"If we don't feed them, they will harm the hostages." So not only do we feed them, we fatten them...

On 8 October 2023, Reichman University cross-cultural expert, Colonel (Res.) Reuven Ben-Shalom, speaking on TV7 Israel News, held forth:

When terrorists attack an army base, that is not terrorism. That could be the other terms, guerrilla warfare, counterinsurgency or whatever or insurgency, yet when they attack civilians, as they do with thousands of rockets, or any village they went into today, that is classic, classic terrorism. So certainly, there is a definition that we have to think about. But bottom line, strategically, when we have soldiers and civilians in Gaza right now, that is a strategic situation for the government, and there is no distinction. The problem is there. And remember, this is not something that’s going to end tomorrow in a negotiation, as I said before, Hamas plays the long game, long. Look at Gilad Shalit. It could be five years.

Yet, the Israelis that are alive in Gaza are alive, hopefully will come back to us. Hamas is a wise player and, usually in a situation like this, and hopefully even though they're a terrorist organisation and [despite] the atrocities that they did, they will care for them. They are bargaining chip. They dream of doing a deal with us and swapping prisoners with us. So hundreds and hundreds of Israelis died today, at least we have some Israelis that, hopefully, will come back to us.

Commenting on this, I wrote:

I am not a Jew, at least not yet, but to hear a Jew speaking like this makes my blood boil. In two short paragraphs, the word “hopefully” appears three times! "They dream of doing a deal with us." Really? Hamas? The organisation that breaks every single deal within the hour? Just read this one sentence again and let it sink in: “So hundreds and hundreds of Israelis died today, at least we have some Israelis that, hopefully, will come back to us.” On people with such sentiments Israel depends for her survival. This IDF Colonel obviously has no intention of wiping out Hamas, the "wise player," even after its killing “hundreds and hundreds,” because, at least, we hope, some Jews will survive. In that case, forgive me for asking, but what then, was the problem with the Holocaust? Some Jews survived.

“So hundreds and hundreds of Israelis died today, at least we have some Israelis that, hopefully, will come back to us.” What is one to make of this Israeli Jew’s ice-cold, matter-of-fact, balance sheet and vague hope for slightly better odds? The people it is his job to protect have just been massacred, and whole thing leaves him cold. There is nothing in this pathetic soldier's universe about going after the enemy, let alone keeping him out in the first place. The October 7 massacre had nothing to do with his job! His job was to appear on national television 24 hours after the greatest massacre since the Holocaust, to indulge in lexical minutiae, incorrectly, as it happened.

“They will care for them... They dream of doing a deal with us.” The Self-assured suicidal delusions of this cross-cultural expert abound. I was in Israel throughout the twelve days of Operation Rising Lion against Iran. One Israeli expressed her frustration thus: "Netanyahu is a disaster! This war must end so the hostages can come home!" She spoke from a place of deep pain and helplessness. I held my peace.

She did remind me of the pompous Colonel almost three years before, pontificating on the great wisdom of Hamas. But where she had an excuse, he had none. Between these two Israelis lies the vast, flat chasm of the vociferously-ignorant and the impotently-bold. Some of the tormented families in their despair are driven to holding a daily vigil in Tel Aviv. No one makes them aware of the counter-productive nature of showing Hamas that they can starve the Israelis they hold, safe in the knowledge that they themselves will feast. These families, together with the weekly crowds of demonstrators exploiting their grief, guarantee that Hamas will feast while their loved-ones held captive will starve. So confident is Hamas that the "starvation in Gaza" juggernaut is now unstoppable, they are openly flaunting their feasting alongside their captives' starvation. Whichever way you look at it, the facts don't matter. They've scored a stunning psychological victory.

Today is the 8th of Av, and in my learning on Shabbat Chazon, I came upon the following:

Civil War in Jerusalem (67 CE)
Fighting breaks out inside the besieged city of Jerusalem between Jewish factions divided on the question of whether or not to fight the Roman armies encircling the city from without. One group sets fire to the city's considerable food stores, consigning its population to starvation until the fall of Jerusalem three years later.

Does it even matter that it is the Gazans who set fire to the hostages' food stores, thereby starving Evyatar David and the others, rather than that we replenish the Gazans' food stores ourselves, thereby enabling them to hold out longer while they starve Evyatar David and the others? Three years later, Jerusalem fell.

Picture credit:

Hostages and Missing Families Forum, via Times of Israel.

Screenshots from TousiTV