A year ago, during a Channel 12 News broadcast of its Friday evening summary-of-the-week diary Ulpan Shishi (Friday Studio), Foreign News Editor Arad Nir called for Israel to halt the fighting in Gaza. That was on the 100th day of the war. In a post on X/Twitter, he noted that since then he has not appeared, based on the decision of his editor.
In the video of that broadcast, he said: “Hamas’s condition for progress [regarding a hostage deal] is to halt the fighting. So let’s halt the fighting. Because, 100 days later, we can no longer endure the plight of the 136 hostages.” He added that “if 136 coffins were to return, the State of Israel would never recover. The Zionist ethos would never recover.”
With every new reporting on developments regarding possible hostage release agreements these past few months and of supposed progress, the emotional and psychological pressure is continuously being ramped up by the families of the hostages, politically interested anti-government groups and the media.
No one, of course, can deny the parents and relatives of the hostages their right to express their pain and concern for their loved ones. This is true even if they utter the most outlandish accusations against the prime minister and his fellow ministers.
On the other hand, there are other family members of hostages who champion a different approach than the one that has dominated public discourse. They, too, need to be allowed their right of free expression. Pundits and commentators supporting their positions need to also be allowed time on our television screens and in radio studios.
But that has not been the case, as air-time dominance has been awarded to those seeking to alter the Zionist ethos to become as they see it and want it to be. In essence, parallel to the pressure building that the government should agree to a hostage deal – any hostage deal – there is an ideological and political struggle taking place below the surface.
Will Israel “never recover” as Nir asserted above, if 136 coffins (God forbid) return instead of live hostages? Of course it would. Nir and others voicing similar opinions are simply propagandizing. In 1948, Israel’s losses numbered 1% of the country’s population.
In today’s terms, that would be some 90,000 dead. What Nir truly intimated was that he and others of like mind would do their utmost to assure that Israel would find it difficult to recover – through their framing and messaging control.
There has been no serious or detailed discussion of the issue, nor have any interviewers demanded their interviewees address the issue of what will be the security situation following the release of many hundreds or even thousands of Hamas terrorists.
Very few have been asked what will be the effect of halting the Gaza hostilities, even for 60 days. Families who have lost children, siblings, parents and spouses have not appeared regularly in the media to be asked if they have any thoughts about the value of the lives of their dear ones versus the lives of the hostages.
Little if any talk has been devoted to what were the actual developments stemming from previous releases of terrorists from Israeli prisons.
After all, former Hamas leader in Gaza Yahya Sinwar himself was a prime example of what can happen if a terrorist is released. Instead of Nir’s fabricated “ethos,” should we not be talking about the value of lives of future possible victims of Hamas and Fatah terror? Or debating a possible breakdown in social solidarity?
Has any official or pro-hostage deal activist been asked why has Hamas refused even to inform Israel about who among the hostages they hold are still alive? Should that not be an indicator that Hamas knows full well it is stringing Israel along? Can Hamas be trusted?
As this is being composed, we are still waiting for something to actually happen. What we do know, however, is that Israel’s public is being ill treated, not for the first time, about conducting an open and fact-based debate over a critical issue that involves our personal security and collective Jewish-Zionist ethos as a people.
The writer is a researcher, analyst, and commentator on political, cultural, and media issues.