All stories this week deal with the discovery of the dead bodies of six Israeli hostages in a Rafah tunnel. Their names are Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Eden Yerushalmi, Carmel Gat, Alexander Lobanov, Almog Sarusi, and Ori Danino. May their memories be a blessing.
Alon Pinkas, writing in The Guardian, is hopeful that the protest movement, in response to discovering the dead bodies, could be a political predicament for Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his government.
However angry Israelis felt, the murder of the hostages was tragically predictable. [Defense Minister Yoav] Gallant warned that this would happen, as did the head of the Mossad and the head of the General Security Service, the Shabak. Yet Netanyahu never wanted a hostage deal that included a ceasefire. He does not want any deal that he cannot label “total victory”–-a bogus and unattainable goal he set to make sure the war lingers on.
Furthermore, his flirtations with escalation, combined with prolonging the war in Gaza, are glaring indications that his broader interests prevent such a deal. He wants to promote the narrative that this is not a war limited to Gaza, but a broad conflict with Iran and its proxies. This puts the 7 October debacle in a wider context and, in his mind, ameliorates his responsibility.1
The point Pinkas raised about Iran is important because it has traction among conservative Israeli commentators. Maayan Hoffman, writing in ynetnews.com (the online English arm of Israeli mass circulation newspaper Yediot Ahronot), argues that Israel and the U.S. made multiple mistakes in trying to free the Israeli hostages. In particular, Hoffman accuses the U.S. of overlooking the bigger conflict.
Israel is not just facing Hamas. For the past 11 months, Hezbollah has been attacking, displacing over 80,000 people. The Houthis are targeting Israeli and allied ships in the Red Sea, damaging not just the Israeli economy but the global economy. In the West Bank, terror cells are mobilizing and preparing for imminent attacks. At the center of all this is Iran, which is stockpiling enriched uranium as it edges closer to nuclear weapons.
While these actions may seem aimed solely at Israel, the broader battle is not about Israel alone. It's a struggle between good and evil, a bid to shift global power dynamics. This is not just about destroying the Jewish state ("Little Satan" according to Iran), but rather about taking down the U.S. ("Big Satan") and the Western world. America should have been more deeply engaged in this fight long ago.2
Matti Friedman, author and journalist, takes a more writerly, if ideologically similar, approach on the mourning of Hersh Goldberg-Polin. Writing in Bari Weiss’ The Free Press, he reflects on the lessons learned by Israelis since Oct. 7th.
We learned that we’d be forced to navigate the most fraught moment in our history with a government that is the most extreme and least competent ever to lead this country—a dangerous lack of faith that erupted after today’s news in the form of many tens of thousands of protesters in the streets, furious at the failure to get our people home. We’ve learned that we’re nearly encircled by Iranian proxies. We’ve learned that the terrorist organization that seized Hersh—Hamas—in fact operates openly in the territory of two American allies, Turkey and Qatar. We’ve learned that Egypt, which has a border with Gaza and a peace agreement with Israel, has been allowing in the weapons that Hamas uses against us.
We’ve learned that Hamas is not universally shunned as a terror group, but actually enjoys broad support, including in the West, including among some of the most educated citizens. We’ve seen that much of the Western press is capable of turning a story about a war launched by Muslim fundamentalists into a story about the injustice of the Israeli response, and indeed about the injustice of our country’s existence.3
In +972 Magazine, Orly Noy writes about the injustice of Goldberg-Polin’s “sacrifice” on the altar of Israel’s “total victory” over Hamas. Like Alon Pinkas, she shows that these murders were both foreseeable and inevitable because of Israel’s vague war aims of eliminating Hamas and returning the hostages.4
Where are those “total victory” champions now? Has their victory been achieved? Has anyone told that to Hersh’s parents?
They say that the most wretched dealer is the one who is addicted to his own drugs. Israel has become addicted to the drug of death, which it has been forcefully injecting into Palestinians for years, and now is injecting itself unconsciously. The next dose will fix us for sure, just wait.5
Our last item of the week comes from the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office. According to Netanyahu:
In recent days, as Israel has been holding intensive negotiations with the mediator in a supreme effort to reach a deal, Hamas is continuing to steadfastly refuse all proposals.
Even worse, at the exact same time, it murdered six of our hostages.
Whoever murders hostages—does not want a deal.6
Indeed.
Thanks, as always, for reading. Suggestions, ideas and comments are always welcome.
Alon Pinkas is here: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/article/2024/sep/03/israel-protesters-netanyahu-gaza-war
Maayan Hoffman is here: https://www.ynetnews.com/article/hkys8umhc
Matti Friedman is here:
Orly Noy is here: https://www.972mag.com/hersh-hostage-total-victory/
Noy again.
Here’s the Sept. 1st, 2024 press release: https://www.gov.il/en/pages/spoke-statement010924