by Rabbi Steven PruzanskyFor all the government hype, spin, and bluster since October 8, 2023, in the end, has anything changed? The current hostage deal would seem to indicate that the conceptziya is alive and well. This is not the agreement of either a victorious nation or a nation poised for victory in six weeks. Hamas is not defeated. Gaza will continue to pose a security threat to Israeli citizens, and all the hostages will likely not be released. For why would Hamas release all of them? Hamas is evil but not foolish. The hostages are Hamas’ best asset, because Hamas knows its incarceration of Israeli hostages leads our people and government to act emotionally, which is to say self-destructively and recklessly.
There will be joy at the release of the freed hostages, at least by the families of those released. I will feel relief, not joy. The joy will appear on the faces of the Arabs who have once again seen their psychopath-terrorists murder Jews and literally get away with it., They will be whooping it up, handing out sweets, and plotting their next massacre of an “unwise and foolish people” (Devarim 32:6). Indeed, I imagine this is the same feeling that Jews had after the Holocaust when the survivors were liberated – not joy but relief. How can there have been joy, knowing what they suffered in captivity, knowing how many did not survive?
Relief, not joy, but at least when the Holocaust survivors were freed, the Nazis were defeated. Here, in our case, we have empowered these Nazis to fight and murder us another day, we have even emptied our prisons of more homicidal Nazis so they should be able to resume their life's work of murdering Jews. Imagine winning the release of survivors by granting freedom to Goebbels, Goring, Hoess and Eichmann. That is our choice, and our fate.
Today, ours is not the face of victory. Have we squandered the lives of our precious soldiers just to restore the status quo of October 6, 2023? Have we elated our enemies just because we think that now Trump and the Americans will give us a free hand to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities? Most importantly, if the war resumes after the end of the cease fire, how many our soldiers will be killed once again conquering the same swaths of Gaza, now fully booby-trapped and mined? Why would any soldier want to go back there, especially knowing how ephemeral are any gains we make and how permanent is their loss of life?
For all the talk, we will still be prolonging the war and strengthening our enemies by lavishing even more provisions on these “innocent civilians,” not one of whom embraced Israel’s offer of $5,000,000 and free passage in exchange for information leading to the return of our hostages. The war is still managed by defeatists in the General Staff and the intelligence services, who still want to mow the lawn and prepare for another battle in this endless war, despite Hamas now on the brink of defeat. Just like in the Second Lebanon War, we are still sending our soldiers – our finest youth – to be killed and maimed seizing territory on Monday that we will surrender to the enemy on Thursday. For what? For what did they die? And we wonder why Haredim refuse to serve in an army that, too often – it is painful to say – is cavalier about the lives of our soldiers, refusing to bomb from the air buildings where no civilians should be, forcing our soldiers to serve as sitting ducks for the enemy, and still refusing to cut off food, water, electricity, and internet from our enemies.
We are still being lied to by our government. As I wrote during the first week of the war, defeating Hamas and freeing all our hostages are both worthy objectives but they are incompatible absent a miracle, and yet those goals are still being trumpeted as realistic and impending. The opposition, meanwhile, is still focused on toppling Netanyahu, with victory over our foes and freedom for the hostages merely secondary considerations. The streets are still filled with protesters who contrive fears of a Netanyahu dictatorship while obviously, and vehemently, preferring an actual judicial dictatorship, notwithstanding that the former is subject to elections while the latter is not and wishes simply to perpetuate its power by any means necessary.
After all the promises of “absolute victory,” and after PM Netanyahu demonstrated resilience and resolve such as he had never exhibited before as prime minister, he reverted to form, caved under pressure, and snatched defeat from the jaws of victory. Certainly, we were – and are – traumatized by the invasion and massacre of October 7, but few lessons have been learned. Pressure from Biden or Trump should be meaningless if they weaken our core values and interests. That is how independent nations act: they define their interests and do everything to achieve them. True resolve causes even the most intense pressure to dissipate. Israel has never learned that lesson, which is why we have suffered consistent diplomatic defeats for more than fifty years, and time and again, we rehabilitate and strengthen our enemies.
We still fall for Hamas’ psychological mind games – dangling hostage videos, murdering some, threatening others – all to achieve their aims, which they do. We know these are their tactics – and yet we still succumb to them. (Hamas demanded the release of more than one thousand of their terrorists? Why aren’t some of them being returned in body bags, like too many of our hostages?) We are easily manipulated, our enemies know it, and so they do it repeatedly. We learned nothing from the disastrous Shalit deal – nothing. That lopsided and immoral exchange not only murdered hundreds of us in the ensuing years but also guaranteed that the enemy would try to seize more hostages again, because, why not? It works. And it will work again in the future because the release of murderers in exchange for innocent civilians incentivizes the enemy to do it again. And again. The prattle about not releasing any of the murderers from the October 7 massacre in this round only guarantees that there will be future hostage-taking to win their freedom. Has anything changed?
It would be more plausible if many of those who disseminate the canard that “pidyon shvuyim,” the ransoming of captives, is the most important mitzvah in the Torah actually understood the concept, and perhaps even observed some of the other mitzvot in the Torah. (What the Sages meant is that “ransoming captives” is the highest form of tzedakah because it encompasses all dimensions of that mitzvah.) And as is well known to those who open a Gemara, we do not ransom hostages “for more than their value, for the betterment of the world” (Gittin 45a) because “overpaying” will ultimately bankrupt the community and encourage more hostage-taking. We do exactly what the Gemara says not to do, and obviously to our detriment.
Releasing bloodthirsty murderers is not just the “difficult price” we must pay, as the senseless and repetitive cliché uttered by numerous commentators and politicians puts it. It is not moral; it is immoral, because it has, does, and will put many others at risk. We do not endanger the entire community to save a small group. It is well meaning but also flat out stupid. And we need not speculate that this release might endanger the rest of us. It will! It always has. Terrorists leave our prisons more hardened and more hateful of Jews than they entered, and even more contemptuous of us because they know our weaknesses and how we cannot overcome them. More of us will be murdered, and still others of us will be taken hostage in the future. The only thing we don’t know are the names of the future victims.
Have we learned anything? Aryeh Deri announced that he would support “any deal.” And what if Hamas demanded that Yeshiva students must serve in the IDF? Would he pay that “difficult price”? Haredim should be embarrassed that they largely shirk army service but what is almost as embarrassing, this refusal has compromised their ability to present a true Torah view on “ransoming captives.” They lack any credibility, as they necessarily must prefer any option that does not involve the military in which they do not serve. That means you, Degel HaTorah, which has been forced to furl that flag and, in the process, muted the voice of Torah.
We are still tormented by a legal and judicial establishment that prioritizes the lives of our enemies over our own and which fetishizes the chimera known as “international law,” all progressive doctrines that favor the evildoers in any conflict and render victory impossible for those foolish enough to be guided by it. We are supposed to be the “light unto the nations.” We are the ones who should be teaching the true ethics of war to the world – not vice versa. We should be proudly and unabashedly disseminating the Torah’s ethic of war and not constraining ourselves by absurd moral notions concocted by human beings that cannot produce a better, more just world. Indeed, since the first Geneva Conventions were adopted in 1864, the world has experienced in the last 160 years unprecedented carnage and brutality. We have learned nothing from the evildoers’ exploitation of “international law,” that has effectively deprived the West of winning any war since World War II.
We have learned nothing from the Oslo debacle, from the Gaza Expulsion catastrophe, from the half-hearted waging of the Second Lebanon War and the various eruptions in Gaza, from the “hostages for terrorists” exchanges now four decades old, and from our reluctance, even fear, of acknowledging the true character of our enemies and dealing with that reality. When the next attack comes – and it will – and we suffer again, and go to war again, we will be accompanied yet again by the same false promises, the same lofty words, the same “together we will win!” – even as we disdain any plan for real victory.
We are victims of a terrible failure of vision, and of leadership, in the government and the opposition, in the upper echelons of the military and legal establishments. This deal is a classic example of “stage one thinking,” a visceral reaction that does not consider “stage two,” the real-world consequences of that emotional decision. Watch the glee on the faces of our enemies – and the agony on ours – and determine who thinks they won, and who thinks they lost.
It is especially galling that we take pride in our humiliation. Our enemies have not been deterred. They have been emboldened, inspired, and heartened by our surrender. They do not care about life – even their own. They care about murdering Jews and destroying the State of Israel, and we – wittingly or unwittingly – are abetting them.
Sadly, nothing has really changed. As a nation, we have been repeatedly let down by our leaders. The only redeeming value of the current government is that any potential replacement would be far worse. That is our fate – and a good reason we pray daily for judges and counsellors as of old, those who can hasten the coming of Moshiach and the kingdom of G-d on earth. May Moshiach come soon and may Hashem in His mercy spare us the harshest consequences of our folly.
