To Mr. Netanyahu, PM of Israel

Dear Mr. Netanyahu,

I am a very concerned citizen of the State of Israel. Understanding that I am not one of your constituents and I am not the Israeli you align with– but still, I am Israeli by choice, having made Aliyah in 1983, raising 2 boys, now men who served in various wars – one in the armored tanks division and one in the paratroopers, I feel this letter burning to be written and sent. This letter, is an open letter to you, the Prime Minister of Israel. Whether we agree or not– you are the PM of my chosen country.

You want victory – we all want victory. You must know that. But what is victory and what will make us victorious? We lost so much on the Seventh of October – and we are still losing. It doesn’t matter how many of our enemies we have killed – The moment they came onto our land and went into our homes, taking, murdering, raping and burning – we lost. That should never have been allowed to happen.

And now, there are still 115 hostages – men, women, children…. Soldiers and civilians, husbands and sons, wives, daughters and grandchildren – taken from their homes, some from their beds or their army posts – only to be captured and held hostage for what has become 10 months of torture for them, but also for their families, communities and country we are all left to mourn their fate.

I understand that you and I will never have a shared opinion of what the State of Israel should be during our lifetimes, but I must believe that somewhere inside of you – you want this to be over. I must believe that you do want peace. I believe that the majority of us citizens living in this beautiful Land of Israel, want to live in peace. We want to get up in the morning, without mourning. We want to got to bed without the heavy sadness we are all feeling. We want to believe that this nightmare will be over soon… so we can get back to the business of the living – healing, living and flourishing.

It has been too long. Saying ‘’they are suffering but alive’’ is an awful thing to say or accept and – what’s worse, not a truthful statement, because unfortunately by now not all hostages are still alive. Those hostages still alive in captivity are surely suffering. But they are not alive because of anything you have done since the Seventh of October. Our defense forces have been amazing, coming together and protecting – defense and offense – many coming without being called – volunteering to put their lives on the front line – putting their bodies in the way of danger to protect and defend.  Those still in captivity are not benefiting from this prolonged war. You must see that the continued fighting in Gaza is not saving any of the hostages. You must know –just as we all know – that we can sign now an agreement to return all of the hostages, and leave Gaza until they are all returned. And just as we have always done, we can protect ourselves the minute they attack again. You must know. You must have learned, as the people of Israel have learned that they, our brave combat soldiers – the men and women we have out there and that are ready to go out there again at a moment’s notice, can and will protect us anytime they are called to do so.

You must know the importance of Pidyon shvuyim. It is a (religious) duty in Judaism to bring about the release of a fellow Jew captured imprisoned unjustly. You must know these things. Release/repatriation of hostages is also a humanistic value and international humanitarian laws and treaties have been successfully enacted to bring forth the release of hostages in previous conflicts worldwide.

I suspect that you also know that the people, our people – ALL of the people – Jews, Druze, Christian and Arab Israelis are working to be united against our common enemies and that the internal fighting within your government, calling-out the Minister of Defense in your own government for being anti-Israeli is not a ‘win.’ It is the opposite – the complete opposite of winning. This refusal of yours to unite the government to bring the hostages home can only be looked upon as a loss – the greatest of losses is your insistence that we are not strong enough to bring the hostages home under any conditions. Everybody who has the ability to think, knows this – both those within and those outside our borders. If you cannot at least pretend to get along while we are fighting multifront wars against terrorist regimes, how can you expect us to win? How can you expect us to survive. Yes, we are resilient – but all the resiliency in the world cannot save us from the mistake of abandoning our own. We must get our people back, bring the hostages home. There is only one win here – the return of the hostages, immediately and within the agreement that is currently written. If you believe in Israel – then you must also believe that we can recoup whatever we need, once the hostages are home. I believe in us, the people. Don’t you?

You have one choice. One choice as a Prime Minister, one choice as a Jew, one choice as an Israeli and one choice as a Human. Pidyon shvuyim.

Bring them home now.