(Heart-)Breaking News

You find me, today (Sunday) riding the train up to Binyamina to spend the day with Esther and family. I am laden with not only my laptop – this is another chag Tuesday week, so publication date is Monday again – but also my arba minim (my four species), with the plan of showing them to Raphael, and helping him bentsch lulav in the sukka, even if my research this week has revealed that this is a custom not universally embraced. (The ‘in the sukka’ part, I hasten to add. Everyone agrees that bentsching lulav is a good thing.) If it were universal, of course, it would be about the only custom in Judaism that is (although there are some who disagree).

But I digress. For some of last week, I kidded myself that I might, after two weeks of the kind of geopolitical analysis that I feel totally unqualified for, be able to regale you with memories of seeing Robert Redford (a global master at what he did) on the big screen, or Patricia Routledge (an actress of extraordinary range and an English national treasure whose name, I suspect, means nothing to my native Israeli or transatlantic readers) on the small.

However, in the end, I see that I have no choice. There is, this week, only one game in town – although at time of writing it is still unclear exactly what that game is. This week’s post has to be dedicated to Trump’s 20.5-point plan. (If you know for certain whether it is a 21-point plan, as originally touted, or a 20-point plan, as increasingly mentioned lately, I’d appreciate clarification.)

So, let me set out my position. If the hostages, living and dead, are returned by Hamas to their families, then I will rejoice. Until then, I fail to understand the jubilation that has been very visible in some sectors of Israeli society and the world media. What we have at the moment is an agreement that Trump declares will bring eternal peace to the Middle East. Will all those who believe that Trump is capable of not exaggerating please go into that phone booth over there? Thank you. We also have a piece of paper with a Hamas signature on it. Will all those who believe that a Hamas signature is worth the paper it is written on please go into the same phone booth, as I see that there’s still plenty of room in there. Thank you. That leaves the rest of us. 

Yes, of course Qatar and Turkey’s endorsements are encouraging, although, again, if I shook either of their hands I would count my fingers afterwards. However, you will, I hope, allow me my caution. As I say, if the hostages, alive and dead, are returned by Hamas, then I will rejoice. Until then, I will remain non-committal.

What is very clear is that, in the first phase of the agreement, the return of the hostages will come at a very heavy price. Although Netanyahu has been commendably insistent on the handful of master-terrorists that will not be part of the exchange of convicted terrorist and arrested suspects for the hostages, very, very many of those likely to be released are murdering terrorists.

For me, one of the major lessons that Israel has to learn from this whole horrifying experience is that terrorist prisoners in Israeli prisons are an encouragement to the abduction by terrorists of innocent civilians. As soon as is possible, Israel should pass legislation making the existing death penalty mandatory for all convicted terrorist murderers. If we have no terrorist murderers to release, we will have removed a major incentive for the abduction of civilian or military hostages.

Of course, such prisoners are a potential source of sometimes vital intelligence information. If I were the head of the secret service, I would propose to the Prime Minister that, in the case of terrorist murderer prisoners who may have useful information, we should, after their conviction, stage their execution, and remove them to a secret underground facility where they can be interrogated until such time as they are deemed no longer useful, and then executed.

Please excuse my cold-blooded proposal. I am not the same person I was two years ago, Exactly two years ago, I, in common with all of Israel, felt myself the target of an attempt at genocide. Since then, I, in common with all of Israel, and the Jewish people abroad, have felt myself the target of uninterrupted calls for genocide over a period of two years. At the same time, my country has been conducting a just war, in which, even accepting the casualty figures published by the wholly unreliable enemy, the ratio of civilian to combatant casualties resulting from the campaign we have conducted is judged by objective world experts to be the lowest ever achieved in such a conflict. At the same time, leading Western nations, governments and populations, have consistently accused Israel of genocide, a claim in such obvious ignorance or ignoring of the facts as to make it impossible not to judge it to be antisemitic.

So, yes, I am not the same person I was two years ago, and I am angry at the fact that I have been changed by events, actions and opinions aimed at me over that period.

As I write this, Hamas, who are required by the later phases of the agreement to disarm, are combing the streets of Gaza City, executing in public members of other terrorist organisations. This helps to explain my scepticism that anything will come of the later phases of the agreement. Nevertheless, if the hostages, alive and dead, are returned to their families, then those families will finally be able to begin their journey back from hell. In addition, the sacred pledge that Israel has always made to its citizens, not to leave anyone behind, will be to some extent restored, and the long and painful process of national healing will at last be able to begin. This will indeed be sufficient cause for rejoicing, and our prayers are that the next couple of days will indeed bring what we are all hoping and praying for.

PS: It is now 09:10 on Monday morning, and, as I write, news has broken that the first seven live hostages have been handed by the RedCross to the IDF: after 738 days, Eitan Mor, Gali and Ziv Berman, Matan Angrest, Omri Miran, Guy Gilboa-Dalal and Alon Ohel are no longer held in inhuman conditions by Hamas. In the coming hours, the other 13 hostages believed to be still alive are due to be released by Hamas in Khan Yunis: Evyatar David, Avinatan Or, Ariel Cunio, David Cunio, Nimrod Cohen, Bar Kuperstein, Yosef Chaim Ohana, Segev Kalfon, Elkana Bohbot, Maxim Herkin, Eitan Horn, Alon Ahel, and Rom Braslavski.

Of course I feel in a different place this morning from where I was yesterday. However, although the transfer to the Red Cross was conducted in Gaza City as required by the agreement, with no ceremony, and, apparently, with Hamas forbidding Gazans from filming the transit of the hostages, there are reports of preparations for a staged ceremony in Khan Yunis. This is the first indication that Hamas may ignore those clauses of the agreement that it is not ready to accept.

In addition, 28 hostages are believed to be dead, with their bodies still in Gaza: Tamir Nimrodi, Bipin Joshi, Tamir Adar, Sonthaya Akrasri, Muhammad al-Atarash, Sahar Baruch, Uriel Baruch, Inbar Hayman, Itay Chen, Amiram Cooper, Oz Daniel, Ronen Engel, Meny Godard, Ran Gvili, Tal Haimi, Asaf Hamami, Guy Illouz, Eitan Levi, Eliyahu Margalit, Joshua Mollel, Omer Neutra, Daniel Peretz, Dror Or, Suthisak Rintalak, Lior Rudaeff, Yossi Sharabi, Arie Zalmanowicz, Hadar Goldin.

It is not clear how many of these bodies are held by Hamaz, how many are in known graves, how many are in unknown locations. It is currently expected that a (possibly international) force, including Israeli personnel, will work within Gaza to locate and retrieve these bodies, so that they can be brought back to Israel for burial, and so that their 28 families can also begin to work towards some kind of closure.

Until such time as that happens, if it ever does, even the first phase of the agreement in incomplete. In my eyes, elation and celebration, such as we are hearing in the voices of the mainstream media reporting from Hostages Square in Tel Aviv, are inappropriate. I am feeling a partial sense of relief and gratitude, and a contentment that there are currently seven and, God willing, shortly another 13, families reunited with their loved ones. It is also tremendous to hear that all seven of those released to date are standing unaided.

So, at this stage, I wait, with a little more faith than I felt last night, and a little more optimism, but still with the expectation that, in the best-case scenario, the only lasting achievement of this agreement will be the return of Israelis to Israel, to attempt to begin a new life or to be buried with dignity.

May I be proven wrong, and may we all continue to hear good news.

Leave a Reply