The demonstrators in Israel for the hostages plead, “Bring them home!” But why address Israel? After all, Israel isn’t holding the hostages. And it’s been made clear for a long time that Hamas is finished negotiating, except perhaps to ask for a total Israeli surrender in exchange for the hostage release. So how can Israel “bring them home”? Aren’t the costs of such concessions unconscionable?
Israel is being addressed in these pleas, rather than Hamas, because Israel is humane and Hamas is not. Remember William Lloyd Garrison’s famous statement, “With reasonable men I will reason, with humane men I will plead … “. What many – most?- people forget is the rest of the quote, “but to tyrants I will give no quarter, nor waste arguments where they will certainly be lost.” Negotiations with Hamas are “wasted words.”
As far as a military way to bring them home goes – Israel probably doesn’t know where they all are, and even if and when Israel does know where they are (almost certainly not in one place but in many), a military approach would be likely to kill them or precipitate Hamas murdering them.
I think the phrase that makes more sense is “Let them go!” – addressed to Hamas and the Gazans. Of course, Hamas has no more intention of letting them go than Pharaoh had of letting the Jews who were slaves in Egypt go, as in the song “Let My People Go.” It took ten escalating plagues for that to happen, and it’s not surprising it took that much to get him to relent. Perhaps you believe that’s a historical fact, or perhaps you believe it’s a legend or a story, but whichever it is it tells something true about evil and power.
I suppose if the message is to be “Bring them home!,” the words should be addressed to the world: the UN, nations, supposed “humanitarian” organizations, and the international community as a whole. If the world was united in stating the obvious fact that the kidnappings are evil and Hamas must release the hostages or face attack or severe sanctions, globally – perhaps that would be enough pressure. But in reality that is very far from happening and Hamas knows it, and knows that the world is actually far more united against Israel.
Remember this past virtue-signaling? Now we hardly even have this sort of thing:
The following video is of another excellent and comprehensive discussion from The Jerusalem Center. It centers on the terrible choices the hostage situation presents, and how well Hamas has learned what Israel’s vulnerabilities around that are. I’ve cued it up to begin with a short talk on a different and yet important topic – the tax money Israel is supposed to transfer to Gaza and the West Bank as part of the Oslo Accords, and which the Palestinians use to reward terrorists for killing Israelis. After that brief discussion the speakers segue into the subject of the hostages (again, if it’s too slow for you, go to “Settings” and increase the speed). I had written a draft of the above post before I ever listened to this podcast, and I was surprised to hear the gentleman on the left of the screen (whose name and title I didn’t catch) say much the same thing about the phrase “bring them home” as I said. But there’s much much more in their talk that’s well worth hearing:
I think that Israel must not do any more large prisoner exchanges for hostages. Israel must hang tough against such negotiation and certainly against any long-term ceasefire. But I also think I know what the terrorists would do if Israel made that position clear – plus of course there would be the terrible and yet understandable spectacle of the grief-stricken and angry families of the hostages. The terrorists would then use Israel’s stance as a propaganda point to say that Israel is heartless. The terrorist propaganda would turn the terrorists’ own heartlessness and evil inside out and blame it on the Israelis, and much of the world would stupidly buy that, as they’ve bought so much else the terrorists are selling. In addition, I think the terrorists would start beaming videos of hostage after hostage pleading and pleading, and perhaps being mistreated or even tortured, as well as possibly killed either onscreen – or probably off, the better to claim that Israel’s airstrikes did the deed.
The bottom line is that, once hostages are taken by terrorists, there is no good result except their rescue. For release, the price is too high. And because of the number of the October 7 hostages and the way they’re being held and by whom, rescue is incredibly difficult.
NOTE: Last night when I watched that Jerusalem Center video, I thought of a film I saw in a large-screen movie theater when I was a teenager. Its name was The Sand Pebbles and it featured Steve McQueen, an actor on whom I had a huge crush; that’s why I went to see it. But the film itself filled me with horror – or rather, the only scene I remember after all these years filled me with horror. It featured the torture of an Asian man whom the sailor played by McQueen had befriended and whom the audience had grown to like. The man had been captured, and a vicious crowd was torturing him, with McQueen and the other sailors watching his torture from the deck of their ship. McQueen has a rifle, and he takes aim and shoots, putting his friend out of his misery. It is a searing, awful scene. But you understand that by doing that, McQueen ended the man’s suffering – because he was going to be killed slowly and painfully anyway, in full view of everyone. The McQueen character killed him, but stopped the sadistic spectacle of his suffering.
ADDENDUM:
Here is a video of a woman who was a hostage in Gaza. She is speaking to the World Economic Forum in Davos, describing her experiences and asking them to pressure Hamas for the release of the remaining hostages. I’ve not seen that approach before, and I think it’s a step in the right direction – not that the Davos crowd is going to do what she says, however: