Fighting for the Hostages Means Fighting for a Ceasefire

And vice versa.

We have been sold lies. Traumatized and in pain, Jews and Israelis have been told that the war in Gaza is the only way to save the hostages. This was part of Netanyahu’s Faustian bargain with a country that was reeling from an attack that he had failed in preventing, and which his own failures led to such a high body count.

"Pressure is key. The greater the pressure the greater the chances,” he told the hostage’s families.

And yet here we are, months later. The IDF is one of the leaders in murdering their own people in this conflict. Netanyahu himself has scuttled a hostage deal without the approval of leaders in the government and war cabinet. Freed hostages are themselves meeting with Netanyahu to tell him they were just as concerned about the IDF killing them as Hamas, and demanded a ceasefire. And protests rock Israel as these failures mount and families of hostages speak out.

And yet, if you are an average American you could be forgiven for not knowing about any of this. You may yourself have been sold on the lies Jews and Israelis were originally sold: that the war is about saving the hostages in addition to destroying Hamas. It was never about the hostages. It was the families of the hostages, and now the released hostages themselves, that have had to carry the load of fighting for them.

Unfortunately, the American Jewish community is suffering as from a crisis in leadership as much as the Israeli government is. The largest Jewish organizations, and many of their leaders, have made the war synonymous with fighting for the hostages. A unity organization made up of the biggest and most influential Jewish organization in America made to advocate for the victims of October 7th and for the hostages has never once joined in calling for the Israeli government to work harder for their release.

Not only that, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and others have even gone so far as to associate anti-war protests themselves as antisemitic and has called organizations like IfNotNow hate groups (Despite Jonathan Greenblatt’s claim, IfNotNow does not have an official position on anti-Zionism). Even the supposed Jewish unity rally in Washington DC was effectively pro-war, with any speaker calling for a ceasefire getting heckled, while the overtly antisemitic John Hagee was largely welcomed with open arms.

Of course, the progressive movements in America are just as much to blame for this gap in awareness. Most have failed to make saving the hostages part of their causes, afraid that it will distract from the horrific devastation and displacement in Gaza. If it is mentioned, it is almost always in a backhanded way, and more often by Jewish groups than anyone else.

What both groups fail to understand is that the ordeal of the hostages highlights exactly why the war itself is so wrong, especially in how it is being waged.

The hostages are effectively a representation of how innocent life is being treated in this war: expendable at best, targets at worst. They are inconsequential, in other words, because the Israeli government and IDF believe that since Hamas blends itself in among the civilian population the only way to win the war is to utterly devastate civilian life to the point of starvation, displacement, outright targeting, and worse.

Anyone in denial of this fact only need learn the story about how three Israeli hostages were killed by their supposed liberators: despite waving a white flag and surrendering, they were murdered. This happened because this was how the army was itself treating civilians. This approach has also led directly to the friendly fire rate in this war reaching an “unprecedented” high.

Innocent lives have become an obstruction to Israel’s horrific war. And since this is true of Gazan civilians, it is also true of hostages. And since it is true of hostages, it is even more true of Gazan civilians.

The fight for a ceasefire is not a fight for Israel’s surrender. It is also not a claim that Hamas is innocent or undeserving of retribution for the horrors of October 7th and their treatment of hostages. It is not a disrespect to the victims. It is not a call for further violence against Israelis or Jews.

It isn’t even a failure in the goal of eliminating Hamas: terror expert after terror expert has argued that such a war is destined to fail, and that the real work of security will require years, decades of hard work instead of an easily-sold solution. There is also a lot of precedent that such wars actually lead to an exponential increase in terror.

No, a call for a ceasefire is nothing more or less than a call for the end of sacrificing innocent life for the sake of an impossible goal. To prevent Netanyahu from entrenching Israeli presence in Gaza permanently (an opportunity that allows him to continue justifying his staying in office). To prevent a never ending spiraling of a situation that has already spread to other countries in the area, and that could very well lead to far more innocent lives lost.

Enough is enough. Too many innocent people are suffering. Too many have been sold a lie. Too many have decided to fight for only one group of innocent people at the expense of the other, when they should be natural allies.

Enough.