We seem to be falling again into the same traps and repeating the mistakes of the past expecting a different outcome in the future. It is bad enough that any portion of this aid will be seized by Hamas, and even worse that it sustains a hostile population. Not only has there not been a single person from among these “innocent” civilians who has acted upon Israel’s offer of $5,000,000 plus free passage anywhere in the world in exchange for information leading to the liberation of even one hostage; but also, Hamas’ terrorist ranks have been steadily replenished from these same “innocent” civilians. Tens of thousands of terrorists have been killed but reportedly have been steadily replaced.
What do we gain by strengthening the enemy but the prolongation of the war? After all, breaking the will of the enemy is one traditional path to victory but we apparently eschew that at all costs out of humanitarian concerns. In truth, I cannot ever recall reading that the United States dropped pitot and pasta on Hiroshima and Nagasaki alongside the atomic bombs.
Humanitarian aid to the enemy population comes after the war - not during the war - and the chimera known as “international law,” even in the hypocritical, distorted, and arbitrary manner it is misapplied to Israel, should not hamper our chances for defeating the vile enemy who attacked, massacred, raped, tortured, and kidnapped us on October 7, 2023.
There are four situations that render the provision of aid plausible.
1. Surrender.
This is the traditional way that a defeated party ends the war, when it concludes that it has had enough, can suffer no more, and seeks a way out of the conflict. Countries that go to war surely plan how they are going to provide for their citizens while the battles rage. Hamas’ plan, obviously, was to plan not at all but cynically appeal to the world’s sympathy (and bias against the Jewish state) so that Israel, in wartime, should have to sustain its enemy’s population - i.e., the enemy population that voted Hamas into power a little less than twenty years ago.
If we do not insist on surrender, we are literally following the enemy’s game plan and ensuring its survival to maraud another day. There is no starvation in Gaza, period, although there are shortages and undoubted hardship. They want food, water, and electricity? Surrender. And if they don’t, then obviously failure to surrender has grave consequences, as defeated aggressors throughout history have learned to their detriment.
2. Release our hostages!
If Hamas wants its population fed, it can release all of our hostages, at one time, in one place, in exchange not for murderers already imprisoned, or the rapists, sadists, kidnappers, savages, and pillagers of October 7, but in exchange for food. If it does not want its population to be fed, that really is their problem, not our problem. We need not exhibit more compassion for the enemy population than their leaders show for them.
We are a naturally compassionate people, but it is easier to deal with the severe consequences if we, accurately, deem Hamas like the Nazis, and the people of Gaza as Nazis and future Nazis. They are raised to hate Israel and murder Jews. The deaths of people who dedicate their lives to these propositions should not disturb any normal and decent person. And if there are truly innocent people - who despise Hamas, love Israel, or would like nothing more than to leave Gaza permanently - they should be fast-tracked to leave.
3. Leave
We should not be feeding our enemy but we should be aggressively pursuing the Trump plan of evacuating the Gazans to safer habitations. For some reason, we are not. I would love to hear the Prime Minister, instead of repeatedly threatening to win the war but always hesitating, talk directly to the nations of the world - Arab, Asian, European, and American - and state unequivocally:
“If you are sincerely concerned about the welfare of the citizens of Gaza, you would not be insisting that we do what you have never done - nourish your enemies in wartime. What you would do is rush to offer asylum to as many as one million Gazans anxious to leave. You would be sending large ships and planes - we will facilitate their departure - to accommodate these people for whom you express such deep concern. We can evacuate 30,000 a day. Within one month, the situation in Gaza would be permanently transformed for the good, the people would be fed and resettled, and the war would end.”
The more aid we provide, the less likely it is that they will leave. Don’t we realize that? The sooner they leave, the sooner the war will end - because it will only end when they taste defeat, which in their terms is exile and loss of land.
4. Feed our hostages first!
It is obscene that we are providing food and water to an enemy that is, by all accounts, starving and abusing the hostages. It is immoral. It is foolish. It is disgraceful. Consequently, we should insist that the hostages be verifiably fed first. It does not matter if the Red Cross provides the food, although since that tendentious and pretentious entity cannot be trusted, they will have to be accompanied by a third party of our choice. But I don’t care if it is the Red Cross, or the Blue Cross, or if Steve Witkoff himself delivers food to our hostages, but not one morsel or drop should be given to Gazans until our hostages are treated like human beings.
We seem to ignore the fact that they are being held against international law, which has not once been marshaled to demand their release. Apparently, international law only carries weight when it can be used against Jews, and never when it can be used to help Jews. Why do we play along with this charade?
We must stop validating our enemy’s tactic (more than fifty years old) of kidnapping Jews, killing them, and/or holding them in abusive conditions until our foes achieve their nefarious objectives. We are playing right into their hands.
And those who call for an end to the war in exchange for the release of all hostages and full withdrawal of Israel from Gaza seem not to realize that Hamas will survive, prosper, threaten us forever, but worse - they will one day, soon thereafter, Heaven forbid, kidnap five children at a bus stop, or take a school class captive, and then demand even more, and more, until our demise becomes sensible to us.
Releasing our hostages by paying the enemy’s price, again and again, only ensures that we will suffer more kidnappings, more hostages, more torture, and more national anguish. What rational entity would pursue such folly?
The eighth of the Ten Utterances we will read on Shavuot is “you shall not steal,” which the Sages interpreted as “you shall not kidnap,” a capital crime (Sanhedrin 86a). When we normalize a capital crime - literally nourishing it instead of punishing it harshly - we bring disaster on ourselves, and the uncivilized part of our world is strengthened and emboldened.
There are Israelis who hate our government so much they would rather lose the war and endanger our survival than clear a path to victory. There are others who, under the trauma of the last eighteen months, see no way out other than to surrender and declare victory, and pray that the next traumatic event never happens or just does not affect them. And there are still others - many in our government - who persist in negotiating with an enemy sworn to our destruction and indulging in the same failed policies and approaches of the past.
We deserve better - new approaches that do not involve the release of those who murder us and laugh about it, or those who blow up our buses, shoot at our vehicles, and stab our pedestrians knowing full well that they will get away with it from our side, and be paid handsomely by those who dispatched them.
We can also say “no” to Trump, Witkoff, and others who just want an end to war, some diplomatic achievement, and a signing ceremony, regardless of the day after costs and consequences. (It was actually amusing this week, to hear Steve Witkoff say he is providing a new “term sheet” to Hamas; “term sheet” is, of course, a real estate term, wholly inapplicable to high stakes diplomacy involving life and death, survival of a nation, and the ignominy and revulsion due to terrorists and their supporters. Talk about being in over your head.)
If anything, Trump has repeatedly told Israel to “finish the job.” But we are bookended in our politics by a government afraid of victory and a fanatical left that welcomes defeat if only that will finally topple the government.
Of course, our “no” should be mitigated with these four choices: surrender, release our hostages, leave, and/or feed our hostages first. If not, then let the promised gates of hell open on our tormentors. It is impossible to conceive of more worthy targets.
Rabbi Steven Pruzansky teaches Torah in Modiin, serves as Senior Research Associate at the Jerusalem Center for Applied Policy (JCAP.ngo), and is the author of six books, including “The Jewish Ethic of Personal Responsibility” (Gefen Publishing).