Israel’s very soul lies in the balance

Benjamin Netanyahu and all the other members of Israel’s security cabinet except for Defense Minister Yoav Gallant have Hersh Goldberg-Polin’s blood and the blood of the other murdered hostages — Eden Yerushalmi, Ori Danino, Alex Lubnov, Carmel Gat, and Almog Sarusi — whose bodies were just recovered on their hands.

They were shot by the Hamas killers, but if Netanyahu and his cohort didn’t physically pull the trigger, they gave the green light to the Hamas murderers to do so. Without question, Netanyahu and his security cabinet sealed the hostages’ fate and signed their death warrant.

Had they not voted for Netanyahu’s latest scheme to thwart a cease-fire and hostage deal, Hersh and the others might be alive today.

Netanyahu doesn’t care about the Philadelphi Corridor any more than he cares about any of the hostages. All he cares about, all he has ever cared about, all he will ever care about is remaining in power and staying out of jail.

Regardless of the cost. Regardless of the lives lost as the direct result of his obscene determination to cling to his prime ministership. He has done so, is doing so, despite the explicit warnings by Israel’s generals and intelligence chiefs that he was condemning the hostages to death. And he has done so, is doing so, despite the assurances given by the same generals and intelligence chiefs that keeping the IDF deployed in the Philadelphi Corridor was not essential to Israel’s security.

But Netanyahu, Itamar Ben-Gvir, and Bezalel Smotrich don’t care. Neither do all the other ministers and Knesset members who share their Masada-like zealotry. Indeed, as we all now know with absolute certainty, their goal all along was to scuttle any deal so that they could keep their disastrous coalition in place.

For Diaspora Jews who care about Israel, who are committed to Israel’s existence and survival as a Jewish and democratic state, this is a wake-up moment.

Our moral imperative at this historic moment must be to support our Israeli brothers and sisters, our Israeli family and friends, who are battling for Israel’s soul and who want to bring Israel to a screeching halt until Netanyahu and his accomplices and acolytes are either forced out of office or agree to call new elections at the earliest possible moment.

We must raise our voices loudly and unambiguously in support of the families of the hostages, in support of Yair Lapid and Yair Golan and all the other Israelis who are trying desperately to save Israel from Netanyahu’s ruthless destruction of their country’s moral essence.

No less than Israel’s very soul and the soul of every form of progressive, liberal, egalitarian Zionism rooted in Israel’s Declaration of Independence and Jewish humanistic values lie in the balance and are at stake.