The deal spin released on Monday evening is a particularly serious warning signal to the military and political leadership about Israel's status and positioning in the brutal Middle Eastern jungle.
Yael Shabach from "Mekor Rishon" described it precisely: everyone for all of us.
Let's imagine for a moment that as a precondition for the release of the abductees, Hamas demands that all the surrounding settlements not be rebuilt and remain in ruins.
It is likely that every reader is currently surprised by the mere raising of this horrible possibility, which lacks any realistic basis and is outside the bounds of thought.
There is a limit, isn't there?
This means that even the barbarians from Hamas have boundaries that they understand cannot be crossed as part of negotiations.
Demands that have no basis and are disconnected from reality are a well-known phase of what is known as the "Overton window".
The theory shows how gradually a significant change takes place in the status and status of ideas, and in our case - demands in negotiations: from a status where the demand is completely disconnected from reality and clearly unacceptable;
A way of making it "only" extreme, but one that is discussed and that can be brought up as a possibility;
then to explain at different levels;
and up to the status of a legitimate demand, and even, in some cases, a practical policy.
In the case of a claim to leave the Otaf settlements in their ruins, there is no need to prove what the public's response was to the demand, regardless of left and right or any other affiliation.
Against the background of the particularly shocking and barbaric nature of the massacre at the start of the war, the public as a whole reacted strongly, as did the leadership.
And back to the content of the deal as published, regarding the number of abductees to be released and the number of terrorists to be released in exchange for them.
It is clear that Amit Segal did not make up numbers out of thin air.
This means that the numbers were inflated into the discourse space by a certain party from the chain of those involved in the negotiations.
And in terms of the "Overton window": there is a serious enough actor who estimates that even just as part of opening negotiations, and even just as a trial balloon, it is possible to demand between 100 and 200 terrorists for each abductee.
Let's go for the minimum number - "only" 100. Only 35 abductees will be released, only a quarter, which means that about 100 abductees will remain in the hands of Hamas, and Israel will release 3,500 terrorists!
To understand the proportions - this is about half of all security prisoners imprisoned in Israel.
Whoever released this spin moved the "Overton window" by the very fact that they made these numbers the basis for negotiations.
Israel's denial and its complete opposition, God willing, will not change the fact that indeed someone thought of these numbers as a basis, even just the beginning, for negotiations.
And in "Overton" terms: these are numbers that are not outside the range of possibilities, which are at least acceptable for an initial presentation as part of the negotiations.
And this in itself is worrying, because it is a statement about Israel's position, its situation and the assessment of it regarding the question of what can be demanded from it and what cannot.
Let's go for the minimum number - "only" 100. Only 35 abductees will be released, only a quarter, which means that about 100 abductees will remain in the hands of Hamas, and Israel will release 3,500 terrorists!
To understand the proportions - this is about half of all security prisoners imprisoned in Israel
It must be admitted that Israel itself contributed to this possibility, which means a serious strategic injury that could reach the point of an existential threat.
The "Overton window" in the field of prisoner deals was promiscuously moved in the Shalit deal, in which more than 1,000 terrorists - many of them with blood on their hands, including Sinwar - were released in exchange for one.
Today there is already solid evidence, among the murdered, that regarding the terrible results of such transactions, about half of those released return to engage in terrorism.
That deal makes it possible to imagine the results of the release of thousands of terrorists, who, riding on what was perceived as the success of October 7, returned to the terror-stricken areas of Judea and Samaria.
The redemption of captives is a first priority, and one must definitely be prepared to make certain payments on the basis of the state's responsibility, but the political leadership is primarily responsible for the very existence of Israel, and for removing any existential threat to it.
It cannot discuss a deal with existential implications that means all for all.
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