Hersh Goldberg-Polin, a multi-purpose captive

The family of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, the American-Israeli kidnap victim whose body was recovered from Rafah on 31 August 2024 and whose family had been very active and vocal in their unsuccessful attempts to secure his release from captivity, have requested privacy in order to grieve over their loss.  I accordingly made the decision to hold back this blogpost until now in order to give the family time to finish sitting shiva.

At a Hillel-sponsored lecture during my undergraduate years, Isaac Bashevis Singer (who would later receive the Nobel Prize for Literature) spoke of his writing techniques.  He enumerated his three requisites for writing a piece of literature: (1) An idea of what to write (subject to development and adjustment during the authorship process); (2) A need for others to read what will be written; and (3) a conviction that no other person in the world at the time is viewing the issue in quite the same way as the aspiring author.

I have taken this advice to heart, and have been well-served by it.  It is painful for me to re-read these words I have written.  Knowing that there is no painless way to address the matter at hand, I have deferred this posting so as to at least foreclose upon the risk that the Goldberg-Polin family might somehow read it before getting up from sitting shiva.  But I know the points I want this piece to cover, believe that these points need to be in the public discourse, and (as will become apparent) address some controversial issues from a perspective few if any share.

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First of all, we all have been using the wrong nomenclature.  A “hostage” is defined as “a person held by one party in a conflict as a pledge pending the fulfillment of an agreement” or “a person taken by force to secure the taker’s demands.”  It is somewhat of a stretch to apply that definition to Hersh Goldberg-Polin or any of the others forcefully taken by Hamas from Israel into Gaza on 7 October 2024 because the conditions under which Hersh and his cohorts (unfortunately including the lifeless bodies of some) are being held constitute a continuation of the very crime of their abductions, and not some separate action.  A term such as “abductees” would be far more appropriate.

More to the point, the rallying cry has been “Bring Them Home Now!”  This has done a greater disservice than is readily apparent because the word “Bring” implies that the primary responsibility for the abductees’ return, and therefore the primary accountability for their abduction, falls upon Israel; a far better term would have been “Send them home now,” thereby better placing the primary accountability upon Hamas.  A subtle difference, to be sure, but a difference that no doubt has been skewing the narrative to Israel’s disfavor.

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It is slightly less of a stretch to apply the aforementioned definition of “hostage” to Hersh with respect to the Biden administration.  It is obvious that the Biden administration has been applying pressure upon Israel to hold back in defending itself against Hamas, asserting demands which, if acceded to by Israel, would be tantamount to surrender. Quite disturbingly, there were few if any words or actions directed towards Hamas from the US government for the immediate release of a United States citizen; Rachel Goldberg and Jon Polin have been more active and vocal about demanding their son’s release than has the United States government.  This is in contrast to the definitive actions taken by the United States against other enemies; the U.S. government of late has taken highly visible and daring actions such as seizing an aircraft belonging to Venezuelan president Maduro.

The pressures placed upon Israel by Biden’s administration have ranged from illy-veiled threats to outright embargo of armaments and munitions; it would not have been beneath them to use Hersh as a bargaining chip against Israel by conditioning U.S. actions upon Israel’s buckling under to the U.S. demands.  Hersh’s apparent use by the U.S. government arguably fits the Merriam-Webster definition of “hostage” more closely than does Hamas’s use of Hersh.

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Hersh was also a hostage to Benjamin Netanyahu!  For all of the good Bibi has done (on which I have expressed my appreciations in a previous blogposting here), he has made many enemies by tendering mutually exclusive promises to antagonistic groups.  It is all catching up to him and something will eventually give.  But Bibi continues to operate as usual, placing his own political interests above those of Israel and world Jewry while attempting to remedy situations he himself participated in creating.  He has sold too many people on the notion that he is solely and uniquely qualified to lead the country as long as the current discordant emergency persists.  Any resolution to the Gaza/Hamas crisis would be a giant step (if not the final one) towards the end of his secure ensconcement in the Prime Minister’s office.

And so, Bibi has used the abductees’ continued captivity as a pretext to extend the number of his days in the driver’s seat.

[What follows has been the most painful portion of this blogpost to write and to review; it surely would be an equally if not more agonizing read for Hersh Goldberg-Polin’s family and others similarly situated.  Esteemed reader, you have been alerted!].

To be sure, Bibi’s insistence upon making a sweeping victory in Gaza a priority over rescuing the captives has not been misplaced. Notwithstanding my extreme reservations regarding Jonathan Pollard, I believe his analysis of Hamas and the Gaza situation to be squarely on the mark; Jonathan concludes his commentary by stating:

“The only thing we must commit ourselves to if we decide to sacrifice the hostages for the survival of our state, is that every Hamas member – even those we’ve captured, must be executed and that Gaza must be annexed so that it will never again pose a threat to our people.”

Bibi’s prolongation of the hostage negotiations has resulted in amplified harm to Israeli society, and more casualties than would likely have occurred had Bibi (and the military establishment) not hesitated to implement a plan along the lines suggested by Jonathan Pollard.

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When Rabbi Meir of Rothenburg was taken captive by Emperor Rudolf, who had hoped to receive a sizable ransom from the Jewish community for the Rabbi’s release, Rabbi Meir forbade the Jewish community from ransoming him, lest it set a precedent to encourage future abductions of rabbis and other Jews; Rabbi Meir died a captive after seven years.

Not that it particularly matters, but in approaching the status of a septuagenarian I realized that the vital documents I drew up for myself and my wife when we were still in the USA would be of limited efficacy here in Israel.  And so, as I write this blogpost, my Israeli attorney is in the process of preparing a new set of vital documents for us.  Channeling Rabbi Meir, the power-of-attorney document being drawn up for me provides, among other things, that no ransom money be paid for my release in the event I should ever be taken hostage, nor shall I be exchanged for any prisoner allied with my captors.

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