There’s a satirical cartoon making the rounds. It depicts a flow chart of the hostage negotiations these last months. First a random deadline is set: two days, one week, etc. Then anonymous American, Egyptian and other officials are quoted saying that the deal is looking good, imminent, just going to be another day or two. Then Hamas rejects the deal to demand that Israel agree to permanently stop fighting, at which point Netanyahu insists that Israel is about to invade Rafah. Then nothing new happens while the talking hands repeat the same points over and over again and, the flow chart concludes, American students continue supporting Hamas. Then it all cycles back to the random deadline at the beginning.
We all know by now the best, easiest, and most painless way to end this round of war: Hamas releases all the hostages, both those alive and dead. I say “round of war” because Hamas has repeatedly made clear that it will never stop trying to destroy Israel — neither will any of the jihadist groups that surround Israel, nor will Iran. Even if this war comes to an end, there is another one waiting just around the corner. Either with Hamas if it stays in power in Gaza, or with Hezbollah on the northern border. Or Iran over its nuclear missiles. Or all at once.
We make a mistake in thinking that it’s in Israel’s power to end this war. It’s not — because Israel didn’t start it. Only Hamas can end the war that they started, either by achieving their goal of eliminating Israel, or by surrendering. The cease-fire demanded by various countries, diplomats, and college students don’t require an end to Hamas’ war, only an end to Israel’s side of it. Hamas has made clear that they will not be bound by a permanent cease-fire; only Israel will, and in exchange for perhaps a couple dozen of the 132 hostages who remain — alive or dead — inside Gaza.
By elevating these hostage negotiations to a matter of diplomacy and politics, the world has done much to legitimize Hamas’ war crimes. Instead of constantly demanding that Hamas return the hostages without condition, the world instead demands that Israel pay for them — and to the price point of losing the war by agreeing to a permanent cease-fire.
Israelis right now are not divided on whether or not to defeat Hamas. They are instead divided on the best way to bring the hostages home. Do you invade Rafah to keep up the military pressure on Hamas? Get them down to their last bunker so they’ll trade their own lives for the hostages? Or do you cut a hugely painful deal now by pulling out of Gaza, releasing tons of Hamas prisoners, and cease-firing long enough for Hamas to regain control of Gaza, all in exchange for some, but not all, of the hostages? No one knows the answer, and it’s possible that neither effort will work.
And so 132 people languish in Hamas hell after more than 200 days.
It’s been a whirlwind couple of months here at Jew Oughta Know. I’ve been speaking at colleges, synagogues, private homes; to teenagers, college students, and adults alike. You can book me in-person or virtually to talk about what’s going on in Israel, or how this is impacting Jewish identity, or even a completely different subject from Jewish history if your community needs a break from the war talk. Reach out to me at jewoughtaknowpodcast@gmail.com. Thanks again to the recent donors, really appreciate your support, great to have you here with me for all this.
This is the 180th episode of this podcast, and the 22nd since the war began. I’m your host Jason Harris, and this is Jew Oughta Know.
We have to distinguish between war and cease-fire. Even if Israel agreed to a cease-fire, it doesn’t end either the war with Hamas or with Iran’s other allies and proxy armies. Certainly Israel has done enough damage to Hamas to buy itself time. Maybe 5 years. Maybe even ten. But Hezbollah is ready to go at a moment’s notice, and Iran isn’t looking to quit. So Israelis are under no illusions: the next war will come, it’s just a question of when.
So given this context, what does Hamas want? Hamas wants to win the war. Right now that means forcing Israel to stop fighting so that Hamas can retake Gaza, rebuild its army, and carry out more October 7ths until Israel is eliminated. Hamas needs Israel to agree to a cease-fire that is long enough to effectively be permanent, such as a year. It’s willing to trade some hostages for this.
What Israel wants is instead a cease-fire short enough to bring back as many hostages as possible, but not so long that Hamas can just come bouncing back. And ultimately the destruction of Hamas as a threat to Israel, meaning that it’s no longer in power in Gaza and can’t rebuild itself.
So neither side can give the other what it wants. But it’s not just math. It’s emotion. The hostages present a completely intolerable situation for Israel, made all the more so by the tormenting frustration that Hamas holds all the cards. How many are alive? How many are dead? Is any humanitarian support getting to them? Is Hamas just playing psychological games to mess with Israel, pressure the government, and divide society? The answer to the last question is yes.
And then of course there’s the political calculations. In what ways does Netanyahu's government remain or fall depending on what cease-fire deal he makes? The ultra-right is threatening to abandon him if he makes a deal. But the center opposition says they will rescue his government if it means getting the hostages. But if they do, then as soon as the deal is made the center can abandon Netanyahu. He’ll then have no one left, his coalition will collapse, and new elections will be be needed. How does this influence Israel’s calculations? But Hamas gets the last word anyway. No matter which lever Israel pulls, Hamas can always say no, or change the terms, or change the number of hostages, and on and on.
You have to be a game theorist to figure all this out.
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The Jewish People are no strangers to the conundrum of hostages. Chapter 14 of the Book of Genesis tells us that an invading force entered the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. They took captive Lot, the nephew of Abram, later known as Abraham. Verse 13 tells us that “a fugitive brought the news to Abram the Hebrew. “ That’s the first use of the word Hebrew in the Bible. It likely means someone from the other side of the river, that is, an outsider. Thus the idea of someone as a “Hebrew” is directly connected to the story of a hostage. In any event, Abram corralled 318 men to pursue the kidnappers. He defeated them and redeemed Lot, along with women and others. But that wasn’t it. Abram and his men went after the kidnappers all the way to the north of Damascus, presumably their headquarters; we can assume it was to make sure they couldn’t do it again. That story was written down probably between 2,500 and 3,000 years ago.
Jewish hostages continued to be such a problem that the Talmud and later sages devoted considerable attention to the question. How should Jews and the Jewish community think about our responsibilities towards hostages, to do what we can to redeem them from captivity?
In the 12th century Maimonides insisted that there was no greater mitzvah than the redemption of captives. In the 1500s Joseph Karo argued that where it’s possible to free captives, every moment of delay is tantamount to murder.
But other texts in the Talmud caution not to pay too high a price for captives. The Babylonian Talmud, written some 1500 years ago, worries that an excessive ransom could impoverish the community. And it could incentivize their enemies to take even more hostages and increase the ransom. Those texts argue that paying too high a price amounts to a violation of tikkun olam, repairing the world. Jewish communities have been wrestling with these dilemmas for centuries.
Modern Israel is no exception to this paradox. There were the 11 Israeli athletes held during the 1972 Munich Olympics, and then killed. During the 1982 Lebanon War, Palestinian terrorists captured six Israeli soldiers, whom they exchanged a year later for 4,500 prisoners. A few years later three more soldiers were taken, exchanged after about a year for more than 1,100 prisoners. In 1994 Hamas kidnapped an Israeli soldier, who was then killed in a failed rescue attempt. Since 2014 Hamas has held on to the bodies of two Israeli soldiers killed in Gaza that year. There are two more mentally disabled Israelis who have been held in Gaza for around a decade. Most famously, though, was the exchange in 2011 of over 1,000 prisoners for Gilad Shalit, a soldier who had been captured five years earlier. Many of those released went on to commit more murders. Amongst them was Yahya Sinwar, the current head of Hamas in Gaza and the mastermind of October 7.
Israel, then, frequently confronts the dilemma between redeeming hostages as the highest good versus the warning not to pay too high a price. It’s an impossible choice, made all the more so by the complete intransigence of the kidnappers themselves.
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Each and every hostage taken by Hamas on October 7 is a war crime. You are not allowed to do what Hamas did. You’re not allowed to capture innocent people, even dead ones. For all the false accusations thrown at Israel for deliberately starving Gazans, there is no public evidence that the Israeli hostages receive adequate food, water, clothing, warmth, medical care, or anything else. They have not been visited or evaluated by the Red Cross. It may very well be that most of them have died by this point, whether executed outright or murdered through neglect.
Israel knows, as did every Jewish community going back to antiquity, that it’s going to have to pay a price to redeem those captives, even the dead bodies. It’s insufferable but it’s the price of being Jewish. What infuriates Israel, however, is how the rest of the world treats the hostage situation as just one facet of this war. The constant drumbeat of asking Israel what it’s willing to pay to get them backs legitimizes Hamas’ actions. Because the right answer is “Nothing! Why should we pay anything? The only answer is for Hamas to return the hostages without condition. Give us back the hostages first, and then we’ll talk!”
Instead the world seems not to accept the hostages as an extraordinary war crime perpetuated each and every day, a situation that puts all the rest of Israel’s actions in context. The left, of course, wants to believe that Israel simply woke up one morning and decided to start committing genocide. But others insist that Israel is fighting only for revenge, or for their wounded pride. The hostage crisis, which for Israel is the most painful and vivid part of this war, seems to fade into the background amidst the demands for an Israeli cease-fire.
Indeed, the hostages have generated only a minimum of outcry compared to Israel’s actions in Gaza. The White House should begin every statement with, “We demand the immediate and unconditional release of the hostages.” The UN, the Europeans, the student protestors — everyone should be screaming from the rooftops what is so blatantly obvious: that Hamas can end this by releasing all the hostages.
Neither the US, UN, Europeans, or the student protestors have any influence with Hamas. But Western allies like Turkey and Qatar do. Qatar provides hundreds of millions of dollars to Hamas and houses its leadership. Qatar also offers Hamas positive media coverage through al-Jazeera — well, propaganda. It could threaten to turn down or turn off any of those spigots. And the US could in turn use its leverage on Qatar and to a certain extent Turkey to make use of those levers.
What upsets Israelis is that the obsessive focus on Palestinians civilians isn’t matched by the same concern for the fate of the Israeli hostages. It’s not because Israelis want to actively harm innocent civilians. It’s that they are primarily concerned with the fates of their own family members, many of whom seem to have died, or are dying. It’s a desperate race against time. So some Israelis are trying their own form of pressure against both the Israeli government and Hamas.
A group in Israel called Tsav 9 has been blocking humanitarian supplies on their way to Gaza. Some are right-wing activists, others are family members of the hostages. They block intersections and stand in front of trucks and force the police to arrest them and the army to find other routes. Their message is simple: no humanitarian aid until the hostages are returned. One of its members said, “We came to stop aid to Hamas. Our brothers who are kidnapped in Gaza…they don’t have such aid.”
U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken recently visited Israel. A Tsav 9 activist blocking a road to the Kerem Shalom border crossing said that the United States and Blinken, “will find out that the citizens of the State of Israel are determined and unwilling to give gifts to Hamas. As long as there are abductees in Gaza and aid reaches Hamas, we will continue to block it.”
Now, this is the wrong answer. And luckily they have not been successful. But I also can’t bring myself to condemn them. I don’t believe that they truly want to see innocent Gazans starve. I think they are desperately reaching for any leverage they can find against a cruel and nihilistic enemy and an Israeli government that seems impotent to effect the hostages’ return.
Israel is divided. Not over the war itself, which almost everyone supports in one way or another. But over how to get the hostages back. Many Israelis, led by the families of the hostages, are demanding that the government accept any deal, no matter how lopsided. And who can blame them? There is an enormous urgency to get the hostages back. We can call this the Maimonides option. The greatest mitzvah is to redeem the captives.
But then there is the Talmudic option, the one that warns against paying too high a price. Many Israelis, including other hostage family members, insist on keeping up the pressure on Hamas by invading Rafah. They warn against forfeiting the war to get the hostages — because if Hamas wins, there will just be more hostages in the future.
This debate is short on information. Hamas is constantly changing the numbers to taunt Israel and drag out the negotiations. Are there 40 hostages alive? Only 33? More? Less? Does Hamas not even know and they’re just messing around? Should the deal include several stages to bring the hostages home in batches, or should Israel demand all the hostages at the exact same time? Israelis know that whatever it is, Hamas will use it as a psychological weapon.
This past week was a whiplash. When Israel encouraged 100,000 Gazans to evacuate an area near Rafah, and conducted air strikes on Hamas targets, Hamas suddenly announced it had accepted a cease-fire proposal. But it turns out that Israel hadn’t even seen this proposal from the Egyptian, Qatari, and American mediators, which contained new terms that Israel never agreed to. Thus the deal was off. Then it emerged that the United States was aware of the changed terms but hadn’t told Israel ahead of time. Israeli officials said that it looked like the US intentionally blindsided Israel in an effort to force them to accept a deal. Apparently one of the new provisions was that Hamas switched some of the living hostages to be returned with dead ones. Israel considered that a pretty important detail. Hamas pulled a fast one to garner international sympathy, get Biden to pressure Israel to hold off an attack on Rafah, and, as usual, toy with the Israeli public.
So the hostages become captives in another way, to the behind-the-scenes political machinations of the various players all jockeying for position and desired outcome. This is no longer just about freeing innocent people Hamas had no right to take and torture; this is about how the powers-that-be can use the hostages to maneuver and manipulate.
Hamas both wants a cease-fire but also think it is winning this war. They’re betting that Biden won’t allow Israel to take Rafah. With no further moves to make, Israel will cut a permanent cease-fire deal for a token few hostages. Hamas will hang on to the rest as insurance, emerge from the bunker to declare victory, retake Gaza in a day or two, and bask in the glory of having defeated Israel. Everyone is warning about the consequences if Israel fully invades Rafah. To civilian life. To the relationship with the United States. To Israel’s opinion amongst young people. But we also have to think about the consequences if it doesn’t invade.
If Israel loses — that is, if Hamas wins by staying alive and retaking Gaza — the question is what happens next. Of all Israel’s enemies, Hamas is the weakest militarily. A win for them does massive damage to Israel’s deterrence, meaning its ability to signal to its enemies that an attack on Israel would be catastrophic. If Israel’s weakest enemy can defeat it, deterrence may very well collapse. If Hezbollah senses Israel’s weakness, and knows that they only have to survive a few months until the United States shuts Israel down, will they pounce? Will Iran now sprint towards acquiring nuclear weapons, believing Israel too weak and too constrained to take action? What happens to Gaza in the meantime — Israel and Egypt will maintain their blockade, even double it up to try to prevent Hamas from rearming. You can forget about a single structure getting rebuilt there. And what happens in terms of civilian lives five years from now, when Hamas is back to full strength, stages another October 7, and war breaks out all over again?
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History will determine whether Israel made key strategic mistakes in this war. When half the hostages were released back in November, could Israel have struck a more comprehensive cease-fire deal then for all the rest? Should Israel have actually invaded Rafah months ago to wrap the war up quickly? Israel is dependent on its civilian reserve army, which is not intended for such prolonged warfare. An argument can be made that dragging the war out this long invited more opposition from the United States, harmed Israel’s military capabilities, kept the hostages in limbo, and allowed Hamas too much time to prepare its defenses.
But here we are. In an attempt to forestall Israel’s invasion of Rafah, President Biden is withholding American weaponry. This is worthy of an entire podcast episode on its own. Biden said that Israel will have to choose between invading Rafah and receiving US offensive weaponry. But the weapons he’s holding back are the kinds of precision munitions that Israel uses to make targeted strikes. Targeted strikes better enable Israel — and any other army — to avoid civilian casualties. If Israel still invades Rafah, but can’t use precision weaponry, then more civilians could be killed by “dumber” bombs that aren’t as accurate or precise.
Biden is afraid that if Israel wins the war, he’ll lose to Trump in November. Which says more about the American left than it does about Biden. There is plenty of muttering that Biden is trying to save Hamas in order to save himself, rewarding terrorists for using human shields in order to send a positive signal to the anti-Israel left. Yet while that group is threatening to stay home on election day, Jews vote. If Biden is forcing Israel to lose to appease his left flank, he may well risk the Jewish vote — for him and the rest of the Democratic Party. That’s a big gamble. Once again I appeal to game theory and Talmudic philosophy to try to parse out all the possible permutations.
It’s hard to imagine any other country in Israel’s position not making the final push to win the war, end this particular genocidal threat, get back as many hostages as possible, and, maybe most importantly, restore Israel’s deterrence.
As always, repeating like a broken record, there are just no good options. I cannot fathom a way forward for either Israelis or Palestinians and even all the rest of us if Hamas isn’t defeated. We know they will make whatever comes next as bitter and nasty as possible.
So do you want my opinion? Here it is: the best thing would be for Israel not to invade Rafah. The worst thing would be for Israel not to invade Rafah.
And all the while, the hostages, however many are alive, await their fate. Who knows for how long.
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Everything is happening quickly right now. As part of their ongoing attacks on humanitarian aid, Hamas bombed the Kerem Shalom crossing point between Israel and Gaza. Four Israeli soldiers were killed and the crossing shut down for a couple days. The United Nations complained that Israel wasn’t letting supplies through. Made no mention that perhaps Hamas’ attack was the reason.
In an effort to push Hamas back and keep up the pressure, the IDF seized the Rafah crossing point between Egypt and Gaza. This is different than the nearby city of Rafah, which Israel has not yet invaded. For the first time since 2014 all of Gaza’s border crossings are in Israeli hands. Of course, this puts Israel in the uncomfortable position of now controlling almost all the aid flows into Gaza. But controlling Rafah’s crossing also enables Israel to control the Philadelphi Corridor — the strip of land a few hundred feet wide in between Gaza and Egypt. This is important because it means Israel can better destroy the smuggling tunnels that Hamas uses to bring in weapons from inside Egypt. I wrote about this on my Substack back in March.
Kerem Shalom reopened after a couple days and aid appears to be flowing through as before. The United States is still building its pier on the Gaza beach, but Hamas has attacked that, too, and logistical problems have slowed it up. Turns out it’s incredibly hard to deliver aid in a war zone when the enemy is trying to destroy it, hijack it, or sell it for cash.
The parents of 19 year-old Noa Marciano revealed that their daughter, a hostage, was murdered by a doctor at the Shifa Hospital back in November. We also now know that several Israelis missing from October 7 were killed that day, their bodies dragged into Gaza to be held captive. Seven months after the pogrom, Israel is still counting bodies.
As always, I’m at jewoughtaknow.com and my email is jewoughtaknowpodcast@gmail.com. Don’t forget to check out my Substack by signing up for the mailing list on my website. Thanks again to the donors, well-wishers, and everyone who writes to tell me that they’re finding this podcast helpful and meaningful. Am Yisrael Chai — the Jewish People live.
© Jason Harris 2024