Hatikva

If, God forbid, Israel resumes military action in Gaza, Hamas has no interest in keeping the hostages still, somehow, alive, alive. Such action is a death sentence for them. There is no recovery from death, it is permanent.

Hamas, on the other hand, will be around and for them, against them, there is another day, many of them. This testosterone-fueled contest between Trump and Netanyahu– cheered on by two other bloviating draft dodgers — Smotrich — jobnik for 18 months at age 28 after evading service, and Ben Gvir, no IDF service WHATSOEVER; of course, Trump draft dodged the US army during the Vietnam war with a literally, doctored story about a bone heel spur– will get the living hostages killed, just as the six executed by Hamas in August, 2024 were executed when IDF forces neared their place of hellish imprisonment. Hope even to get the bodies of the dead back will end. All to satisfy the macho narcissism and endlessly self-interested politics of Netanyahu and Trump and their megalomaniacal posturing.

Polls consistently show that the vast majority of Israelis– including Likud voters — want this horrible deal to proceed — in order to get out as many LIVING hostages as still possible. Doctors treating Or Levi, among the three living skeletons released last Shabbat, say he would not have survived another few WEEKS. We know that the remaining living hostages– men, including actual soldiers though Hamas considers all men and women, too, and children, too IDF “combatants” — are targets of particular torture: severe starvation, being chained, unable to move, beatings. They have no time.

There is a tomorrow to go after Hamas. There is no tomorrow for executed hostages or hostages who succumb to extreme starvation, disease, and physical and mental torture.

The feeling here, my feeling, is of heavy dread, watching these men go at it, egging each other on, testerical, at our expense. We are dealing with a ruthless terror organization. We know what they do. Even if this is a mad game of chicken, it can get hostages killed.

We have said again and again that they do not value life, that they worship death, but we– we cherish life!– we build! — what did the amazing, 80-year old Gadi Mozes say almost the first thing after his release — I want to rebuild my kibbutz; we love our children more than we hate them, we say, and wish they felt and acted the same (courtesy, Golda Meir, who coined this, I believe) —

and now, Hamas’s crowning achievement: we adopt their values?

I am sick with worry. Ana Hashem, hoshia na, I say, head in my hands, knowing that we can plead that till blue in the face but the power resides with those playing a very different, endlessly self-serving game.

I can only desperately hope, as I wrote in my blog , “Sacrificing the Isaacs,” a few days ago, that someone or something stays that hand.

Trump won’t get his peace medal if horror happens after this coming, dread-filled, Shabbat! Will that be enough? Can utter narcissism, reptilian self-interest, somehow work to stay the worst?

Such is our “hope” here. Hatikva.