My first visit to Israel was in the summer of 2005. At the age of 14, I was an ideological, perhaps even emphatically right-wing teenager, arriving in a country I had long dreamed of visiting.
We had refrained from visiting due to the risks of daily terror attacks during the Second Intifada, but I finally set foot in Israel at a pivotal moment – amid the national debate over the imminent disengagement from Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip known as Gush Katif.
Back then, I was convinced that withdrawing was a grave risk, but I trusted Israel’s leadership to make the best decisions for the Jewish people. Was I wrong?
A broken contract
A government’s foremost duty is to ensure the security of its citizens. This is especially true for Israel, where the social contract between the state and its people is deeply ingrained, and the historic failures of Western and Middle Eastern societies to protect their segments of the Jewish Diaspora have been so deeply intertwined with our security policies and cultural desire to be strong.
On October 7, 2023, this all-important contract was shattered in a way I once believed impossible.
The failure of Israel’s leadership to prevent the infiltration of Hamas terrorists and its inadequate response on the day led to the most traumatic disaster targeting the Jewish nation since the aftermath of the Bar Kochba revolt in 135 CE.
While the Holocaust was a far greater catastrophe in terms of human loss, it was not an assault on a sovereign Jewish state with a functioning government and military, but rather against people and therefore, is not comparable on the same metrics.
But the government’s failures did not end with the terrorist invasion. By allowing 251 hostages to be taken, the government failed not only in its duty to protect its citizens but also in safeguarding the psychological and social fabric of Israeli society.
Why take hostages?
This raises an essential question: Why did Hamas and other terrorist factions take hostages at all? Why risk their own retreat back into Gaza just to seize civilians? Surely it would have been simpler for those who committed such evil acts to have murdered more Israelis?
The answer lies in Israel’s long-standing commitment to redeeming captives – no matter the cost.
Possibly the most famous example of this was Operation Thunderbolt in July 1976, when IDF special forces flew to Entebbe, Uganda, stormed a terminal guarded by Ugandan military personnel, Palestinians, and German Communist revolutionaries, and rescued Israeli and Jewish hostages. The mission was a near-miracle – although five Jewish lives were lost, including Lt.-Col. Yonatan Netanyahu, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s brother.
Perhaps in the early days of the IDF’s operations in Gaza, Netanyahu hoped his former Sayeret Matkal comrades could replicate his older brother’s historic success. The unit has indeed achieved extraordinary feats since October 7, but the expectation of a repeat Entebbe was unrealistic.
At any cost
We, as a sovereign nation-state and as a society, need to be doing everything that we can to bring all the hostages home, whatever their status. However, there is a notable difference between how we should go about returning our living hostages and those who have unfortunately lost their lives.
Even when a government fails its people, it must still do everything in its power to bring its citizens home – alive; even at the risk of further casualties. In my view, there is no price too high to secure the release of living hostages from Hamas captivity.
Jewish law echoes this principle. Two of its most fundamental commandments are pikuach nefesh (saving a life) and pidyon shvuyim (redeeming captives). Both are emphasized repeatedly in halachic discourse as overriding nearly all other obligations. Yet, once again, we have failed.
Last Tuesday, it was confirmed that Shlomo Mantzur, an 85-year-old survivor of the 1941 Farhud pogrom in Baghdad, was murdered by Hamas on October 7. Somehow, it took 16 months to confirm his death. To the Mantzur family and his loved ones, we failed you. The government failed you. The IDF failed you. Society failed you. There is nothing we can do to bring Shlomo home alive.
I was not shocked when I heard the news, but I wept nonetheless. I kept wondering: How do we prevent this from happening again?
The moral trap
Israel has committed to releasing Palestinian prisoners – many convicted of terrorism – in exchange for hostages. But what happens when those hostages are already dead? This is the moral trap in which we find ourselves.
If a hostage is deceased, a prisoner exchange no longer fulfills pikuach nefesh or pidyon shvuyim. Worse, it creates a dangerous precedent – one that disincentivizes Hamas from keeping hostages alive. So long as Hamas believes Israel will trade prisoners for bodies, it has no reason to ensure captives remain unharmed. As devastating as it is, we must confront this reality.
Israel will likely face more terrorist attacks and hostage crises in the future. We may not be able to prevent them. However, we must change the incentive structure for our enemies. If Hamas knows that Israel will only negotiate for living hostages, it may incentivize the terrorists to choose to keep captives alive rather than execute them.
Of the 73 hostages still in Gaza, it is estimated that approximately half have already been murdered. If our policy had been different, how many of them might still be alive?
Impossible choice, but necessary
Under the current ceasefire and hostage exchange agreement, phase three is meant to include exchanging murdered hostages for dead Palestinian terrorist prisoners. While this solves a major problem vis-a-vis exchanging terrorists for our murdered compatriots, it by itself does not prevent the horrors of October 7, 2023, from recurring in the future.
I do not claim to have the answers. I am not sure anyone does and in fact, would feel highly suspicious of anyone who claimed to know for certain. Still, I know this: Our current approach feels wrong. It allowed too many hostages to be brutally murdered by terrorists.
I also know it has been 500 days since October 7; perhaps if we had already implemented this change, more of the hostages held by Hamas terrorists would still be alive.
Prime Minister Netanyahu, I have never been a supporter of your leadership. But I implore you – set aside your ego and coalition politics. Do what must be done to bring every last hostage home, whether they are still alive or have been murdered. Then, use your vast influence to change the status quo that has allowed this cycle of failure to persist.
Do not let this happen again.
The writer holds an MA in security and diplomacy from Tel Aviv University, served for 20 months in the IDF’s International Cooperation Unit, and worked as an open-source intelligence analyst focusing on the Middle East region and specializing in global jihadist and terrorist movements and their rhetoric. He currently is employed at The Jerusalem Post as a breaking news editor. The views expressed here are his own and do not necessarily reflect the Post’s editorial opinion.