In almost every conversation and argument regarding a hostage deal, those opposed will vociferously insist: “We all care about the hostages, we all want them home.” The sentence that follows will usually be: “The question is just how.”
I completely accept the truth of the first statement. I don’t have a shadow of a doubt that every Israeli citizen wants the hostages back with all their hearts, that we all worry and think about them frequently, that anyone with a magic wand capable of bringing them all home would immediately do so. Of course. To think otherwise would be an act of demonization.
The second statement, though, is less accurate. The question is not just, or primarily, about the ‘how’. Perhaps at the beginning of the war, it was reasonable to believe that the most effective way to bring back hostages would be by military operations, like Operation Thunderbolt of old, or Operation Arnon in this war. But after almost two years of war, when the number of hostages saved by such operations is smaller than the number of hostages and soldiers killed by them, and when 90% of hostages that returned alive returned in hostage deals, there really is no longer a question about the ‘how’.
The real point of contention has to do with the cost. What is the ‘price’ that we should be willing to pay in order to get the hostages back now, if it means increasing risks for the future, and especially, if it means compromising on our ability to achieve victory against Hamas now. Even if everyone agrees that we would love to see the hostages home, where that value stands when it is conflict with the value of victory is a real question about which there is honest, legitimate debate in Israeli society.
But here, it is critical to emphasize that the mirror image of the statement “we all care about the hostages” is no less true. We also all want victory over Hamas, and to think otherwise about any Israeli citizen is an act of demonization. We all went through the trauma of October 7th, we’ve all been to countless funerals, spent countless hours in safe rooms with frightened children, we all have people we know who have been killed and/or who are currently risking their lives to protect us. Any thought that those who support a hostage deal are on Hamas’ side, support Hamas, love Hamas and think they’re nice guys, or in any other way are ignorant of the fact that Hamas is an evil terror organization dedicated to our destruction is a nasty lie that also destroys any possibility of dialogue between us.
We all want victory over Hamas, but here, there is still a real question and debate regarding the ‘how’. Can a terror organization be completely defeated only by military means, or is that an impossible pipe-dream, and other, diplomatic tools are also necessary? There are intelligent, reasonable people on both sides of this debate.
But even if there is legitimate debate about how we can defeat Hamas, by this point, there should already by complete consensus about how we will not defeat them. After hearing promises over and over again from the government, and especially from the Prime Minister, that our victory is imminent, skepticism about such promises from the same address is not only understandable, it is necessary.
To briefly review a small selection: on February 17th, 2024 (a year and a half ago!), the Prime Minister declared that we are “close to achieving our goal.” On February 29th, we were already “so close to victory.” By April 4th, Netanyahu declared that we were “a hairsbreadth from victory”, after stating on March 23rd that “we will enter Rafah and achieve total victory.”
All along, others were blamed for preventing this victory: the IDF Chief of Staff, the Defense Minister, President Biden. But after each of these obstacles was removed, after President Trump invited Israel to “open up the gates of hell”, after Israel stopped all humanitarian aid for entering for a period of months, and after Israel inserted an alternative method of aid distribution which was supposed to end Hamas’ rule, and then embarked on another operation, Chariots of Gideon, with the promise that “this time it will be different”… and it wasn’t, isn’t it time that we can all agree that whatever the way to victory is, this ain’t it? After all, Betzalel Smotrich himself has now said: “I have lost my faith that the Prime Minister is willing or able to bring the IDF to victory.”
If we all want victory against Hamas (and we do), and we all agree that this government is just not getting us there, we cannot agree to risk soldiers’ and hostages’ lives on operations whose efficacy is in question until we are able to come to a decision regarding the right way to move forward.
The only way to come to such a decision is to hold new elections, with this question front and center. No one can claim that these were the questions on people’s minds when they voted for this government in 2022. No one can claim that this government has a clear mandate from the people, and most of us can agree to disagree with the Prime Minister’s path to victory.
The more we delay a decision that can be accepted as fair and democratic by us all, the more we will be pushed to internal chaos that strengthens Hamas. And no one wants that.
Avidan Freedman is the co-founder and director of Yanshoof (www.yanshoof.org), an organization dedicated to stopping Israeli arms sales to human rights violators, and an educator at the Shalom Hartman Institute's high school and post-high school programs. He is a signator on the "Moral Clarity" letter which criticized Israel's conduct in the current war.