As the war in Gaza approaches its eight-month mark, as the heart breaks at the news that four additional hostages were killed in Hamas captivity, as the North is engulfed in flames, and as the government teeters on collapse, there is a tendency to lose the thread.
All the pain, all the anger, and all the frustration can blur the vision, confusing those responsible for the misery with those trying to ensure such misery is not revisited in the country again.
Guy Metzger, whose father, Yoram Metzger, was among the four hostages whose death was announced to a shell-shocked nation on Monday evening, has not lost the thread.
In an interview on Tuesday morning with Army Radio, he stated clearly that Hamas was responsible for his father’s murder. The actual circumstances of his father’s death, whether by accidental friendly IDF fire or by the bloody hands of one of Hamas’s many murderers, was inconsequential, he said.
Asked whether he harbored anger toward the government or the IDF, Metzger replied that the actual circumstances of his father’s death were beside the point.
This question was not out of place in the current climate where claims are rife that the IDF – despite having lost some 300 soldiers in Gaza, trying to force the release of the hostages and degrade Hamas’s capabilities – has not done everything it can to set them free, and that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu would rather have the hostages rot in the tunnels than lose his grip on power by ending the war.
“The circumstances of their [the hostages] deaths are unimportant,” Metzger said. “They were kidnapped by Hamas. Hamas was responsible for their lives. Hamas is guilty of everything that happened to them there.”
Hamas kidnapped people, and the exact manner by which they perished is less important, he said, adding: “My father was killed by Hamas under the ground. That is the situation.”
It is a situation that gets lost in the Israeli penchant to play chess with itself – a penchant the country honed to an art during previous rounds of diplomatic negotiations with the Palestinians over the last three decades and which is now evident in wartime negotiations as well.
What does it mean that Israel plays chess with itself? It means that Israelis argue passionately and debate among themselves endlessly about solutions to problems that are only partially in their hands to solve, i.e., if Israelis could only agree on a solution, that solution would then magically appear.
For instance, for years, Israelis argued with each other over peace with the Palestinians: what the final boundaries of a future deal would look like, what settlements would remain a part of Israel and which ones would be uprooted, and what neighborhoods would remain under Israel’s control in Jerusalem. All that was missing was taking into consideration the Palestinian point of view and the real possibility that whatever Israelis decided among themselves might not be enough for the Palestinians (which, in the end, is what transpired).
A wartime chess game
Just as Israelis played chess with themselves regarding peace negotiations, so, too, are they now playing chess with themselves during wartime.
Perhaps impacted by the misplaced slogan about the hostages, “Bring them Home,” as opposed to the more accurate slogan that places the onus on Hamas, “Let them Go,” many have the sense that if Israel would just do X or Y, then Hamas would do Z and release the hostages, and this whole nightmare would be over. When cast in this light, the onus is on Israel because of an unwillingness to do X or Y.
“Seal the deal” is one of the slogans currently being chanted in protests against the government, as if a heartless government in Jerusalem is blocking a deal within grasp.
Yet no less a personage than State Department spokesman Matthew Miller, someone not shy of criticizing the Israeli government, on Monday said the obstacle to the current deal is not Israel.
“To be clear, the roadblock right now to a ceasefire is not Israel,” he said. “The roadblock to a ceasefire is Hamas. The world should know, the Palestinian people should know, that the only thing standing in the way of an immediate ceasefire today is Hamas.”
Not only the world and the Palestinians should know this, but so, too, should Israelis, especially those creating the impression that the government does not care about its citizens languishing, suffering, and being tormented in Hamas’s tunnels.
It is quite possible that what Hamas is demanding – an end to the war, a full Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, allowing all the Gazan residents to return to their homes, and a guarantee that it be allowed to remain in power – may be beyond the price that this country is willing to pay. Do those who say, “Pay any price,” really mean any price? Do those who say, “Seal the deal,” mean any deal?
None of the above is meant to absolve the government of its responsibility for the current mess.
There is something extraordinarily unseemly about the public squabbles among government leaders at this time, about Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich threatening to bring down Netanyahu’s government, feeding the impression that this is what is driving the prime minister’s life-and-death choices.
US President Joe Biden, when asked in a Time magazine interview published on Tuesday whether Netanyahu is prolonging the war for his own political reasons, replied: “There is every reason for people to draw that conclusion.” That from a leader facing his own upcoming election and whose decisions regarding the war are clearly not free from his own political considerations.
Has this government made mistakes in prosecuting this war over the last eight months? Certainly. Did it miss previous opportunities to perhaps secure the release of additional hostages? Maybe, at least according to some leaks in the press.
But to place the bulk of the onus on the current depressing and sad state of affairs on the government is to absolve Hamas of its ultimate responsibility. The grieving son of Yoram Metzger understands that. It is incumbent upon others – eight months into this horrific war – to also keep that in mind.