Call it by its name: State abuse

Earlier this week, the bodies of six hostages were returned to Israel. They were located at the bottom of a tunnel shaft that was 10 m below ground. Five of them had been pronounced dead earlier in the war. But one of them, Avraham Munder, had not been. His family had been praying he was still alive. They had posted doubled photos to facebook: one photo, from the sweet past,, in which he was with his family members. Next to a photo from the present, staged in precisely the same places, but absent Avraham.

I wanted to go to this man’s funeral, it felt that personal to me. When his 9 yr old grandson was returned in November, all of Israel had been glued to the screen, watching him meet up with his friends, play with a Rubik’s Cube. He, his grandmother, and his mother were freed in November. What they needed to have done then was to insist that full families exited captivity. Who leaves behind one member of the family, whether male or not, and especially when elderly?

And here is my thesis: there is a form of extreme abuse going on within Israel. I am not talking about Hamas. We know that Hamas, as an organization, shies away from no form of sadism. Yes, they have played psychological games with all of Israel, with the families of the hostages, and most of all, with the hostages themselves, which we know from the reports of those who survived and returned. Hamas has been inflicting terror on a swath of Israelis now nonstop since October 7.

But on the other side of the border with Gaza are hundreds of Israeli citizens who have loved ones underground, stolen away in Gaza. They have been there for more than 320 days. On most of these hostages, there has been no word at all. None. On some, there has been word from the people who were captive with them about 270 days ago, which by now is no loner relevant information, except to tell us they could have come home alive. A few – mostly dead now — have appeared in horrifying videos. The rest are just gone. Disappeared.

And a mere 50 miles away sits the Knesset, the seat of Israel’s government. And even closer is the Kirya, where the heads of the army sit. And for ten months, no one has been able to tell these families the following: – “It is going to happen now. Trust us, if we don’t bring home your people, our own lives are worth nothing. The single most important act I will do in my life is return home these hostages, who were abandoned once under the most terrifying circumstances for the Jewish collective since the Shoah. The Jewish state exists in order to be a home for its people, and in the worst case scenario, to restore its people home after they have been overpowered and threatened with murder.”

In my version, the Prime Minister and the various powerbrokers in the Knesset and also the less powerful members of Knesset, and also the head of the army, and the intelligence, would gather the nuclear families of the hostages and say, “This is our job, our mission. We work for you. You should now go home and do whatever it is that can help you survive until we deliver your brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers, grandparents, aunts, uncles to your doors. Because the last thing you need to do is beg. The last thing you need to do is block highways or stage performance art, or travel around the world to get foreign governments to pressure your own leaders.”

The leaders of the Jewish state would say to the families of the hostages: “We hope your neighbors and your friends are bringing you soup and nourishing food, and keeping you company so that you are never alone, and making sure you drink enough water daily, and we hope the social workers and psychologists and psychiatrists on the task force are helping you survive this unbelievable test of nerves, and we know your religious or social communities are praying with and for you.” They would continue, “But your only job is to do whatever makes sense, while we leave no stone unturned. Don’t even think about having to go out, rain or shine, to small groups and big ones, to cry in front of strangers, to plead for support. Don’t even think about having to press people please to say your son’s name so he won’t be forgotten about. Don’t think that you need to come up with a new plan each day to keep your loved one in the news cycle. We are handing out yellow ribbons to every Israeli at all governmental offices and we promise, we will take no vacation, manage no other minor concerns that can wait out this emergency, until we bring home…. “ – and then they would name each of the hostages.

Also, these leaders would say, “We are so sorry. This disaster is tearing us apart from the inside. We can’t sleep at night. It is not fair that it fell upon you, randomly, or because you lived where you lived within the sovereign borders of the state of Israel, and now your lives are unimaginable. It could have been anyone, just as it could have been us, but it was you. And now our own lives and our service will forever be marred by this failure, too, because we understand what this has done to you. But let us at least try to do what we can right now to be responsible. And if we fail in the next month to do so, we will step down immediately and let others try. Because we serve you.”

They would finish by saying, “If other Israelis are worried about the price we may have to pay to redeem our captives, it’s on us to reassure them and to clarify our national priorities. We are not doing you a favor. We are simply doing the least a Jewish state can do under these conditions. No citizien of Israel should have had to suffer what you have. We will support you, do everything to bring back your loved one, and then do everything we can to rehabilitate – to heal — the entire family.”

Here is the alternative we have gotten – there will be a deal, there won’t be a deal (from our side); this isn’t a national priority but since the Americans seem to think it should be, we will say it is, until we change our minds again and speak our truth; what? you didn’t think victory included total control of the (previsouly unmentioned) the Phiadelphi corridor?;  you are all weak-spined; you aren’t patriots; you always wanted to bring down this government and now you’re doing it under cover of the hostage crisis; you’re not even true family of the hostages, you’re political agitators dressed up as family; don’t you understand we have to beat Hamas?; — All of that: it’s the language of abuse.

And the people being abused continue to beg and to plead and to demand, and to exhaust themselves, and to turn up another place to speak, another channel that might interview them, another magazine that might feature a story. When the only truly necessary ear is . . . their own government.