War Games Part 2: Let’s Make a Deal

Just one month ago, when I published my last blog post, we, the people of Israel, were being held hostage by our war-mongering leaders. We sat in our poorly protected apartments awaiting the sirens which sent us running underground. We saw our neighbors killed, with thousands of homes destroyed throughout the country. Today, tens of thousands of Israelis are still displaced by Iran’s ballistic missiles that leveled their homes. And this destruction was all just a side-show in the horrific 21 months since Oct. 7^th, 2023. Trump calls it ‘the 12-day war’. We Israelis call it ‘the war within a war’.

Here in Hostage Square, the mood becomes ever more desperate. We mark Day 652 of the Gaza war by marching through the streets. We shout and beg for the lives of our hostages. We scream, Stop the War! Is anybody listening? Political leaders in Washington and Jerusalem taunt us with promises of an imminent deal. Read more here. We have heard these promises for so long. We want to believe that something will happen soon. But what will that be?

The deal on the table right now is a bad deal by all accounts. This deal would return only half of the living hostages, and that only within a period of 60 days.  A bad deal, but we’ll take it. Well, we would if we could. But we cannot.

Although there may have been some surprise in the Oval Office, none of us at home were shocked when Netanyahu managed to return from his trip to Washington with nothing achieved. No cease-fire deal, no announcement to give even a ray of hope to the families of the 50 hostages still in Gaza. Well, that in itself is the achievement for Bibi, the Master Manipulator. His goal is to drag things on and on, to postpone his inevitable downfall for as long as he possibly can.

In Washington, Bibi sneered his way through days of fruitless meetings with the U.S. President, posing for photo ops, giving up nothing. Who came out ahead there? Bibi, of course. He managed to evade several days of testimony in his ongoing corruption trial, and he managed to stay in office yet another month.  Ah, yes, and he and Sarah had a nice little vacay in a luxury hotel suite at the expense of the Israeli taxpayers who were left sweltering at home.

What happens when you bring together two egomaniacal leaders known for their love of deal-making? It turns out, nothing good comes out of it. Bibi did his best to out-Trump Trump, and Trump danced around the issues to try to save face. Did Bibi think he would get something in return for his cynical gesture of nominating Trump for a Nobel Prize? The two men responsible for bombing Tehran just days earlier salivating over a Peace Prize. Does the irony escape them? The deal-makers went at it, mano a mano, and no one won. Two cold-hearted men, each interested only in their own personal gains, met in the Oval Office. No one won. And we know who lost: We, the people of Israel and Gaza. Caught in a never-ending war which is being fought for no good reason.

Perhaps there was cause for the Israeli counter-attack following the monstrous Hamas attacks on Oct. 7^th. But that was long ago, and so many heartbreaking deaths ago. Today, with thousands of Israeli casualties and tens of thousands on the Gaza side, any justification for continuing this deadly war has evaporated. Israel cannot defeat Hamas militarily. The proof is in the fact that despite Israel’s massive military power, Hamas is still there, dug in deep underground and quickly recruiting new fighters to replace those killed by the IDF.

IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir has already said that it’s time to end the war. This from the man Bibi appointed because he thought he would be a yes-man. No, man. It turns out Gen. Zamir is too intelligent and too experienced a military leader to be caught defending a useless war. Even politicians on the far right, members of Bibi’s coalition, agree. Moshe Gafni, head of the ultra-orthodox party, United Torah Judaism, has said publicly he cannot understand why we are still fighting in Gaza.

Cult of killing

While thousands of us march through the streets screaming, End the War, Bibi continues to build his cult. It is a cult of killing. Boasting of every home razed in Gaza,  glorifying Jewish terrorism in the West Bank, impervious to the staggering statistics of Gazan civilians gunned down at the ironically-named humanitarian food distribution centers. Bibi’s supporters have called us, ‘the cult of the hostages’. Well, they should know about cults!

Netanyahu’s bluster glorifies and encourages his ever-growing cult. I stand by the side of the road holding up a sign that says, Bring Them Home. Drivers passing by give me the finger and shout abuse. Gangs of young boys run by shouting, “Only Bibi!”.  A well-dressed woman with a French accent yells at me, “You Arab-lovers are the reason we are at war.”  I did not follow her logic, but she did follow me for a bit. As I walked, she followed me down the road, pointing to my sign and accusing me of being the downfall of Israel.

And the Cult of Killing grows and grows. This week, videos of a bar mitzvah celebration in a small town in Israel went viral. The scene rivaled any militaristic Hamas ceremony we’ve ever seen. Masked Border Police from Israel’s counter-terrorism unit were filmed in full combat uniform complete with balaclava masks, with their automatic rifles raised in the air as they escorted the bar-mitzvah boy, son of a prominent Israeli businessman. All this pageantry set to the music of a popular singer as he pranced ahead of them.

And the connection to our theme of ‘Let’s Make a Deal’?  The businessman in question owns the excavation company which the IDF has contracted in the Gaza war to dig up Hamas tunnels. Last year, this same businessman was filmed during his army reserves duty standing among the rubble of Rafah while a fellow soldier boasted that his unit would soon tear down the nearby mosque.

Meanwhile in Hades…

And while this goes on, we despair. The bad deal on the table now is better than nothing. Yes, we would take it if we could. We’ll take anything that can redeem even one more living soul out of the hell of the tunnels beneath Gaza. We in Tel Aviv feel the oppressive heat of the Mideastern summer, and we cannot help but wonder, how is it for our hostages? As they languish in tunnels with minimal oxygen and no fresh drinking water, how are they expected to survive?  Every day is a ticking time bomb for these beautiful souls in a living hell. For our hostages, the underworld is real, not some mythological realm, but a real one: narrow tunnels of cement and mud, reeking of sewage and lacking air to breathe.  Hades is real. And one man has the power to end this torture. His name is Bibi.

Hamas officials have said they would release all remaining Israeli hostages in one batch if Israel agrees to a permanent ceasefire. Netanyahu has rejected the exchange, insisting that he will only end the war if a varying list of conditions are met. Read more here

Bibi, you pride yourself on being a deal-maker. It’s time to make a deal!