The Hostages and Netanyahu’s Defiance of the Principle of the Sanctity of Life

Those factions now pressuring Binyamin Netanyahu to continue the war against Hamas and ignore the pleas of the hostages and their families are – wittingly and/or unwittingly – going against the principles of the Zionist founding fathers.

They are – in sum – anti-Zionist.

For Zionism, including Herzl’s Political Zionism, was predicated on Religious Zionism and it is not at all certain that Israel would exist today without its, Religious Zionism’s, unstoppable, driving force.

Religious Zionism accepted that God accorded recognition to the righteousness of the patriarchs and, most importantly, that this led Him to promise them the land of Canaan. This righteousness was earned by the observance of principles set out by the Ten Commandments, the Levitical laws and the Talmudic entreaties, foremost of the last being the sanctity of life – Pikuach Nefesh.

The very mores – the social norms – of the body politic of Israel, have incorporated this principle in their fabric by always prioritizing the sanctity of the lives of hostages.

The most au point – to the point – example must be Operation Entebbe, led by none other than the prime minister’s own brother, Yoni Netanyahu who died during the 1976 raid on the planeful of hostages hijacked by Palestinians and Germans.

But Operation Entebbe was not, by any means, the first or last of such, and similar, operations to save Jewish lives – viz Operation Solomon in 1991.

As the Talmud states, in so many words, if you save a life, you save the world.

And Netanyahu, who reportedly studies the Torah, must surely be aware of this Talmudic entreaty, as he surely must be aware of the ramified principle of the sacredness of hostage lives, particularly because the prime minister must agree with his father, for whom history was paramount.

The sanctity of Jewish life must, it would seem, have been the guiding principle of the Jews before the people of Israel adopted it, for Am Yisrael Chai, as the song, which first appeared in a Zionist song book in 1895, puts it.

It is not, it cannot be, the guiding principle any more.

Does Netanyahu fear for his own life if his coalition partners abscond? If so, as his brother Yoni must have done, he should refer to the Talmudic exception to the tenet, preserve one’s own life, if a sin is the result – in this case, murder.

Netanyah’s life, though, would not be in danger. What would be is his survival as a leader of a nation – and a national icon.