Many thousands of American citizens and POWs were in Japanese prison camps during WW2, yet the main foreign policy goal was not to secure the release of the hostages. It was to defeat imperial Japan. American citizens were suffering and dying in terrible conditions in Japanese camps but, again, the goal was to defeat Japan. When that was accomplished, and only then, the surviving American prisoners were released.
It has been estimated that as many as 13,000 Union soldiers died in Andersonville, the notorious Confederate prison camp. The survivors were freed when the Confederacy was beaten and surrendered.
Israel's first and primary goal should have been to destroy Hamas with as much speed as possible. International complications made that difficult, I have no idea how much more could have been accomplished with a stronger and more determined Israeli leadership.
Allowing Hamas to remain will cause more suffering and more death in the long run, not less. Unless, of course, the terms of the current agreement are broken.
The US pulverized Tokyo and dropped two atom bombs to force Japan to surrender. The UK and US devastated Hamburg and Dresden in weeks/days (respectively) arguably more than Gaza has been in over a year, yet Germany didn't surrender. Neither, dispite what the ICC and many online might think, are options for Israel.
Continuing the war, re-establishing an occupation and conducting an "anti-insurgency operation" would, according to the likes of David Petraeus, take at least five years, would cost many lives and untold gold, could leave Israel internationally isolated and, especially if it came at the cost of the hostages, would leave Israel internally divided probably with massive protests and a lack of motivation among many of its crucial reserve soldiers, who would be required to serve and sacrifice far more, all for a state where the ultra-orthodox serve in government but not in the army and where a core social contract had been broken: where society was no-longer committed to returning its citizens home should the worst began them.
If that last sentence was long and arduous, imagine what a long-term reoccupation of Gaza would be like. It would make the quagmire of seventeen years in Lebanon and the emergence of Hezbollah look like chicken feed. Don't compare routes forward to dine ideal; compare them to the alternative.
Thank you for posting this comment Udi. You sum up very well the world view that got us into this predicament and allows for no out. I have respect--and love--for those who hold these views because we are all brothers and sisters and are all in the same boat. Having said that, and meaning it, the only thing called-for at this point in time is extreme violence, violence initiated by the Jewish State, first, to return the hostages, but no less important to return the tens of thousands of our internal exiles to their homes. It will definitely take a full military occupation--a violent one--to achieve that.
Well, right back at ya, about the world-view which got us into this mess. On this one, Ben Gurion was right, and extremely far-sighted.
What led us into the mess was a mish-mash:
Occupation/control of land and people while not slaughtering them, but thinking that outbursts of extreme violence every few years would subdue and deter them. Great. Wonderful. Didn't work.
What you suggest worked for the Germans, with Dresden and Hamburg utterly destroyed in day/weeks respectively... and the Soviet's brutality. It worked for the Japanese with Tokyo pulverised in two days, Hiroshima and Nagasaki wiped out in moments.
Putting ethics aside, which as Jews of course we should never do, we do not have that option. Many army reservists have already stopped turning up, and why should they to fight for a government part of which prefers fantasies of settlements and rebuilding the temple over their lives and the hostages' lives and part of which is spending this time passing laws to solidify their refusal to send their kids to the army or any other kind of service? Then there's the massive economic drain it would cause and the total strategic isolation it would lead to. Apartheid South Africa did not survive its isolation. Why would we?
Appeasement doesn't work. Deterrence and "managing the conflict" doesn't work. Slaughter and long-term occupation (there are still American troops both in Germany and in Japan) is not available, and might not work: perhaps as many as 3 million Vietnamese were killed during the war and the Americans still left humiliated. It wasn't much better in Iraq and certainly not in Afghanistan. We, unlike the Americans, are not a superpower but must contend with one. Yours is the strategy of Bar Kokhba, only with far more killing of innocents. That didn't work out very well.
The option employed by our namesake of killing the enemy's king is not available to us. When all other options are taken off the table we must look at what is left. As my dad is still fond of saying, צריך להיות חכם ולא צודק - we need to be wise rather than right. Your option though has the destination of having the benefits of neither. As has been said of democracy, it is the worst form of government until you consider all the rest. Similarly, as Sherlock Holmes famously said, yaani, when you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. Your option is both impossible and immoral. We need to find the best possible way forward.
So, what's left? You forgot to say. Anyway, the most immoral thing is to leave the Arabs around us or amongst us any hope that they can destroy us, either now or in the far future. Once we have crushed that hope of theirs, then new things might be possible.
I work/have worked with Palestinian Israelis. The Head of Eighth Grade, English, Arabic and maths teachers, cleaners and janitors. My daughter's homeroom teacher (I hate using Americanisms) - his mechanechet - is a Palestinian Israeli. When my son smashed his head, most of the nurses and doctors who treated him, and there were many, were Palestinian Israelis. Yet you talk of those living "among us"?
We have always been suspected and discriminated against by those amongst whom we have lived. Within living memory we were expelled from homes we'd known for centuries or millennia, or just murdered, by those amongst whom we lived. Yet you talk of those living "among us"?
Whatever the trauma, there is no excuse for what Hamas did nor what they want to do.
Whatever the trauma, there is no excuse to allow yourself to approach anything remotely similar. These are not our values. No, these are antithetical to our values, both as Israelis and as Jews. Please resist the temptation.
You are leaving out the radical Islamic determination never to accept a Jewish state under any circumstances. No compromise, no agreement will make the practitioners of radical Islam happy. If Jews were to withdraw from the entire land of Israel except for Tel Aviv, and build a ghetto wall around it, Hamas and Hezbollah would be firing rockets at it.
Have you not read the Hamas charter? They state that no compromise, no negotiation, no political situation is possible, there is only one answer, violence and death.
Jewish values - at least according to the Tanakh, I know little about the Talmud - allow for the necessary and essential destruction of Hezbollah and Hamas.
You say "We have always been suspected and discriminated against by those amongst whom we have lived. Within living memory we were expelled from homes we'd known for centuries or millennia, or just murdered, by those amongst whom we lived."
And in those places, were you calling for the destruction of anyone? Firing rockets and sending suicide bombers?
Jews were law abiding citizens in all of those places where they resided. And you now feel sorry for those who want to kill you?
As to Palestinians who are willing to accept Israel and live with it, they should be afforded as much consideration as possible, of course.
I did say that Hamas should have been completely destroyed as swiftly as possible, but also referred to the international complications of that. I didn't presume to recommend Israel's policy toward Gaza afterward. There are several options, none of them ideal.
My main point was that agonized hand-wringing over hostages and POWs has not been a conspicuous feature of previous wars. Hard as that might be for the families involved, enemies should be aware that taking and holding hostages will not be to their advantage. Otherwise, this behavior only ensures it will occur again, and again, and again.
That logic is fine for many countries. Not for Israel. Israel works on solidarity, on the ethos that no-one is left behind, ever, that if a mother and/or father send/allow their kids to go to fight, then if the worst should happen everything will be done to bring them back. We have many deep, bitter and faithful divisions within our society, but when it comes to this we are one or we are nothing. Why should the rational mostly secular majority pay taxes, fight and die for a government parts of which prefers fantasies of settlements and building the Third Temple over the lives of soldiers and hostages; while the other part has spent this time solidifying its refusal to allow their kids to serve?
That's the Israeli ethos. It stands together with the Jewish ethos: we do not venerate the dead; we sanctify life. "He/She who saves a life, it is as if they have saved the entire world". Those hostages are alive. The dead cannot be returned, but those hostages can be brought back to the living.
As for future attacks and hostage-taking, that's for intelligence, security services, police, army and the governments which oversee them. They all failed on 7/10. They need to fall on their swords - as two top generals did the other day - and fulfil their mission to protect us... a mission which in most cases they have chosen. The hostages did not choose this fate, nor should we allow them to pay for others' failure by becoming the living dead. Every day they are held in captivity is a stain on this country. We need them home 🎗️
I am sure that if Hamas said "We will release all of the hostages when the last Jew leaves the land of Palestine," you would not say "Oh! Oh! The poor hostages . . . their poor families . . . look at the crying mothers . . . we had better pack our bags, anything if only the hostages are released, anything at all."
You would say "Sorry, no deal." At least I hope you would say that, I have no way of knowing.
I am not being facetious.
Abraham pursued the forces that kidnapped his nephew Lot and destroyed them.
When the Amalekites plundered Ziklag David pursued them and destroyed them (though some escaped).
You are just giving people more incentives to kidnap Israelis again and again and again.
The idea is to eliminate the glorified serial killers and reincarnated Nazis who thirst for Jewish blood - not allow them to flourish and hope that the government will keep you safe.
You may be secular, rational, and do military service, but my friend, It doesn't matter where you live. If you live on the last piece of dry land before the Mediterranean, in the eyes of every Arab--including your "Palestinian Israelis"-- you live in a settlement. You are an occupier. Just like those "bad" Jews over the green line. You make it seem so simple. If only we were rid of the messianic far-right crazies, and the deadbeat Haridim, and, well let's throw in anybody who doesn't hate Bibi, then we would be living in heaven on Earth. That's quite the Israeli ethos you are propounding.
I’m sick Nehor. It’s wee hours of morning here, still dark, so unable to breathe thinking of this knife in the back deal. Kastner, I always believed, tried his best at negotiating with the devil to save Jews. I have to hope and pray and believe that there is more to the ‘deal.’
I agree. I'm a long ways away from you folks, yet the same sick, gut-churn happens when considering the present "deal". If this deal stands, the last fifteen months were just a deep mowing job, when sod removal was required, and xeriscaping restarted. All the hostages are released, or none. And Hamas and its ilk do not get to remain. The decision is Hamas' - take it or leave it.
There is a subtle worldview that is making Israel the responsible party for a deal, and that, I suggest, is global antisemitism.
In the end, all of this is in the hands of Hashem, and it's to Him we turn for help.
This long slow torture on Israel and its supporters is the hell gazans are cheering! We are incenting more kidnapping and more terrorists to terrorize. 💔❤️🩹 no living being sacrifices the entire population for the individual except the dumb American government… I say this as an American who is ready to make Aliyah !
Hezbollah broken. Assad gone. Hamas attrited and living under new rules of engagement. Iran ring of fire strategy ended. Time to get as many hostages back as possible and clean out the failed Israeli leadership.
The Shalit deal was a bad deal. The fact is that this is a worse deal. Yes it is terribly insensitive of me to say this but I advocate for no release of Palestinian prisoners except to the graveyard. Continuing to barter Jewish lives at an unequal rate continues to give advantage to a people whose goal is our destruction and annihilation. Of course families (and all the rest of us) pray and beg for the release of our hostages. Sadly this is not in the best interest of our people. Without a declaration of peaceful intent and recognition of our nation all this deal does is jeopardize the future of Israel.
The comparison to Kastner is excellent. One thing i don’t agree with- i fully believe that with total occupation cleansing of areas of Hamas we would have freed the hostages- either in deals or by military means.
The army- and the government that approved there plans- chose tactics that les to where we are. And those tactics are not the inly ones that could have been chosen.
Shame on the government. Shame on Halevi.
And lets not forget the group that insisted on funding the Hamas war effort: shame on Biden-Blinken.
Very strong Ira. There is so much more to say. I decide to stay focused on those who are left behind, a statement of will by the Israeli sovereign government that is the epitome of moral corruption. That is where we are. I'm staying with those left behind. Nothing is right if it is built upon betrayal of our fellow Jews. I'll just add: there is only a military solution.
I could not agree more. I am watching Pogrom(s), Pierre Rehov’s film. I am shocked, disgusted and angry. But I don’t know what I can do. How do you fight this craziness? The barbarians are at your gate and the world turns a blind eye. My initials stand for my whole name, which I sign here now. —Esmeralda Eulalia Negron, Zionist
The rhetoric around this issue is not just painful, it is explosive. And the manipulation of the media by the terrorists is shameful. Everyone should watch Rehov’s films and read Einat Wilf’s books.
Shalom Reb Ehud! Thank you for "following" me! You've written a very convincing article, but I must honestly say that I can't agree with you. This "Sophie's Choice" question is one of the most difficult (not to say anguished) moral problems that can exist. There are two sides to this question, and each side is unassailable. There is simply no room for blame, for aspersions, for feeling or laying shame on either side. The leaders who must make this decision, may Hashem give them strength, clarity and determination! They need and deserve our undivided support. May you be strong, safe and well!
Peter, I'm not sure what you are disagreeing with. My point was that if there is a deal, it can only be for all the hostages and bodies. As soon as we agreed to a partial deal (which is what we have been doing) we created with our own hands the Sophie's Choice situation. If we had said from the start, all or nothing, there would not be parents of hostages today wondering why their child was not on the list. Believe me, this is a ticking bomb. Please, HaShem, let it not be that someone was paid to bump someone up the list. Now, if such a deal comes about for all the hostages and there is a price to pay, then I agree with you, we must unite behind our leadership and pray for satisfactory results.
Fine. So, a partial deal. Who decides who goes free and who stays in the pit? Who gave them that right? That's the point I made and you are still not addressing it.
That’s just it, Peter. Giving Hamas a say is a passive-aggressive move. We should have sealed off the Gaza Strip, helping anyone not of military age to leave instead of starving. It would have been over in a month or two.
Dear friend. We gave them nothing. They took hostages. They have all the cards and the goyim shield them. The un protects them. Don't drive yourself crazy with this. Hashem will surely help!
Many thousands of American citizens and POWs were in Japanese prison camps during WW2, yet the main foreign policy goal was not to secure the release of the hostages. It was to defeat imperial Japan. American citizens were suffering and dying in terrible conditions in Japanese camps but, again, the goal was to defeat Japan. When that was accomplished, and only then, the surviving American prisoners were released.
It has been estimated that as many as 13,000 Union soldiers died in Andersonville, the notorious Confederate prison camp. The survivors were freed when the Confederacy was beaten and surrendered.
Israel's first and primary goal should have been to destroy Hamas with as much speed as possible. International complications made that difficult, I have no idea how much more could have been accomplished with a stronger and more determined Israeli leadership.
Allowing Hamas to remain will cause more suffering and more death in the long run, not less. Unless, of course, the terms of the current agreement are broken.
Solid remarks, Joe.
The one thing we learn from history is that people don't learn from history.
Yes!
The US pulverized Tokyo and dropped two atom bombs to force Japan to surrender. The UK and US devastated Hamburg and Dresden in weeks/days (respectively) arguably more than Gaza has been in over a year, yet Germany didn't surrender. Neither, dispite what the ICC and many online might think, are options for Israel.
Continuing the war, re-establishing an occupation and conducting an "anti-insurgency operation" would, according to the likes of David Petraeus, take at least five years, would cost many lives and untold gold, could leave Israel internationally isolated and, especially if it came at the cost of the hostages, would leave Israel internally divided probably with massive protests and a lack of motivation among many of its crucial reserve soldiers, who would be required to serve and sacrifice far more, all for a state where the ultra-orthodox serve in government but not in the army and where a core social contract had been broken: where society was no-longer committed to returning its citizens home should the worst began them.
If that last sentence was long and arduous, imagine what a long-term reoccupation of Gaza would be like. It would make the quagmire of seventeen years in Lebanon and the emergence of Hezbollah look like chicken feed. Don't compare routes forward to dine ideal; compare them to the alternative.
Thank you for posting this comment Udi. You sum up very well the world view that got us into this predicament and allows for no out. I have respect--and love--for those who hold these views because we are all brothers and sisters and are all in the same boat. Having said that, and meaning it, the only thing called-for at this point in time is extreme violence, violence initiated by the Jewish State, first, to return the hostages, but no less important to return the tens of thousands of our internal exiles to their homes. It will definitely take a full military occupation--a violent one--to achieve that.
Well, right back at ya, about the world-view which got us into this mess. On this one, Ben Gurion was right, and extremely far-sighted.
What led us into the mess was a mish-mash:
Occupation/control of land and people while not slaughtering them, but thinking that outbursts of extreme violence every few years would subdue and deter them. Great. Wonderful. Didn't work.
What you suggest worked for the Germans, with Dresden and Hamburg utterly destroyed in day/weeks respectively... and the Soviet's brutality. It worked for the Japanese with Tokyo pulverised in two days, Hiroshima and Nagasaki wiped out in moments.
Putting ethics aside, which as Jews of course we should never do, we do not have that option. Many army reservists have already stopped turning up, and why should they to fight for a government part of which prefers fantasies of settlements and rebuilding the temple over their lives and the hostages' lives and part of which is spending this time passing laws to solidify their refusal to send their kids to the army or any other kind of service? Then there's the massive economic drain it would cause and the total strategic isolation it would lead to. Apartheid South Africa did not survive its isolation. Why would we?
Appeasement doesn't work. Deterrence and "managing the conflict" doesn't work. Slaughter and long-term occupation (there are still American troops both in Germany and in Japan) is not available, and might not work: perhaps as many as 3 million Vietnamese were killed during the war and the Americans still left humiliated. It wasn't much better in Iraq and certainly not in Afghanistan. We, unlike the Americans, are not a superpower but must contend with one. Yours is the strategy of Bar Kokhba, only with far more killing of innocents. That didn't work out very well.
The option employed by our namesake of killing the enemy's king is not available to us. When all other options are taken off the table we must look at what is left. As my dad is still fond of saying, צריך להיות חכם ולא צודק - we need to be wise rather than right. Your option though has the destination of having the benefits of neither. As has been said of democracy, it is the worst form of government until you consider all the rest. Similarly, as Sherlock Holmes famously said, yaani, when you have eliminated all which is impossible, then whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth. Your option is both impossible and immoral. We need to find the best possible way forward.
So, what's left? You forgot to say. Anyway, the most immoral thing is to leave the Arabs around us or amongst us any hope that they can destroy us, either now or in the far future. Once we have crushed that hope of theirs, then new things might be possible.
...or among us?! FFS!
I work/have worked with Palestinian Israelis. The Head of Eighth Grade, English, Arabic and maths teachers, cleaners and janitors. My daughter's homeroom teacher (I hate using Americanisms) - his mechanechet - is a Palestinian Israeli. When my son smashed his head, most of the nurses and doctors who treated him, and there were many, were Palestinian Israelis. Yet you talk of those living "among us"?
We have always been suspected and discriminated against by those amongst whom we have lived. Within living memory we were expelled from homes we'd known for centuries or millennia, or just murdered, by those amongst whom we lived. Yet you talk of those living "among us"?
Whatever the trauma, there is no excuse for what Hamas did nor what they want to do.
Whatever the trauma, there is no excuse to allow yourself to approach anything remotely similar. These are not our values. No, these are antithetical to our values, both as Israelis and as Jews. Please resist the temptation.
You are leaving out the radical Islamic determination never to accept a Jewish state under any circumstances. No compromise, no agreement will make the practitioners of radical Islam happy. If Jews were to withdraw from the entire land of Israel except for Tel Aviv, and build a ghetto wall around it, Hamas and Hezbollah would be firing rockets at it.
Have you not read the Hamas charter? They state that no compromise, no negotiation, no political situation is possible, there is only one answer, violence and death.
Jewish values - at least according to the Tanakh, I know little about the Talmud - allow for the necessary and essential destruction of Hezbollah and Hamas.
You say "We have always been suspected and discriminated against by those amongst whom we have lived. Within living memory we were expelled from homes we'd known for centuries or millennia, or just murdered, by those amongst whom we lived."
And in those places, were you calling for the destruction of anyone? Firing rockets and sending suicide bombers?
Jews were law abiding citizens in all of those places where they resided. And you now feel sorry for those who want to kill you?
As to Palestinians who are willing to accept Israel and live with it, they should be afforded as much consideration as possible, of course.
Really Udi? Some of your best friends are Arabs? Puleese. And, "Palestinian Israelis" no less. It must feel nice to be one of the good Israelis.
I did say that Hamas should have been completely destroyed as swiftly as possible, but also referred to the international complications of that. I didn't presume to recommend Israel's policy toward Gaza afterward. There are several options, none of them ideal.
My main point was that agonized hand-wringing over hostages and POWs has not been a conspicuous feature of previous wars. Hard as that might be for the families involved, enemies should be aware that taking and holding hostages will not be to their advantage. Otherwise, this behavior only ensures it will occur again, and again, and again.
That logic is fine for many countries. Not for Israel. Israel works on solidarity, on the ethos that no-one is left behind, ever, that if a mother and/or father send/allow their kids to go to fight, then if the worst should happen everything will be done to bring them back. We have many deep, bitter and faithful divisions within our society, but when it comes to this we are one or we are nothing. Why should the rational mostly secular majority pay taxes, fight and die for a government parts of which prefers fantasies of settlements and building the Third Temple over the lives of soldiers and hostages; while the other part has spent this time solidifying its refusal to allow their kids to serve?
That's the Israeli ethos. It stands together with the Jewish ethos: we do not venerate the dead; we sanctify life. "He/She who saves a life, it is as if they have saved the entire world". Those hostages are alive. The dead cannot be returned, but those hostages can be brought back to the living.
As for future attacks and hostage-taking, that's for intelligence, security services, police, army and the governments which oversee them. They all failed on 7/10. They need to fall on their swords - as two top generals did the other day - and fulfil their mission to protect us... a mission which in most cases they have chosen. The hostages did not choose this fate, nor should we allow them to pay for others' failure by becoming the living dead. Every day they are held in captivity is a stain on this country. We need them home 🎗️
I am sure that if Hamas said "We will release all of the hostages when the last Jew leaves the land of Palestine," you would not say "Oh! Oh! The poor hostages . . . their poor families . . . look at the crying mothers . . . we had better pack our bags, anything if only the hostages are released, anything at all."
You would say "Sorry, no deal." At least I hope you would say that, I have no way of knowing.
I am not being facetious.
Abraham pursued the forces that kidnapped his nephew Lot and destroyed them.
When the Amalekites plundered Ziklag David pursued them and destroyed them (though some escaped).
You are just giving people more incentives to kidnap Israelis again and again and again.
The idea is to eliminate the glorified serial killers and reincarnated Nazis who thirst for Jewish blood - not allow them to flourish and hope that the government will keep you safe.
You may be secular, rational, and do military service, but my friend, It doesn't matter where you live. If you live on the last piece of dry land before the Mediterranean, in the eyes of every Arab--including your "Palestinian Israelis"-- you live in a settlement. You are an occupier. Just like those "bad" Jews over the green line. You make it seem so simple. If only we were rid of the messianic far-right crazies, and the deadbeat Haridim, and, well let's throw in anybody who doesn't hate Bibi, then we would be living in heaven on Earth. That's quite the Israeli ethos you are propounding.
I’m sick Nehor. It’s wee hours of morning here, still dark, so unable to breathe thinking of this knife in the back deal. Kastner, I always believed, tried his best at negotiating with the devil to save Jews. I have to hope and pray and believe that there is more to the ‘deal.’
I agree. I'm a long ways away from you folks, yet the same sick, gut-churn happens when considering the present "deal". If this deal stands, the last fifteen months were just a deep mowing job, when sod removal was required, and xeriscaping restarted. All the hostages are released, or none. And Hamas and its ilk do not get to remain. The decision is Hamas' - take it or leave it.
There is a subtle worldview that is making Israel the responsible party for a deal, and that, I suggest, is global antisemitism.
In the end, all of this is in the hands of Hashem, and it's to Him we turn for help.
Hamas is evil. Pure evil.
🙁🇮🇱
This long slow torture on Israel and its supporters is the hell gazans are cheering! We are incenting more kidnapping and more terrorists to terrorize. 💔❤️🩹 no living being sacrifices the entire population for the individual except the dumb American government… I say this as an American who is ready to make Aliyah !
You said it. "Long slow torture."
No one knows the future entire.
Hezbollah broken. Assad gone. Hamas attrited and living under new rules of engagement. Iran ring of fire strategy ended. Time to get as many hostages back as possible and clean out the failed Israeli leadership.
The Shalit deal was a bad deal. The fact is that this is a worse deal. Yes it is terribly insensitive of me to say this but I advocate for no release of Palestinian prisoners except to the graveyard. Continuing to barter Jewish lives at an unequal rate continues to give advantage to a people whose goal is our destruction and annihilation. Of course families (and all the rest of us) pray and beg for the release of our hostages. Sadly this is not in the best interest of our people. Without a declaration of peaceful intent and recognition of our nation all this deal does is jeopardize the future of Israel.
The comparison to Kastner is excellent. One thing i don’t agree with- i fully believe that with total occupation cleansing of areas of Hamas we would have freed the hostages- either in deals or by military means.
The army- and the government that approved there plans- chose tactics that les to where we are. And those tactics are not the inly ones that could have been chosen.
Shame on the government. Shame on Halevi.
And lets not forget the group that insisted on funding the Hamas war effort: shame on Biden-Blinken.
Very strong Ira. There is so much more to say. I decide to stay focused on those who are left behind, a statement of will by the Israeli sovereign government that is the epitome of moral corruption. That is where we are. I'm staying with those left behind. Nothing is right if it is built upon betrayal of our fellow Jews. I'll just add: there is only a military solution.
How much Jewish blood will it take to assuage the lust of the terrorists?
All of it.
All you need to know.
If you gave them a yearly blood sacrifice of randomly selected Israelis would they stop attacking?
No
Incredulous — the word that comes to mind when you blame yourselves for 10/7.
This sense of moral superiority will get you all dead.
I could not agree more. I am watching Pogrom(s), Pierre Rehov’s film. I am shocked, disgusted and angry. But I don’t know what I can do. How do you fight this craziness? The barbarians are at your gate and the world turns a blind eye. My initials stand for my whole name, which I sign here now. —Esmeralda Eulalia Negron, Zionist
Taking a public stance like you have just done is the most important thing at this time. Thank you.
The rhetoric around this issue is not just painful, it is explosive. And the manipulation of the media by the terrorists is shameful. Everyone should watch Rehov’s films and read Einat Wilf’s books.
BS"D
Shalom Reb Ehud! Thank you for "following" me! You've written a very convincing article, but I must honestly say that I can't agree with you. This "Sophie's Choice" question is one of the most difficult (not to say anguished) moral problems that can exist. There are two sides to this question, and each side is unassailable. There is simply no room for blame, for aspersions, for feeling or laying shame on either side. The leaders who must make this decision, may Hashem give them strength, clarity and determination! They need and deserve our undivided support. May you be strong, safe and well!
Peter, I'm not sure what you are disagreeing with. My point was that if there is a deal, it can only be for all the hostages and bodies. As soon as we agreed to a partial deal (which is what we have been doing) we created with our own hands the Sophie's Choice situation. If we had said from the start, all or nothing, there would not be parents of hostages today wondering why their child was not on the list. Believe me, this is a ticking bomb. Please, HaShem, let it not be that someone was paid to bump someone up the list. Now, if such a deal comes about for all the hostages and there is a price to pay, then I agree with you, we must unite behind our leadership and pray for satisfactory results.
But parents were screaming from the beginning, “Make a deal, make a deal!” Hindsight is not a strong argument.
Fine. So, a partial deal. Who decides who goes free and who stays in the pit? Who gave them that right? That's the point I made and you are still not addressing it.
BS”D
Surely Hamas decides. How would Israel have control over that??? Israel does not even have full control over whom they release in exchange.
I know nothing, but that is what I understand from what I have heard and read.
That’s just it, Peter. Giving Hamas a say is a passive-aggressive move. We should have sealed off the Gaza Strip, helping anyone not of military age to leave instead of starving. It would have been over in a month or two.
BS”D
Dear friend. We gave them nothing. They took hostages. They have all the cards and the goyim shield them. The un protects them. Don't drive yourself crazy with this. Hashem will surely help!
btw, Thanks for reading. The post was from January. I had to reread it before replying to you.