Negotiating the Value of a Human Life
Once again, Israel gave up a hugely disproportionate number of Palestinians to get back a handful of our own. 2000 of them for just 20 of us.
Actually, that sounds about right. The numbers don’t reflect that Israel overpaid to get back their own people. They don’t tell a story that Hamas had leverage in the negotiation, or that due to the international pressure on Israel, they had to do whatever was asked to end the war.
The numbers reveal what they always do and nothing more, that we value life in a way that the other side never will, or could. To get back even 20 of our own, we would always gladly give up 2000 of them. That’s how much we cherish those 20 Jewish lives, along with every single life we lost in this conflict.
It wasn’t Israel who broke the ceasefire in place on 10.6. It wasn’t Israel who committed the mass atrocity on 10.7, or who paraded hostages in the streets to be spit on and jeered.
It wasn’t Israel who used their own as human shields, including the use of children, or who stored weapons in schools, hospitals and apartment buildings to inflate the death toll as a means win the PR war.
If you’ve ever been to Israel, or know anything about Israel, you know that it’s they, not the Palestinians, who build bomb shelters into each and every building in order to protect lives, not expend them.
There was the meme during the war that, “Every Jewish life lost is a tragedy. Every Palestinian life lost is a strategy.” Any time you use the word “every” it’s a stretch, but nonetheless, the essence of the line is true.
Sadly, the members of Hamas let out of Israeli prisons will be welcomed home in Gaza as heroes. The Israeli hostages will be welcomed home as fathers, husbands and sons, mothers, wives and daughters, and brothers and sisters.
When Jews say “L’chaim,” to life, we do so as an idea. It doesn’t matter if it’s just 20. Life is the only thing that matters. We will break Shabbat for it, do anything to save it, and dispatch our best teams to the ends of the Earth, from Japan to Haiti, to rescue it, whether or not it’s one of our own.
This conflict has always been framed as a war over territory and a war between two religions. But it is also a war over values, and none more important than the value of a human life. In that war, our side always wins.
Welcome home! Am Y’israel Chai!