Bring them home: Netanyahu and the hostages

Has Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel’s Prime Minister, made a conscious decision to sacrifice the remaining hostages held by Hamas in Gaza, in favour of some broader objective? And if so, what is it and will it work?

That’s a terrible thing to suggest. But a lot of Israelis seem to think so. Much of the country was paralysed on Monday by a one-day general strike called by the Histadrut Labour Federation which represents the majority of Israel’s trade union members.

The strike follows the discovery of six Israeli hostages found murdered near a Hamas-controlled tunnel under Gaza. They were apparently shot in the head. According to some reports, some of the victims would have been released in the first phase of a repeatedly postponed ceasefire deal being brokered by US President Joe Biden.

In a statement on X (Twitter) the Hostages and Missing Families Forum stated: “Netanyahu had ‘abandoned the abductees! This is now a fact.’” The forum was formed a day after Hamas’s horrific massacre on October 7 by families of those abducted and now has an international following.

Netanyahu brushed aside calls for a ceasefire at a news conference insisting the war would end only when Hamas is defeated. But in a rare, if not entirely convincing, act of contrition, asked Israelis to forgive him for failing to bring the six home safely.

The hostages taken on October 7 are not prisoners of war. The taking of hostages is a war crime and a crime against humanity as defined by the International Criminal Court. Around 100 hostages remain in custody although nobody really knows how many are still alive. So the primary responsibility for their welfare rests with Hamas.

But it isn’t that simple. The war will be one year-old in just over a month’s time. That’s a year of hell for the hostages and a year of devastation for the tens of thousands of Palestinians killed in Israel’s pulverising military offensive in Gaza. Ceasefire talks have dragged on for months. Both sides accuse each other of obstruction.

Biden, Qatar and Egypt – the key intermediaries in this grim chess game – are now said to be in a last-gasp push to secure a deal. The US is flagging it as a “take it or leave it” moment. 

Israel’s Defence Minister, Yoav Gallant,  a member of Netanyahu’s war cabinet, said on Sunday: “If we want living hostages there’s no more time.” Yair Lapid, the centrist leader of the opposition, was blunter. He blames the government for not securing a hostage deal “even though the circumstances allowed it”.

Lapid’s view, which is shared by many (though not all) in Israel, is that while Netanyahu didn’t pull the trigger he bears some responsibility for the deaths of the six hostages. “Hamas is not responsible for our children,” said Lapid. “The Israeli government is. A hostage deal should have happened a month ago.”

So what’s going on?

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is bedevilled by over-simplification: an epochal struggle between good and evil. It makes blame on both sides easier. Amid so much cruelty and death moral clarity is virtually impossible. It may, in any case, not be especially helpful at this stage of the conflict when what matters is realism. Sitting on a high horse makes it harder to see the facts on the ground.

There are (at the very least) five elements to this drama:

• Israel’s stated desire to destroy Hamas
• Hamas’s desire to eliminate Israel and draw the region into a genocidal conflict
• The international community’s efforts to end the suffering in Gaza and prevent a wider Middle East war involving Iran
• Netanyahu’s efforts to remain in office and delay his trial on charges of bribery fraud and breach of trust
• The battle for Israel’s soul between those who despite everything (still) hope for an eventual two-state solution and Netanyahu’s right-wing settler partners who wish to see a Palestinian-free Israel.

The first of these, as I wrote in May is unachievable. It never was. After nearly a year of ferocious pounding, Hamas is still standing. Yahya Sinwar, the architect of October 7, is in effect negotiating head-to-head with Netanyahu from a tunnel somewhere in Gaza. Hamas is gaining popularity in the occupied West Bank where Jewish settler violence appears out of control. 

Sinwar’s desire to turn the war in Gaza into something bigger involving Hezbollah, Iran and the West Bank is bearing fruit. Striking beyond its borders is also a convenient distraction for Netanyahu from the failure to achieve his war aims in Gaza. 

The question being asked by many protestors on the streets of Tel-Aviv is whether Netanyahu, who is deeply unpopular in Israel, is prolonging the war and possibly setting the country up for war with Iran to save his own skin. 

Netanyahu is not alone in wanting to confront Iran sooner rather than later, if only to forestall — or slow — its nuclear weapons programme. There are those who argue that war with the Ayatollahs is inevitable, so why not now? 

But it is the fifth of these elements that stands out increasingly as the driving impulse of the war. Men like Bezalel Smotrich, the Finance Minister, Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir and the settler movement, see Hamas’s atrocities as a reason to push their vision of a Jewish state cleansed of Arabs. This is, obviously, irreconcilable with a settlement. 

So the question now is not merely what happens in Gaza “the day after” a ceasefire. The question is whether any form of co-existence is possible between Israel and its Palestinian neighbours?

A related question is whether Israel’s right to self-defence – the core of its survival doctrine and the foundation of its support in Europe and the US – is better served by trying for peace, however tenuous, or preparing for a state of permanent war?

The latest twist in the US-led talks is Netanyahu’s insistence on keeping a military presence – a buffer zone- in the so-called Philadelphi corridor along the border with Egypt. This, claims the Prime Minister, is needed to prevent a resumption of clandestine arms imports by Hamas. His security chiefs are not of the same mind. But this, like Hamas’s shifting position, feels like a pretext for other things.

It seems painfully apparent that neither Netanyahu nor Hamas are in a rush to seal a deal that rescues the remaining hostages. Hamas wants a deal that leads to a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. Netanyahu and his right-wing coalition partners appear set on a future that merely rearranges Israel’s domination of Gaza. 

Anthony Blinken, the jet-lag proof US Secretary of State, has been wrestling with competing and changing demands from both sides for months. The Times of Israel reported last month that, in one heated conversation with Netanyahu, an exasperated Biden said:” Stop bullshitting me.”

None of this matters to the families of the remaining hostages. They just want their loved ones back. They can’t understand why Israel, of all countries, where each life is as precious as the nation itself, has apparently abandoned its “Nobody left behind” ethos. The IDF’s Missing Persons Unit is still looking for soldiers missing since 1949. 

It’s a question Netanyahu will have to answer, sooner or later. 

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