The news cycle in Israel moves at an incredibly quick pace. Two weeks ago, I had prepared material to write an article on the debate over a national memorial service to commemorate October 7 that had divided the country into two. But on Sunday morning, the Israel Air Force conducted a preemptive strike on the Hezbollah, destroying thousands of rockets, missiles, and launchers. This threw Hezbollah into complete disarray and briefly fused the divided Israelis into one galvanized nation. The topic of my weekly blog quickly segued to a personal description of the events of that Sunday.
Meanwhile, the national uproar over the government’s plans to hold an October 7 memorial service switched to a lower gear. The next big topic was the misbehavior of Israeli Minister for Homeland Security, Itamar Ben Gvir. Ben Gvir has become a destabilizing force in the Knesset on both sides of the aisle while simultaneously succeeding to increase the number of Knesset seats he is projected to win in the next election, whenever that might be. And so I gathered material to write an article on the “Ben Gvir Effect and the Value of Silence.”
And then suddenly, the topic of national conversation changed when the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) discovered the bodies of six hostages who were kidnapped on October 7 in a tunnel in the southern Gazan city of Rafah. The bodies returned were Hersh Goldberg-Polin, Eden Yerushalmi, Ori Danino, Alex Lobanov, Carmel Gat, and Almog Sarusi. Five of them had been abducted alive from the Nova music festival and one from a kibbutz in southern Israel. IDF troops, using sensitive intelligence, began to search a tunnel complex, about 20 yards underground. They found the hostages, dead, on Saturday afternoon. Their bodies were extracted from Gaza overnight and brought to Israel for identification. The bodies were found about half a mile from where another hostage, Farhan al-Qadi, was safely rescued last week by IDF special forces from Hamas captivity in a terror tunnel. He was found alone, but alive, after his captives fled from IDF troops who had entered the tunnel. Goldberg, Yerushalmi, Danino, Lobanov, Gat, and Sarusi were not as lucky. Each of their bodies was found with two bullet holes, one in the neck and one in the skull. They had been brutally executed about 48 hours before their bodies were found.
When the news broke on Sunday morning, it predictably set off a storm. The government’s position from the beginning of the war had been that the hostages would be released only by applying maximum pressure on Hamas. No deal with Hamas would be struck that did not guarantee Israeli security, including full control over the Philadelphi Corridor on the Egyptian border and the Netzarim Corridor that cuts Gaza into two pieces. Only after Hamas had come to the realization that its only option was unconditional release of the hostages along with unconditional surrender would Hamas leadership release the hostages in exchange for their lives. But on Sunday morning it seemed as if that strategy had been proven wrong. Maximum pressure, it could be argued, killed the very hostages it was meant to free. The fact that Prime Netanyahu did not address the nation on the day of the tragedy to share in the country’s pain only served to add fuel to the fire that would soon rage.
Ever since October 7, Israelis have been holding protests demanding the return of the hostages. The size of the protests was initially large. Over the past half year, their intensity has waned. They are held predominantly in Tel Aviv and predominantly on Saturday nights. The number of protesters is a small percentage of what it once was. It is not that Israelis are any less eager to see the hostages returned; it is just that it has become evident that there is very little that can be done to free them. Hamas had no idea how many hostages were abducted and where they were even located as many Israelis had been kidnapped by Gazans who did not necessarily identify with Hamas – more than half of the 7,000 Gazans who breached the wall on that fateful day were stragglers who took advantage of the Hamas assault and took their own hostages to hide them in holes in the ground all around the Gaza Strip. But after the news of the murders broke, Israelis took to the streets in droves. Mass protests took place in all of the major cities – Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, and Haifa. Major highway arteries were blocked. Police who were sent to contain the protests had to use force – stun grenades, water cannons, and the like.
The next step was taken by Arnon Bar-David, the head of the Histadrut, Israel’s largest union. He decided to call a general strike on Monday, a strike that would cause the closure of banks, schools, and the airport. Hospitals that were treating soldiers injured in Gaza would operate with a skeleton crew, and City Municipalities would not provide school buses or kindergarten teachers.
The reason for the strike was ostensibly to “show solidarity with the hostages,” but the smell of politics was heavy in the air. Indeed, similar strikes were called in early 2023 when the government attempted to force through Judicial reform laws that would have limited the power of the courts and of the Attorney General. The fact that the head of the Histadrut, a non-elected official, could wield so much power as to effectively shut down the economy was problematic in and of itself, but the fact that this power was being used against an elected government was an affront to democracy. Lest one suggest that the Histadrut’s strike was apolitical, nearly half of the municipalities in the country announced that they would not be supporting the strike. These included Jerusalem, Eilat, and Samaria, traditional strongholds of the Prime Minister and his Likud Party. Another indication that the strike was politically driven was the fact that many owners of shopping mall chains and large stores, businesses that are not unionized but are owned by people who have been vocally against the current government, also joined the strike.
My municipality of Misgav is an exercise in contrasts. It has a large percentage of secular and politically left-leaning residents and a slightly smaller number of religious and politically right-leaning residents. The head of the municipality lives in a secular town but comes every day to our town of Moreshet to pray in our synagogue. He is openly neither right or left. On Sunday evening he sent out a letter to his constituents to try to thread the needle:
“The Misgav Regional Council bows its head and shares in the grief of the families of the abductees who were murdered, and joins in calling on the families of the abductees who are residents of the council, and all families of the abductees to join together, and to treat the duty of redeeming captives as a sacred value. At the same time, it was decided not to harm our residents by initiating a local strike and/or by joining the call to shut down services for residents. The council will act according to the instructions of the Ministry of Education, the Center of the Regional Councils and the Histadrut, while reducing as much as possible the damage to services for the residents. Therefore, the transportation system will operate as usual tomorrow. The education system will operate in the maximum format possible, in accordance with the instructions of the Ministry of Education. All departments, divisions and corporations of the council will work to the best of their ability to provide services to residents. We wish for the return of the kidnapped and the evacuees, for the recovery of the wounded, for the peace of the fighters and share in the grief of all the families who lost their loved ones. Hoping for good news, salvation and comfort.”
His words mixed pathos and logos. He was understanding of both sides of the argument. Nevertheless, he was lambasted by residents on both sides of the political fence.
The question that Israelis should be asking themselves is how we can react to the barbaric murders of our hostages by binding together as a nation and not by tearing ourselves apart. When half the people in the country are striking and the other half are not, how can we prevent digression into “us” and “them”? Iris Haim is the mother of Yotam Haim, who was kidnapped on October 7 and accidentally shot dead by Israeli troops after he escaped his captors in a tragic case of mistaken identity. Instead of blaming the troops, she sent them a message offering love and support to the soldiers who were involved in the tragic incident:
“I know that everything that happened is absolutely not your fault, and nobody’s fault except that of Hamas,” she said in the message. “And don’t hesitate for a second if you see a terrorist,” she urged. “Don’t think that you killed a hostage deliberately. You have to look after yourselves because that’s the only way you can look after us.”
Afterwards she was asked how she could possibly forgive the people who killed her son? She answered that, in her eyes, everything in this world is a question of framing. If she were to frame her son’s death as manslaughter committed by a group of trigger-happy soldiers, then she would have to spend the rest of her life in pain. She chose to frame things differently, that her son defeated his captors, escaped from bondage, and died a free man. This is the child she wanted to remember.
My wife suggested framing the protestors and the strikers in a different way: On Sunday, Israelis woke up to a punch in the gut. After nearly a year full of grief and sorrow, Sunday’s news caused a kind of pain that we had never yet experienced. Not only were our brothers and sisters shot like dogs, but we were unable to prevent their murder. We are destroying Gaza brick by brick, and yet we were powerless to rescue them. Our grief and our pain boiled over and could not be contained. The protests and the strikes were visceral cries of anguish.
I propose framing things according to Iris Haim’s first point: “[My son’s death is] nobody’s fault except that of Hamas.” On October 7, we saw the enemy, and it was not us. Hamas, and only Hamas, was responsible for taking our hostages captive. Hamas, and only Hamas, was responsible for hiding them underground in darkness and letting their bodies wither until they lay on death’s doorstep. Hamas, and only Hamas, is responsible for their deaths. And we, and only we, are charged with their destruction.
Good Things,
Ari Sacher
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