A Choice Between Life and Death: It Is Simple As That

Life is messy, grey and complicated. But that complexity can’t make us forget that sometimes, the choice is simple.

This is exactly what Moses tries to say to the people at the end of his life. Look. It’s really as simple as this: a choice between life and death.

Obviously, it wasn’t actually that simple, or else he wouldn’t be convinced the people would fail and make the wrong choice. But then again, at the end of the day, it was so simple, because the people’s choices led them destruction, as he predicted. Sometimes it takes vision and leadership to peel away the layers, blot out the background noises, and to dig down to the essence of the problem and present it with clarity.

I believe that the question of this hostage deal, when you peel away the layers, is really as simple as this: a question between life and death.

The first layer to peel away is the claim that the deal is a question between life and life- life of the hostages now vs. the life of the future hostages who will be taken because we do this deal. After all, people argue, the reason that Hamas took hostages, the reason that the massacre of October 7^th even happened, is because we released 1027 terrorists, including Yihye Sinwar himself, in the Shalit deal in 2011.

There are two compelling reasons to reject this argument.

First, it’s a classic example of confirmation bias, only looking at the information that supports your belief, and ignoring all information that does not. To say that releasing Sinwar in 2011 caused Hamas’ attack in 2024 means ignoring 13 years of other information. Of course, if Sinwar hadn’t been released, Sinwar would not have been the architect of 7.10. Does that mean that no one else would have? Of course not.

It also means ignoring the fact that after the Shalit deal, there were 4 other Israeli citizens who were taken by Hamas, and are in their hands to this day. There was (tragically) no protest movement on their behalf massive enough to force the government to make a deal for their return, although in the last ten years, there were many opportunities to do so. (Numerous “rounds” of intense fighting and military pressure in the past decade also did not secure their release, for all the believers in the efficacy of military pressure to free hostages.) Did Israel’s refusal to negotiate or give in to Hamas’ demands for a decade prevent them from taking 240 captives on October 7^th? No. Why, then, should we imagine that if we hadn’t done the Shalit deal, Hamas would not have taken captives? And why should we believe that if we abandon the remaining 108 captives in Hamas’ hands, it will have any effect on preventing the next 7.10? We have no real grounds to believe that allowing our hostages to die in captivity now will save lives in the future.

The second reason to reject the argument is because that is not the reason that is actually preventing a deal from being closed at this point. After all, even Betzalel Smutrich ultimately supported the first hostage deal, which released potential terrorists in exchange for the return of hostages. The claim that the first deal released less Palestinian prisoners and this one will release more is beside the point. You only need one of those released to be the next Sinwar. When Sinwar himself was released, he had not been serving time for committing acts of terror against Jews, but for murdering Palestinians (!) suspected of cooperating with Israel. And certainly, when Netanyahu suggested this deal back in May, he did it despite the fact that it included the release of convicted terrorists. The real sticking point now is not the danger from future terrorists, it’s the insistence on maintaining control of the Philadelphi corridor.

But this is also a question of life vs. life, opponents of the deal will claim, because controlling Philadelphi is necessary to defeat Hamas and to achieve “total victory”, and that’s what we need to survive. This brings us to the next layer. What does “total victory” mean? To the main opponents of the hostage deal, it means fighting until we have eliminated all of our enemies. After October 7^th, they argue, we can no longer afford to allow anyone who threatens us to survive. In fact, they believed this before October 7^th as well, but hope that the tragedy that occurred on their watch will convince everyone that they were right all along.

This claim has a simple ring of truth to it, like the claim that if Sinwar had been in jail, Sinwar would not have masterminded 7.10. If we had no enemies, if we fight until we kill (or banish) everyone that threatens us, then no one will threaten us. What’s really behind the refusal to give up on Philadelphi is the refusal to give up the “opportunity” to wage this all-out war to end all wars. This is also why Smutrich, by his policies in Judea and Samaria which encourage maximum conflict, and by ignoring, minimizing and encouraging violence, and Ben Gvir, by preventing the police from stopping the perpetrators of that violence, and with his visits to the Temple Mount, are doing their best to ignite wars on as many fronts as possible. After all, they’ve said countless times that the Palestinians in the West Bank are no different than the Gazans, and the Gazans are all Hamas. Achieving “total victory” means that we need to eradicate all of our enemies. That might even mean anyone who ever expressed sympathy for Gazan children.

Again, confirmation bias is hard at work here. After all, we have been surrounded by enemies for the entire history of the state of Israel. No war, and no military operation, ended in “total victory” the way it is being defined today. And yet, despite our enemies, we have survived and we have thrived, creating a vibrant, successful state that people are happy to live in. Part of what has created the conditions for that were peace deals struck with our harshest enemies, peace deals that have held for decades.

Even if you only look at our immediate neighborhood, and all the more so when you think about the enemies of the Jewish state the world over, we need to realize that insisting on the path of all-out war is the path of death. We need to realize that right now, at this moment, this is the choice that we face. The outright rejection of a hostage deal, as logical as one’s arguments may be, means much more than giving up on the hostages. It means choosing war. It means choosing death.

I’m sure I’ll be accused of oversimplifying complex, grey, messy dilemmas. But sometimes, it really is as simple as that. Let’s choose life.