Hostages versus IDF soldiers and Israel’s security

Their understandable anger, fear and frustration underscore divisions among Israelis and within the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and government over how to battle an enemy that has vowed to eradicate Israel “from the river to the sea.” An enemy that views a “two-state solution” as merely a rest stop on its road to making the entire region free of Jews, Christians, Bahais, Druze and other “infidels.” An enemy that rejects any two-state solution, because it wants a One-Muslim-State solution.

Even hostage families are split. The Tikva Forum believes increased military pressure on Hamas and its last sanctuaries is the best way to free their loved ones. The Hostages and Missing Families Forum says Israel should simply accept Hamas’s demands.

I follow Israel issues closely and have been to Israel three times since the October 7 massacres. I still can’t imagine being in their shoes or having to make life-or-death wartime decisions. However, those making return of the hostages their preeminent goal must address other important considerations.

* How can Israel critics and hostage-release-now advocates justify leaving Hamas in power, heavily armed, in control of Tunnel Fortress Gaza – or far worse, governing a UN-recognized nation that could acquire tanks, missiles, fighter jets and other advanced weapons from Israel’s enemies and frenemies?

That prospect cannot be downplayed or ignored when: The Hamas charter says, “There shall be no recognition of the legitimacy” of the “racist, anti-human and colonial” “Zionist entity.”

Hamas leaders proclaim, “Israel has no place on our land.... Nobody should blame us for the things we do on October 7th, October 10th, October 1,000,000.” And another Palestinian activist said, “We are fighting Jews, not Zionism” and “I will drink the blood” of Israelis.

* Is it remotely possible that Hamas will be more willing to release the remaining hostages, amid ongoing rancor and divisions within Israel … calls for recognition of a (still nonexistent) “Palestinian state” by France (Emmanuel Macron), Britain (Keir Starmer), Australia, Canada and others … and growing anti-Israel sentiment (even over football matches) across Europe and beyond?

As US Secretary of State Marco Rubio noted, the unilateral statehood recognition promises quickly led to more antisemitism – and to Hamas’s rejection of the latest ceasefire and hostage release proposals. Is there any basis for thinking that louder demands for hostage releases will change Hamas’s attitudes?

* Do hostage advocates view the lives of IDF men and women as less important than living or dead hostages? That’s unimaginable. They simply want their loved ones brought home.

But more than 900 Israeli soldiers have died since October 7. Thousands have been shot, paralyzed, burned or made amputees. Still more will be injured or killed if the IDF expands its efforts to “finish the job” (as President Trump has urged it to do), dismantle Hamas and prevent future October 7 massacres and kidnappings.

Yet these brave warriors and their grieving families receive a fraction of the attention given to hostages and their families. Downplaying the importance of IDF casualties is certainly not deliberate or even conscious. But it’s an undeniable result of current hostage politics.

All these lives are precious. None should receive attention or precedence over others.

* Can those who love Israel justify making the Gaza war even more complicated than it
already is?

Hamas and Gazans deliberately set the stage for making this urban conflict so brutal and difficult. they built hundreds of miles of interconnected terror tunnels, living quarters, command centers and rocket factories throughout Gaza – with entry shafts into thousands of homes, apartment buildings, schools, hospitals, shops and mosques. Hamas terrorists dress like civilians, store guns, explosives, rockets and other weapons in almost every one of them, and use them for snipers and ambushes. Hamas thus turned all of them into military targets.

The terrorist ideology and propaganda machine deliberately uses women and children as human shields, wants Gaza “martyrs” to die, inflates casualty numbers, and intentionally mixes terrorists and civilians together in death tolls. Gullible or Israel-hating “journalists” endlessly repeat the phony numbers.

And yet Israel is told it must minimize civilian casualties even more than it has – and “end the fighting” according to artificial deadlines set by an “international community” that has been virtually silent about decades of Hamas murders of Israeli civilians and even the horrors of October 7.

Israel is also told it must provide food, medical and other humanitarian aid. Israel has provided over 150,000,000 meals through the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which the UN refuses to work with while letting thousands of tons of UN food rot. Hamas tries to steal the aid, while starving hostages and killing Gazans who try to circumvent Hamas control by going directly to the GHF.

(What other army in history has fed its enemies amid a war? Russia certainly isn’t feeding Ukraine.)

And yet the UN and media claim there’s a famine and feature emaciated poster children – who turn out to be kids afflicted by cerebral palsy, Fanconi syndrome or other genetic disorders, not by starvation.

Trying to make hostage deals paramount roils this maddening situation even further.

* How can the world condone the hypocritical double standards – especially when Israelis are battling a vicious, amoral enemy that seeks their eradication from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea?

There is one Jewish state on Earth, versus 25 majority-Muslim states in Africa and the Middle East alone. Since 1948, Jewish populations (850,000 people in total) have been evicted from nearly all of them. Yet Israel alone is accused of genocide and Apartheid, despite risking its own soldiers to protect Gaza civilians and having the most ethnically and religiously diverse population of these 26 countries.

China is barely slapped on the wrist for trying to destroy Uyghur and Tibetan language, culture and religion. Islamists brazenly slaughter Christians in a dozen African countries. Similar atrocities continue elsewhere.

48 hostages are still held by Hamas, perhaps 18-20 still alive. Hamas photos proudly show Evyatar David and Rom Braslavski starving, emaciated and forced to dig their own graves in a tunnel. Israelis were shocked. The UN and world yawned – and accused Israel yet again of causing famine and genocide in Gaza.

The list of outrageous double standards is long and despicable.

It’s as if the world thinks only Israel and Jews are forbidden to fight for their very existence. Never again.

It’s time to finish the war and Hamas, expand the Abraham Accords, bring the hostages home, rebuild Gaza along the Trump plan – and prod the United Nations and international community to do something truly novel and productive for once: create a better, more prosperous, more tolerant future for a Middle East that has been rocked by division, hatred and war far too long.

Paul Driessen has been to Israel multiple times and seen its archeological treasures, modern innovations, amazing multi-ethnic people and tragedies firsthand. He is the author of articles on energy, environmental, human rights and Israel issues.