Shabbat shalom!
Another week of the news overwhelming the ability of our brains to absorb.
The orange man continues to flood the zone with bullshit, most of it bad for the country, (check out this “Bullshit Tracker”) but some of it swinging the far left pendulum back toward normal. Meanwhile, Israelis celebrate the release of four more hostages while also absorbing Halevi’s resignation, Nut-and-yahoo voting down an October 7 investigative commission, and Ben-Gvir’s departure from the government in response to the hostage deal. Add to that monster list whatever the hell Elon Dickhead Musk was doing with his salute, the orange man’s reversal of sanctions on West Bank settlers, his renewal of sanctions on the ICC, suspending development aide to UNWRA (yeah!), re-instating the Houthis as a terrorist organization, and Elise Stefanik’s dodge in her confirmation hearing of the question on Palestinian self-determination. OMG. WTF.
The second wave of the hostage for terrorist deal happened this morning, bringing tears of joy to the re-united families and to Israelis and diaspora Jews across the world. The cost of their freedom was very high: 200 Hamas and/or Palestinians were released, many of whom were serving life sentences for murdering Israeli citizens. And while we will not know for some time what kind of hell these women endured in the torture tunnels beneath Gaza, and despite the horrible Hamas choreography of their release to the Red Cross, they look physically and emotionally healthy.
The mix of joy and pain associated with the whole hostage crisis has given rise to some serious discussions in Israel about changing its strategy on the best way to manage future hostage situations. Critics of the current policy believe that the capture of Gilad Shalit in 2006 and the subsequent exchange of 1,027 security prisoners for his freedom, was a microcosm of October 7, and the fact that Sinwar and several other mass murderers were released in that exchange furthers the point of view that Israel pays too high a price for freeing hostages.
A little history. The Shalit capture proved to be Hamas’ very first tunnel operation. Hamas forces entered Israel through a tunnel, killed a few soldiers, and then forcibly took Shalit back into Gaza. That launched what the Israeli Army called Operation Summer Rains, which was basically a five-month military operation into Gaza to stop rocket attacks and rescue and/or recover Shalit. Despite Israel killing about 400 Hamas/Gazans in the process, that rescue effort failed. Shalit ended up being held for a mind boggling 1,934 days before negotiations, led in the end by Netanyahu, succeeded in bringing him home alive.
Even in today’s hostage deal, the ratio of Israeli hostages to Palestinian prisoners is weirdly disproportionate. In stage one of the deal, the current formula is 30 Palestinian prisoners for every Israeli civilian and 50 for every female Israeli soldier. We don’t yet know the formula for male soldiers, which is yet to be negotiated in stage two. Why would Israel pay such a high price for one soldier? Or for 100?
This is a very sobering, and very serious topic starting to resonate in Israeli public and policy forums. How do you stop incentivizing jihadists like Hamas from using hostages to further their genocidal goals? What is the cost to Israel of the lives of hostages yet to be taken?
Israel’s willingness to negotiate for hostages reflects the deep integration of Jewish religious values with its national ethos. Principles such as pikuach nefesh (sanctity of life), and arevut (collective responsibility) shape its policies, underscoring the sanctity of life and the collective responsibility to rescue those in harm’s way. These religious motivations are complemented by cultural and historical factors, making hostage negotiations a central aspect of Israeli policy. Tal Becker, an Australian-Israeli lawyer and diplomatic advisor, noted this about Israeli hostage policy in a recent “Call Me Back” podcast:
“there is an understood willingness to sacrifice, an understood kind of view of a solidarity of a society where individuals are required and expected to sacrifice for the whole. I often think of parents who send their children to the army as engaged in their own act of the binding of Isaac, their own willingness to say, there are things more important than the safety of my children, which revolve around requiring you being willing to enable your children to sacrifice for the collective good.”
But that comes as part of a core social contract. I’m willing to make that sacrifice for the collective, because I know that the collective will be willing to do everything it takes to protect me if needed. And on the hostage issue, it can, for an outsider, drive people a little crazy.
But ensuring that the fabric of Israeli society remains and the resilience of Israeli society remains is tied to that feeling of ultimate responsibility for those who are willing to make that sacrifice. An ultimate responsibility of the society as a whole for each individual. In Hebrew we call this, kol yisrael arevim zeh bazeh (all of Israel is responsible for one another).
It’s a beautiful thought, and a national ethos we have seen on full display in the aftermath of October 7, where citizen heroes quickly filled the gap in the failures of Bibi’s administration to prevent the attack and to administer to the needs of those impacted families, kibbutzim, and general citizenry.
But Israel’s enemies know this. It’s the achilles heel of the Israeli resolve and commitment to keep its citizens safe. Hamas in particular, knew this from the Shalit hostage experience, and essentially scaled it to an ugly extreme on October 7. And for Hamas, the fact that so much of Gaza is devastated doesn’t matter, since we know they don’t give a shit about the Gaza citizenry, it is a worthwhile price to pay for enormous benefit. At the beginning of the war, there was approximately 1,800 Palestinians in Israeli prisons. Today, there is now approximately 10,000 representing a huge number of Hamas fighters, a huge number of various terror organizations in Gaza that have been captured in the course of battles. And so the release of 500 prisoners, 1,000 prisoners, they could even release 8,000 prisoners, and they would still have a net loss in terms of the sheer number of Palestinians remaining in an Israeli prison.
But, that’s not the point. According to one of my favorite Israeli journalists, Haviv Rettig Gur,
“the point isn’t even the release. And the point isn’t victory. The point is tormenting the Israelis, because they have a long-term strategy that says that if the Israelis never have a day of rest, if they’re tortured and tormented and beaten and abused constantly, then eventually, just like the French left Algeria and the British left Kenya, the Jews will leave the land of Palestine. That’s the theory.”
“And if that’s the theory, if the destruction of the Palestinian side is irrelevant, the torment has to continue. And the way you torment the Jews best is by taking hostages. That was the great Hamas’ strategic lesson, and it has become their grand strategy, and it’s the heart of what happened in Gaza over the last 16 months.”
And that logic leads Rettig Gur to the difficult and sobering question of how do you lower the value of hostages to our enemies?
“Hamas doesn’t feel the costs of Gaza’s destruction, of the level of destruction that was inflicted on Gaza by the fact that the Israeli army had to literally get through the cities to get into tunnels and go searching for them. We have to lower the value of the hostages to the enemy. And maybe the way to do that, I’m saying something radical and awful and anti-Israeli, maybe the way to do that is to lower their value to us.”
That thought runs contrary to the heart and soul of Israel, the religious and national ethos mentioned above. And I am certain that if one of my kids was a hostage, I would not even consider such a conversation. But the country needs to have the discussion if it wants to avoid the inevitability of further hostage crisis ahead, and we all have seen how the current crisis has torn the country apart. The problem is that the current administration, Nut-and-yahoo and his nut job coalition, lack the integrity and credibility to conduct such a conversation. While most of the generals accountable to October 7 have resigned, one guy still stands, convinced he is the only reason Israel survived this historic moment. But he needs to go too. And the sooner the better.
Have a great weekend everyone! Let’s hope, and pray if that is your thing, that all the hostages are safely returned.
Stay safe out there.
Brad out.
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