NEW YORK – The Israeli government’s lack of transparency and accessibility to the hostage families is a national embarrassment, Jonathan Dekel-Chen, father of 35-year-old Israeli-American hostage Sagui Dekel-Chen, told The Jerusalem Post on Friday in New York.
“Our government doesn’t seem that worried about the hostages or willing to sacrifice to get them home,” Dekel-Chen said, noting that a deal would require a painful sacrifice.
Dekel-Chen accused the coalition of elevating voices from the Tikvah Forum, a group of hostage families that favors a more hardline approach to negotiations with Hamas. Almost none of the hostages’ families are in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s constituency or those of his coalition, he noted.
“That’s why there’s raging in the streets. That’s the desperation; that’s the hopelessness – that our government is essentially selling a fantasy to its constituency to stay in power,” Dekel-Chen told the Post. “And it will continue to do whatever it has to [in order to] fulfill its priority and the prime minister’s priority, which is to stay in power.”
Dekel-Chen believes the government would respond differently if more of the hostages were from the coalition partners’ constituencies.
“Bibi Netanyahu has had the most power since 1996. He’s had all that time to solve the problem of terror from the Gaza Strip. A lot of years,” Dekel-Chen said. “Our people must not be sacrificed now. In 1996, you [the prime minister] ran on the promise of eradicating terror, of eradicating Hamas. We’re going to abandon our people – abandon them a second time? For what?”
There was plenty of time to kill Sinwar and eradicate Hamas, Dekel-Chen said.
This all happened under Netanyahu's watch
“This all happened on his watch,” he continued. “We all agree that Hamas needs to be destroyed, but not at the price of killing these people, our people, who may still be alive.”
The release of all of the hostages through military action alone is a fantasy; there is no alternative to negotiations, he said.
Dekel-Chen also praised US President Joe Biden and his administration for making every effort to release the hostages. They have a difficult job, he said, because they have to get everyone to the table, including Israel.
“What we’ve been hearing and seeing over the last couple of days is a demonstration of the Biden administration’s seriousness about resolving this horrible conflict and getting the hostages home, as many as possible, alive,” he said.
“As far as Israelis are concerned, I think the Biden administration itself understands that more leverage may be needed, in all of the parties, to bring our loved ones home,” he said. “But all that we’ve seen until now is that the Biden administration is deeply committed to getting it done.”