The hostages are in the hands of Hamas, which kidnapped them to use as a defensive shield, together with Palestinian civilians, and to divide Israel and seek its victory, the victory of barbarism over civilization. They must not fall into the hands of unprincipled polytheism. For this reason the question of the hostages should be preserved from a cynical political use, from an instrumental way of posing it, and by anyone, in the remaining field of civilization. In particular now that the world seems to have turned against Israel, now that a sort of international UN-UNRWA has been set up ready to call for an end to the war against the marauders and captors of Israeli civilians and other nationalities locked up in the tunnels for many months, decimated by hunger, disease and the miseries of a war to which they were strangers. If it is a sign of humanity to tremble for their fate and fight for their return home, at least of those who survived hell, it is a sign of dehumanization greater than any other to use hostages, the theme of the ransom of hostages, to obtain the elections in Israel, to win the elections against Trump in America, for political purposes of consensus so typical of the cowardly ruling classes, especially in Europe but not only.
The hostages are in the hands of Hamas, which kidnapped them to use as a defensive shield, together with Palestinian civilians, and to divide Israel and seek its victory, the victory of barbarism over civilization. They must not fall into the hands of unprincipled polytheism. For this reason the question of the hostages should be preserved from a cynical political use, from an instrumental way of posing it, and by anyone, in the remaining field of civilization. In particular now that the world seems to have turned against Israel, now that a sort of international UN-UNRWA has been set up ready to call for an end to the war against the marauders and captors of Israeli civilians and other nationalities locked up in the tunnels for many months, decimated by hunger, disease and the miseries of a war to which they were strangers. If it is a sign of humanity to tremble for their fate and fight for their return home, at least of those who survived hell, it is a sign of dehumanization greater than any other to use hostages, the theme of the ransom of hostages, to obtain the elections in Israel, to win the elections against Trump in America, for political purposes of consensus so typical of the cowardly ruling classes, especially in Europe but not only.
We saw Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer, champion of the Israeli cause until yesterday, booed by protesters on Israel Day in New York while he repeated like a cynical nursery rhyme, to get by, he who showed himself worried about dismissing the Israeli war government rather than win the war against his enemies, the sacrosanct slogan “bring them home”..
That discomfort, those whistles, do not come from a lack of pity towards the damned in the tunnels and on 7 October, on the contrary, they actually come from dismay at the political use of hostages. The Jewish and pro-Israel demonstrators in New York, presumably and legitimately mostly hostile to the Netanyahu government like all liberal opinion in America and elsewhere, expressed revulsion at the idea that the necessary action to get the hostages back could be used against the line of dismantling Hamas, which is the declared objective of all of Israel, of the war cabinet and of national unity, of Netanyahu as well as of Gallant and Gantz and Eisenkot: the power struggle in the United States and in Israel can only scandalize the foolish and lukewarm at heart, it is part of the picture, but there is no end to military pressure, the end of the war is not farcically and grotesquely proclaimed for humanitarian reasons that mask the electoral desire and the desire to get rid of an Israeli prime minister who is worn out and full of objective ambiguities but who is still at the head of a country fighting for its own survival and unity.
So far, the hostages recovered from the hole into which the raiders threw them owe their safety to the sacrifice of a popular army engaged in a very hard and terrible war of defense, to the soldiers who died and wounded in the fighting in Gaza, to the firmness behind the truce humanitarian relief of recent months. We will see if all this muddles around the Biden, or Biden-Netanyahu plan, to which those (many) who do not believe in the wise firmness of all Israel immediately latched onto, and all those who competed in the ruthless use of mercy to the hostages, will be such as to offer Hamas the victory it seeks by brandishing the skin of its prisoners, of civilians rescued from the massacre only to subject them to the new massacre of captivity: fortunately this is doubtful. The government and the country that are fighting to get them back are committed to a truce but do not give up on their objectives which still envisage a Gaza without Hamas, free Gaza from Hamas, before a possible end to the fighting, a withdrawal of troops and elections that they will say whether the citizens want to get rid of their government and the prime minister once their decisive reasons have been stated and the war is won.
