The harrowing plight of the remaining hostages, and their loved ones and friends, should not be forgotten. Their are still about 59 and perhaps half of them are still alive.
And so I read this piece with interest. It describes a documentary that focuses on one such family, with relatives both in Israel and in the US.
The hostage families are not a unitary group, and even within this family there apparently are considerable political differences of opinion. And I consider that the families of hostages have undergone such stress, turmoil, fear, and sorrow that they are almost beyond criticism for anything they might do or say. However, quite a few of them are on the Israeli left and have long hated Netanyahu, and it should come as no surprise that they consider him blameworthy.
But two things in the article surprised me enough that I’m going to discuss them. First, a little background:
The film, which won the best documentary feature award at the Berlinale film festival, shows the first months after teacher Liat Beinin Atzili and her husband, artist and mechanic Aviv Atzili, were taken hostage in the attack on Kibbutz Nir Oz, part of the wider Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas assault on southern Israel in which some 1,200 people were killed and 251 taken hostage.
Much of the film focuses on Beinin Atzili’s older parents, American-born couple Yehuda and Chaya Beinin, who have lived in Israel since the early 1970s. They worked with the couple’s siblings and three children to get their daughter and son-in-law released.
As it turned out, Liat was released in that first wave, but Aviv had been murdered on October 7 and Hamas still holds his body.
Liat’s father Yehuda had this puzzling thing to say about the family’s initial attitude:
“We thought another couple of weeks and this would all be over,” said Beinin. “Nobody thought we’d be in this for the long haul.”
Why would anyone think that? I understand that it might have been wishful thinking, but it makes zero sense to me based on history. Beinin must be aware that the negotiations for a single hostage, Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, took five years to accomplish. Also, 1027 prisoners were exchanged for that one man, 280 of them lifers.
So how could anyone think this would “be over” in a couple of weeks, and why would that person not realize this would not just be a prisoners-for-hostages deal but would have to involve a war to destroy Hamas?
Yehuda Beinin is described in the article as a “peacenik” and “committed liberal who has long been opposed to the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.” So obviously he is going to see Netanyahu as the problem; perhaps that allows him to have a fantasy that this matter could have been resolved quickly and easily without Bibi. In fact, that leads to the second puzzling statement of Beinin’s:
It’s clear to Beinin that if Israel wants the remaining 59 hostages released, then Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “has to go,” he said. “The hostage families found themselves in a very difficult situation. There won’t be any resolution if he’s still prime minister.”
Well, I suppose he would be correct if Netanyahu was replaced by a leftist government willing to give Hamas everything it wants, keep Hamas in power, end all military operations and control of Gaza, and throw in a Palestinian state as well. But short of that, I can’t imagine what sort of magical thinking is required to think someone else would do better than Netanyahu – whose government, after all, made the deal that returned Liat Beinin Atzili to her family.
More:
And as [Yehuda] Beinin pointed out, both in the film and in interviews, he sometimes angers people, including his own grandchildren, when he brings in politics, and has tried to rein himself in.
So the family members are not united with him politically. And yet they have managed to work together. In addition, neither Liat nor Aviv’s relatives seem to want compromises in order to bring Aviv’s body home:
“Liat has said she doesn’t want a single hair on any Israeli soldier’s head harmed to bring Aviv home,” said Beinin. “And Aviv’s brother says if it will take twenty years to bring his body home, then it will take 20 years.”
I would be interested in seeing this movie if and when it becomes readily available.