‘To be or not to be is not a question of compromise.’ (Golda Meir)

Eleven months ago, the world we knew turned into evil we never thought we would know. The October 7 attacks, massacres, and abductions will be written in history as the worst attack on Jews since the Shoah. But that was eleven months ago; now, we have downgraded these atrocities to negotiating and compromising with the murderers and executioners of families, partygoers, and hostages. Eleven months ago, if someone had told me that the world prefers negotiation with terrorists rather than eliminating them, I would have asked them what they were smoking and why they weren’t sharing.  But here we stand amid political rhetoric taking advantage of emotional pain.

Six hostages were executed. Hamas ordered their execution because, according to their spokesperson, Abu Ubaida, the IDF got close. How civilized that terrorists and murderers have spokespeople and that they are quoted by mainstream media! Leaves bile in my throat. I digress. The argument can then be logically made that whether Israel makes a deal or not, Hamas will kill the hostages as they see fit. The anguish and anger of the hostage families is not only heart-wrenching but understandably justified. However, as the saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.  And we are on that road right now.

Prisoner swaps for a ceasefire, compromise, negotiation, or other pseudo-peace flavor of the month have been brokered since 1984. Terrorists from Fatah, Popular Front of the Liberation of Palestine, Hamas, Hezbollah, you name it, Israel swapped.  Nothing changed; attacks continued, intifadas started, stopped, and started again.  Israeli killings in Israel did not decrease, did not lessen, and did not stop. To put into perspective the inane logic that raising a white flag stops the killing of Israelis, since 1984 – 2011, Israel returned to Egypt, Lebanon, and the Palestinian Authority or Hamas, or whoever the terrorist organization happened to be, 3,099 prisoners, the largest swap in May 1985, Israel swapped 1,150 Popular Front Arabs for three IDF soldiers. This does not include the July 1985 release of 331 Lebanese Shiites in exchange for 39 passengers on a hijacked TWA to Beirut or 72 Syrian remains. Doing the math, that would bring the swap to 3502 terrorist prisoners against 22 Israelis and 39 passengers on a plane. These statistics cover this period only.  Do the math.  So, how has prisoner swapping worked out for Israel and the region?  The answer is simple: it never does. When you have a bad neighbor who constantly trashes your yard, I doubt that inviting him to a barbeque will somehow stop him from being a bad neighbor.

The naivete that this time “will be different” should be offensive to any intelligent human being. If Israel is to survive, it must get rid of its lousy neighbor. The decision facing Israel is not easy, but decisions never are. On the one hand, are the hostages who must be returned to their families to rejoice or to be buried with dignity, and on the other is a sustainable plan for the security of Israel. If history taught us anything, it should not be a Band-Aid fix but an enduring plan. The latter can only be achieved if Israel remains on the offensive and obliterates the rest of Hamas’s infrastructure, which includes not releasing foot soldiers that can restrengthen Hamas and its objectives. This decision is neither popular nor politically viable for Netanyahu.  It could be the nail in his proverbial political coffin. This brings me to my father, who used to say that doing the right thing is often not popular, but you do it anyway.

In the meantime, the crowds protesting in the streets, putting political pressure on the prime minister, also seem to have lapsed memory. This time last year, similar protests against the government and the judicial overhaul left Israel divided and distracted. The enemy took notice, and without making substantiated assumptions, it struck. That same enemy is taking advantage of the politically divisive rhetoric and the emotional state of a nation still in pain. Therefore, it is not a coincidence that Hamas and the rest of the world are blaming Israel for not compromising. It is a straw man argument that plays into the emotional upheaval of a country still in pain and shifts the blame to the victim rather than the perpetrator.

Such arguments have found a warm home in the pro-Hamas rallies on campuses. There is a fine umbilical cord that ties the far right to the far left, and that is antisemitism. The difference between them is that the kooks on the far right do not hide it; they are open, they shout it in the streets, and they wear it on their tattoos. The far-left disguises it as activism. Fighting for justice. Fighting against Zionism. Antisemitism has been given a pass.  Disingenuously disguised as activism against the “privileged,” the West has legitimized antisemites and Jew haters.  They don’t hide their disdain for Israel anymore; they carry Hamas flags and openly threaten Jews while the UN, EU, and US pressure Israel into capitulation for the “good of the region.” A terrorist group that murdered 1200 and taken over 200 hostages and just executed six of them in cold blood has been elevated to a negotiating legitimate body. It should feel obscene to any civilized individual.

Netanyahu is pressing Hamas to release the hostages by keeping troops on the Philadelphi corridor between Gaza and Egypt—an area well known for arms smuggling to Hamas. However, political opponents using the hostage families as leverage are pressuring for a hostage “deal.”   I can never imagine what the families of these hostages are going through, especially after the killing of the six last week.  They are as much a victim as their family members, and probably, if I were in that position, I would try to do whatever it took to bring them home. However, there is a bigger question to contemplate: what guarantee does Israel have that (a) the hostages are still alive and (b) if they are, Hamas will not execute them?  There is no qualifiable answer because Hamas is a terrorist organization created to kill, not negotiate. Why would anyone imagine Hamas has charitable plans?

How quickly humans forget ions of repetitive bad decisions. They say we should study history so as not to repeat it. Yet here we are, repeating the same ceasefires, agreements, two-state solutions, and, of course, the buzzword: peace. Golda Meir once said: “One cannot and must not try to erase the past merely because it does not fit the present.”  Dismissing the years of deception, terrorism, and murders by Hamas and others of their ilk is allowing history to repeat itself and waiting for another October 7 to happen. One does not need to be a fortune teller to know without a shadow of a doubt that this is the one chance Israel has to stop the cycle of Hamas terrorism against Israel and Gazans.

Golda Meir once said that only Israel is the guarantor against another Holocaust. Israel stands alone in perseverance and strength and in making sure that Hamas is destroyed and that any decision made is sustainable and long-term, or we will be discussing the same situation sooner rather than later. Unity is imperative to combat the forces of evil that want to destroy the country.  Any internal strife emboldens the enemy. The release of the hostages is not the only thing at stake. The survival of Israel and its future generations is.

Lest we forget that over 600 service members have made the ultimate sacrifice fighting a war on many fronts while still looking for hostages, and their lives and families are just as meaningful and should not be dismissed in the heat of emotion and political rhetoric. Decisions should not, at any moment, put the long-term security of Israel on the back burner of any compromise that will be advantageous only to the enemy. Party politics have no place in a country and situation where the alternative is continued terrorism and destruction.  The choice is clear: “To be or not to be is not a question of compromise. Either you be, or you don’t be” (Golda Meir).

Reuters, (2011). A history of Israel’s prisoner swaps. The Jerusalem Post. Retrieved September 4, 2024, from https://www.jpost.com/diplomacy-and-politics/a-history-of-Israels-prisoner-swaps

Golda Meir quotes. (n.d.). Retrieved September 5. 2024, from https://www.azquotes.com/author/9943-golda_meir