The most unifying aspect of the past ten months has been the care and concern shown for the Israeli hostages held by Palestinian terrorists in Gaza. Every Israeli, irrespective of their political leanings, their religious observance, or community, desperately wants the hostages to return to their families, safe and sound.
As hard as the death, destruction, and brutality of the Simchat Torah attacks were for Israelis and Jews the world over to witness, the pain over the hostages being kept away from their families - and all that they’re being forced to endure during their captivity – is much worse.
I recently heard Rachel Goldberg-Polin speak about her son Hersh and what her family has gone through in the year since he had been taken hostage. Rachel spoke about Hersh’s character, his respect for his parents, and his adventurous side. She told stories that showed the large audience in attendance in Jerusalem that Hersh is unique.
Her talk was delivered only a few days before Rachel and her husband spoke at the Democratic National Convention and told the Democratic Party that releasing Hersh and the other hostages was a humanitarian issue, not a political one. Hearing Rachel speak at Hersh’s funeral was made even more painful by remembering her optimism in her previous talks.
Unfortunately, Israel’s enemies couldn’t allow Rachel’s words into their hearts. Instead of hearing her plea to view the hostage’s freedom with compassion, they turned it into a morbid political contest. Israel’s enemies characterized the plea for compassion as “Israel’s side of the debate” and demanded that a Palestinian speaker be allowed to address the conference. Israel’s enemies didn’t see the humanitarian factor in Hersh’s captivity, but saw Hersh as a political tool that gave an advantage to Israel that they needed to counter.
A cynical display
THE PALESTINIAN demand to “balance” the story of Hersh and plea for his and the other hostages to be let free was a cynical display of a lack of mercy and compassion. Their callousness and inability to step out of their own cynicism speaks to a corrupt national character and supports the notion that the Palestinians not only support the horrific Simchat Torah attacks of October 7 but refuse to see the brutality in them and in the keeping of the hostages.
The notion of Israel “earning” the hostages’ freedom through a ceasefire against their enemies is an extension of the same cynicism and cruelty. Instead of seeing the absolute imperative to free the hostages – without qualification – the notion of a ceasefire introduces the idea that they don’t necessarily deserve freedom, but rather are pawns in a conflict to be bargained for against the demands for a ceasefire of the Palestinian savages who conducted the original attacks. It is an immoral and corrupt perversion of justice to predicate the freedom of innocent hostages on Israel’s suspension of its right to defend itself and carry out justice against those who attacked it.
The international community should separate the obligation for Palestinians to free the hostages and their desire for a ceasefire. The need to free the hostages and the Palestinian desire for Israel to stop its war are unconnected and should never be linked. The international community, led by the United Nations, the Red Cross, the United States, Egypt, and Qatar should demand the Palestinians free the hostages without any deal.
When the world entertains the notion – let alone advocates for it – that the hostage’s freedom is dependent on Israel’s suspension of its right of defense and seeking justice against those who unjustly attacked it, the world encourages and incentivizes rogue factions, like the Palestinians, to conduct further attacks and kidnappings.
The attackers are being taught that their efforts to kill, rape, and kidnap innocent people are profitable and worthwhile. The argument that appeasing terrorists and kidnappers incentivizes terrorists to commit further kidnappings isn’t a novel or unique claim: It is common sense, and yet the world seems to have forgotten it.
The point needs to be made clearly that the hostage’s freedom should not be dependent on Israel’s actions. Israel’s enemies, the perpetrators of one of the world’s most gruesome attacks, should be brought to justice, not appeased.
PEOPLE WILL counter this point by arguing for practicality, claiming that the hostage’s freedom is of primary importance, and that whatever needs to be done to secure it – even the suspension of Israel’s right to defend itself – must be done.
It is understandable that people will put the hostage’s freedom as the issue of primary importance. The entire Jewish nation and tens of millions of people have prayed daily for their safety and secure return home. At the same time, Israel cannot take steps that make it vulnerable to further attacks that will only put it in the same position it currently finds itself. Israel cannot secure the freedom of the hostages at the expense of incentivizing further attacks and kidnappings.
Israel’s concern must be deterring further attacks. Israel cannot allow its citizens to be vulnerable to further kidnappings and Israeli society to be hamstrung by having hundreds of its innocent citizens – some of them children! – held hostage by an evil and cynical people.
Israel’s leaders are going to have to make the difficult decision of whether to put the practical need and method of securing the hostage’s freedom by appeasing the Palestinians and Hamas. Irrespective of Israel’s decision, the world must make the point that the hostages absolutely deserve their freedom independent of any of the kidnapper’s demands. The world must demand that the hostages be freed immediately and should ideally refuse to entertain Hamas’s demands.
The writer is a certified interfaith hospice chaplain in Jerusalem and the mayor of Mitzpe Yeriho, where she lives with her husband and six children.