An address to the release of the hostages
Washington, D.C., July 13, 2025
Thank you for inviting me to join you, this is the most important and relevant place to meet and demonstrate to ask for an end to the war and the release of the hostages, 646 days and 91 weeks since the massacre perpetrated by Hamas on October 7, 2023. This war has to stop now, and it is time to bring all the remaining 50 hostages home. I feel like being in Paris Square at home in Jerusalem, next to the PM’s residence, on every Saturday night. Here, at Lafayette Square, next to the White House, we have to keep raising our voice, although we are all exhausted. Hope is better than fear, and we have no choice but to keep going. If we give up, that will be an act of self-fulfilling prophecy. We do not have the privilege of stop demonstrating and expressing our solidarity with the hostages, for them, and also for us to bring about a better future in Israel after this war.
My name is Arie Kacowicz, I am a Professor of International Relations and a peace scholar at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem for the last thirty-two years. I remember being here about two years ago, in a demonstration against the attempt of self-coup (the so-called ‘judiciary reform’) and the erosion of democracy at home. Throughout the 46 years that I have been living in Israel since I emigrated there, as an Argentine Zionist Jew, I have never imagined that we will reach such a catastrophic situation, and that I will feel ashamed of being an Israeli citizen, alienated from the barbaric actions of my own government. The abandonment of citizens and soldiers on October 7, 2023, completely undermined our sense of personal security as citizens, and our belief on the state institutions. Who would believe in his or her good senses that the Israeli government will still forsake its citizens and soldiers in captivity on the hands of Hamas, a monstrous terrorist group, after 646 days? Who would imagine that we will have to implore for the intervention of President Trump and Steve Witkopf to reach an agreement about a new cease-fire to end this horrible war, after Israel has violated the previous agreement last March? And that the current government of Israel still does not have a clue or any practical plan what to do once the war ends, except for the physical destruction and the military occupation of the Gaza Strip?
The mitzvah of Pydion shevuyim (the religious duty in Judaism to bring about the release of fellow Jews captured), along the veneration of life, are our most noble values. The power of Israel among the nations does not reside only in the sophisticated use of force (as we saw last month against Iran), that is the obvious and evident way. The power of Israel stems from the commitment to mutual guarantee (arvut hadadit) and the Israeli ethos that you do not leave prisoners and wounded behind, whether soldiers or citizens. The current Israeli government, which abandoned 1200 citizens and soldiers on October 7th, 2023, continues to prefer the promotion of its political and narrow interests in prolonging a futile war, instead of caring for the security of Israel. This government is committing war crimes in Gaza and it is also committing serious crimes against Israelis themselves, by sacrificing soldiers and hostages in the altar of its narrow and egoistic interests. The war has to end now, and this government, the worst government that we ever had in Israel since 1948, has to be replaced, if we want to build a better future for our children.
As a peace scholar, I have researched many cases of peace after war in different regions of the world. I have encouraging news for you: peace comes after war, and wars end eventually. Moreover, the only thing that can guarantee security and an end to violence is reaching peace agreements, as we have with Egypt since 1979 and with Jordan since 1994. We can add to the list the UAE and Bahrein since 2020, and perhaps in the near future Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Arab world, including Syria and Lebanon. Peace reached Europe after World War Two, following decades and centuries and millions of people dead, there is no much love between British and French or between French and Germans, but there is peace, based upon common interests. This also happened in former Yugoslavia in 1995, with the imposition of peace in the Dayton Accords, and the establishment of Bosnia-Herzegovina. It also happened in Northern Ireland in 1998, and there are many other examples around the world.
It should also happen between us and the Palestinians. The only way to defeat Hamas is through political and diplomatic means, not only by crashing it militarily since Hamas is also an idea and an ideology. The way to achieve this goal is through building a better alternative in Gaza and in the West Bank after this war, and working for a better future of peace between us and the Palestinians, returning eventually to the logic of partition and a two-state solution, as the only viable solution to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by peaceful means. If Netanyahu and his government continue abandoning the hostages, that means that Hamas keeps defeating us and it is winning the battle over our souls and minds, eroding our national resilience. Hamas has killed 1,200 people on October 7, 2023, bringing about a terrible trauma to all the Israelis, lack of empathy and compassion, and a process of de-humanization whereas Israel has physically destroyed the Gaza Strip and killed thousands of innocent children and women in a war that in its first months was still a war of self-defense. Hundreds of young Israeli soldiers have died in the Gaza Strip in the last 22 months. We are a people that is supposed to cherish life, unlike the fundamentalism of Hamas that prefers death.
But before we talk about peace after war, the utmost and immediate task remains to call for the return of all the hostages and the end to the war now! Without returning the hostages we will not have redemption. I believe that with the return of the hostages the Israeli society, like the mythical phoenix, will rise from the ashes. After the war, we will return to normalcy, we will elect a better government, we will rebuild, and we will prosper. Returning the hostages is not a “deal”, human beings are not goods to be traded. It is a moral duty and a pragmatic and realistic one, in order to assure the survival and the security of Israel, not only in the physical sense, but in the spiritual one.
I am proud of being part of this wonderful people and of the amazing Israeli society, in contrast to the government that has lost its legitimacy. I am moved by the solidarity of those of you here, Jews, Israelis living in the U.S. Diaspora and American citizens, working and lobbying to mobilize the President of the United States, who seems to care more about the fate of the hostages than our own government at home. I want to thank President Trump and his Administration for bringing about the previous cease-fire between Israel and Hamas in January, the release of many hostages until last March, and the more recent release of Idan Alexander. His critical support for Israel included the effective U.S. involvement in the war with Iran and bringing about a cease-fire between Israel and Iran that allowed me to come here, after 12 days of being close to a safe room in Jerusalem, alongside my family and most of the population of Israel, facing hundreds of incoming rockets from Iran. Now it is time to end the war in Gaza, which has no sense and no strategic goals. It is time to bring peace after war.