Whenever criminal defense lawyers talk about the constitutional rights of defendants, someone will respond by telling us we would feel very differently if it was our child who was harmed. And they are absolutely right, but irrelevant. I would do anything, sacrifice anything, for the sake of my children. What parent wouldn’t? But that’s because they’re my children. Policy must concern itself with what’s best for society, not what’s best for my children.
I can’t blame any parent for putting the welfare of his child above the welfare of society. I also can’t blame any public official for putting the welfare of society above the welfare of a child. This is a brutal thing to say, and I fully appreciate why any parent currently dealing with the harm faced by his child to reject it, to be outraged by it, but it nonetheless has to be said.
The dead body of Hersh Goldberg-Polin was found in Raffah, that part of Gaza where Israel was told not to go. He was murdered by Hamas shortly before he was found by the IDF, since the last thing Hamas wanted was Israel finding him alive. There remain 101 hostages, whether dead or alive, as yet unfound. The families of these hostages desperately, understandably, are not only filled with hatred of the terrorists who took their loved ones, but of Israel for not doing everything possible to get them back. Why not open the prisons and free the terrorists? Why not stop fighting and withdraw if it will bring the hostages home? Why not?
For 11 months, the family of Hersh Goldberg-Polin tapped into reserves of strength that most people never need to find. We watched it firsthand, as parents of a hostage ourselves. Our 20-year-old son Edan, an American citizen who graduated from high school in Tenafly, N.J., was serving in the Israel Defense Forces near Gaza when Hamas took him captive on Oct. 7.
For 331 days, the world has failed our son and his fellow hostages: The Israeli government has abandoned them, too many countries have turned a blind eye, and while we’re grateful for the U.S. government’s steadfast support, its efforts have yet to yield results.
Lost in translation is that there are five United States citizens being held hostage by Hamas, and aside from thoughts and prayers, America has done nothing to save them. Some desperately want to believe that there have been ongoing “behind the scenes” negotiations for the release of the American hostages, even though there is neither evidence to support such a wish nor any result to suggest it’s real.
But there are certain basic policy premises at issue here, and they are not at all what people want to hear.
The point of taking hostages is to use them as bargaining chips later.
To bargain for hostages is to perpetuate hostage-taking as a useful tool of terrorism.
To bargain with terrorists is to perpetuate terrorism as a viable tool of achieving political ends.
There are two conflicting needs. One is immediate, the release of those now held hostage whose lives are very much at extreme risk. What has, is and may happen to them is horrific and unacceptable.
The other need is to not reward terrorism, incentivize hostage taking and thereby assure that this will be done again and again, that more and more people will be murdered, raped and held hostage in the future, because it has proven an effective tool of terrorism.
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is reportedly prioritizing keeping Israeli forces deployed on the Philadelphi Corridor, a strip of land on the border of Gaza and Egypt, a condition many say threatens the chance to bring home the remaining hostages. The killing of Hersh, Eden Yerushalmi, Carmel Gat, Almog Sarusi, Alexander Lobanov, and Ori Danino proves that Mr. Netanyahu can no longer hold up this deal. Our window to rescue the hostages is closing, and the prime minister is fastening the latch.
Much as the parents whose children remain in the hands of Hamas demand that Israel do everything possible to secure their safe return, would they be willing to trade their neighbor’s child’s life? Perhaps they would, but is that the choice that makes for better public policy?
Netanyahu’s deep personal flaws have muddied the view of the decisions being made. The purpose of deploying forces on the Philadelphi Corridor is to prevent Hamas from bringing in more missiles, more weapons, with which to kill more Israelis. Should he trade the lives of the current hostages for the lives of the future Israeli dead from future terrorist attacks?
There is only one reason why we are faced with this Sophie’s Choice, and that is because Hamas is a terrorist organization that cares nothing for human life, whether Israeli, Gazan or American. Even as our American college children adore Hamas as their current flavor of freedom fighter, Israel and, yes, America, have a hard decision to make. It’s a painful choice no matter which way it goes, but ultimately, the decision must be what’s best for society.