Where are the million in the streets?

Over the last 17 months, I, like thousands of others, have been going every Saturday night to the Jerusalem demonstration on behalf of the hostages next to the Prime Minister’s residence. At the end of each demonstration, I am left with a great deal of anger coupled with the odd feeling of unity with everyone else who attended.

Why am I angry? My anger is driven by the fact that we even have to be there to demonstrate, to push our government, our Prime Minister to act to get the hostages home, to make the hostages a priority of the war, which it wasn’t for such a long period. Even when the PM ‘appeased’ the hostage families by adding the hostages as a goal of the war, it was a distant second or third to his self-defined goals and priorities, which he called ‘total victory’.

In a normal and proper society, we shouldn’t have to be in this situation. In Israel, where we had a covenant between the people and the government and the army, we don’t leave anyone behind. The government, on October 8 should have stated unequivocally that getting the 251 hostages home, those that they abandoned, needed to be the first priority before anything else. Only after getting the hostages home, could we, the country, the army, the politicians then do everything else that was needed, to destroy the threat of this barbaric monstrous terrorist organization and never ever allow them to be a danger to our population, not only to the south but to the entire country.

Unfortunately, we all know that this was not done and the hostages, their families and all those who support them were left hanging and further abandoned and that situation has barely changed for a year and a half.

Since October 7, the Prime Minister and most of his cabinet and coalition have made concerted efforts to divert the narrative from one of total support of the hostages and their families to one of seeing them as the enemies, the collaborators of our enemies and as such, the enemy of our leadership. They have turned the hostage issue into a political issue where it never should have gone.
Fortunately, most of the population have not accepted that narrative but the small percentage of those who have, their statements, their outbursts, their verbal and physical attacks are nothing less than evil, such as telling the hostage families that their loved ones should have been killed on October 7 or that its good the women hostages are being raped, that they, the families should be sent to Gaza to be with Hamas. Yes, I have heard all of this and more and most of this evil sputter is followed up with ‘Only Bibi!’

While this situation is difficult to comprehend and accept, even worse is the fact that it has been the American government (both the Biden administration and now Trump) which is the one and singular major force working and pushing to get our hostages home far more than our own government and prime minister. Since the beginning of the war, it has been painfully clear that the Americans have been doing more to get our hostages home than our own government and prime minister.

According to Channel 13 news, the father of hostage Tamir Nimrodi said it was “sad that we have to rely on foreign governments to bring our children back more than we can rely on the State of Israel.”

The mother of hostage Matan Angrest said: “We feel that the State of Israel is leaving soldiers and fallen troops behind, while there is an American commitment to bringing them back.”

Absurdly, it has been our government that has been working against getting our hostages home with one of Netanyahu’s senior ministers, the convicted criminal and former Minister of Internal ‘Insecurity’ Ben Gvir who has proudly announced on numerous occasions of how happy he is that he, personally prevented any hostage deals from coming to fruition. With him, we have our unqualified Minister of Finance/Minister in the Defense Department who has repeatedly stated that he will bring down the government if Netanyahu agrees to a hostage deal which brings with it the pulling of our troops from key locations and/or ending the war. Add to them the other ministers in their parties and in the Likud who have publicly stated that sacrificing the living hostages is necessary to prevent future hostage takings. They all choose to forget and deflect that all of the hostages were taken under their watch and are their responsibility.

So, each week, like clockwork, I am back at the demonstration on Balfour and I watch the numbers growing since I first started attending the demonstrations when there were just handfuls of people. And based on all of the polls and seeing the streets filled with people when some of the hostages did come home recently, especially when the country lined the streets all over to pay last respects to Shiri, Ariel, Kfir and Oded, I know that for every person at a demonstration, there are between 10-100 others who are at home and support the hostages and making a deal to bring them home, even if it means ending the war.

But it’s not enough. Throughout this year and a half, I have been painfully aware that our demonstrations have virtually no impact on our lame and petty politicians and so-called leaders who are more concerned with their own self-interests than the lives of the hostages. I go each week to show the families that they are not alone and their pain is our pain. I go because we now know that many of the hostages see or hear about the demonstrations and it heartens them, gives them the strength to survive another day of torture in the hell of Hamas tunnels. But these demonstrations need to move the politicians also, they need to feel and see the massive hordes of people who are demanding that everything be done, everything, not just what is convenient and beneficial to them, to get our hostages home. It’s not enough to see thousands in Jerusalem and tens of thousands in Tel Aviv. There needs to be a million people in the streets every Saturday night, in fact, every day, even shutting down the country by a million people until the government, our failed Prime Minister feel that they have no choice but to bring the hostages home or face a shutdown country.

Yes, I know it’s much easier to be at home on Saturday night and watch TV than to get into your car, or catch a bus or a ride to get to a demonstration. It’s comfortable, especially on the cold winter nights but we must think that it’s even colder for the hostages and they don’t have the luxury of wearing winter coats or layers of clothing or to drink that hot coffee to warm their bones and body. No, they don’t have any of that. This has to be in everyone’s mind when they think that it’s not convenient to go to a demonstration. This has nothing to do with convenience. It has to do with saving lives, the lives of people we don’t know but they are us. With every breath we take, we every bite of food we eat, with every coat we put on, we need to remember that their breaths in the tunnels are difficult, that for them, a bite of pita is all they have and they don’t have the coats to put on.

We need everyone in the streets, the hostages are relying on us because they can’t rely on our government. We must be a million in the streets and we must do it NOW!
#BRING THEM HOME NOW

“I’ve never met them,
But I miss them.
I’ve never met them,
but I think of them every second.
I’ve never met them,
but they are my family.
BRING THEM HOME NOW!!!”
(unknown author)