What About the Other Hostages?
This week, wrongfully imprisoned Americans were released from Russian captivity, landing on US soil, some for the first time in years, welcomed home by those who fought valiantly to negotiate their release, among them President Biden. This positive outcome was brought about by careful diplomacy among the U.S. and its allies, and the enduring commitment that no American be left behind. That said, frankly, it was also possible because of the willingness of the United States and its partners to release Russian criminals in exchange for the Americans, including an assassin, hackers, and spies. The inequity of the exchange – innocent people for thugs – seems to have mattered little to most Americans because in the end, getting our people home apparently overrides the unsavoriness of knowing we have unleashed dangerous criminals back into the world. It was a deal we were willing to live with, however objectionable, to get back our people, and return them to their long awaiting families. I know if it was my loved one being held, I’d feel the same. I’m betting you would, too.
But what about the other hostages? The Israeli hostages taken from their beds or from a peaceful music festival by savage terrorists over 300 days ago. The innocents whose faces were ubiquitous on street poles and billboards, who still cry out for release via social media posts from their desperate families, eight Americans among them. What about them? The impulse to go in and rescue them, just as Noa Argamani and three other hostages had been breathtakingly-rescued from Hamas captivity, is visceral and fierce, yet the IDF has been hamstrung in their ability to reach into the tunnels of Gaza by a global choir of non-military experts who presume to have a say in what weaponry will be used, by moronic college students who can’t identify which river or which sea, and by those who deny Israel the right to go and get its own people, as would be the divine right of any other country. Israel has maintained the highest standard of avoiding collateral damage, distributing flyers and communiqués before any insurgency to forewarn civilians; providing necessary aid that has been systematically stolen by Hamas; and coming to the negotiating table in good faith, willing to lay down its weapons for its hostages’ return, only to be thwarted again and again by Hamas. And still the hostages remain; all sick, some disfigured, all terrified, close to death…and dare I say, losing hope.
I stand with Israelis who care not only about the remaining hostages, but about the plight and the rights of the Palestinian people. There are innocents who are caught up in this war and are very much victims. But because Hamas started this war, Israel can and must defend its land and people. As one commander told us when we met with him, “This cannot be a country where people are ripped from their beds while sleeping and stolen away.” Though that seems patently obvious, that’s what occurred and that is what must be rectified, for the future peace and healing of Israel… and for 115 other reasons. No country would abide such an atrocity.
And yet I continue to hear only of the injustice or inequity of the battle between Israel and Hamas. I hear only of the food shortages and the collateral damage done to Palestinian citizens; the word genocide is passed around like so many green camping tents on college campuses - despite that the only genocide committed was that of Hamas upon the Israelis – and reading the news without knowing real facts I would believe the inflated death tolls reported by Hamas (disguised as the Health Ministry) and think that Israel was callously bombing only schools and hospitals, except for knowing that those are the very places where Hamas, in utter disdain for its people, keeps its arsenals of weaponry.
Its been 301 days. I’ve watched the mothers of hostages we met wither and gray during this time. New footage of the young women taken is alarming and speaks to the sexual violence they face. Are these young women now impregnated by their rapists? Could the red-haired babies be alive? I’m tortured by these questions and also ashamed by how complacency has set in, worried, too, that the fervency once brought to this crisis seems to be dwindling.
Let us rise up again. We must continue to advocate for the hostages return. President Biden, I applaud you for doing right by the Russian hostages. Please do the same for the American and other hostages still alive in Gaza. You know better than anyone that diplomacy is messy and sometimes there is a terrible calculus that must be reached when the mission is as crucial as bringing innocent people home. But they are in grave danger, graver by each day, and we need them to be rescued.
I know if it was my loved one being held, I’d feel the same. I’m betting you would, too.
