effectively surrender in May 2024, Rosenberg points out that “we would have gotten the hostages out, but we would have left Hamas intact.”

Additionally, Rosenberg said, “Plus, Hezbollah is nearly defeated. Iran is vulnerable. Assad has fallen in Syria. I mean, look at the strategic environment that Israel has. We are winning.”

Furthermore, he believes it’s because we made those kinds of gains and eliminated major threats to Israel’s security and well-being that “we can afford in a winning capacity to make hard concessions.”

One major concession that Rosenberg was referencing is the impending release of some 1,900 Palestinian terrorists, several with blood on their hands. Most notably Muhammad Abu Warda is being released, a terrorist operative for Hamas in the West Bank, who was sentenced to 48 life sentences for his role in sending suicide bombers to attack the Line 18 bus in Jerusalem in 1996. In this particular attack, 45 Israelis were murdered.

The world is waiting to see what it will be like with Trump back in office and how things will pan out in Israel with Netanyahu at the helm. News Nation took the opportunity to ask Joel his thoughts about what people can expect moving forward with regard to their alliance.

Rosenberg responded by commenting on the “Trump Effect” and how it relates to several nations.  

“Well, I would call this the Trump Effect. You're already seeing the Canadian prime minister, Justin Trudeau. He fell, right. You see Russia, China. You talked about TikTok. The Chinese communist government is really recalculating. The Iranians are vulnerable. Hamas is giving up hostages for the first time in almost a year and a half.”

He maintains that behind the scenes, Trump and Netanyahu have had their differences, but “as strategic allies, they're working very, very closely.”

“I believe that we are in a very different environment in which Trump is making it clear that if Hamas violates any of these terms, he will give Netanyahu the full green light to go in and keep fighting until every last Hamas terrorist (is dead). They're not just men or fighters. They are terrorists, bloodthirsty terrorists -until every single one of them is dead or captured,” Rosenberg stated.

While Hamas is a major threat that should be dealt with, there are still two other Iranian-backed proxies that require thoughtful consideration and strategy – Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen.

“And maybe we can figure out how to neutralize the Iran nuclear threat as well. It's a very different environment than we were in on May 24th, where Israel was really on the ropes, not on offense,” Rosenberg concluded.