‘Bring Them Home’ Is Bringing Us to the Brink

For the full article go to https://tinyurl.com/ycxxyx62

Israelis are engaging en masse in the most rank American-style lunacy. Slogans like #BringThemHomeNow, for example, demonstrate just how hollow and inflamed Israeli public discourse has become. To whom, exactly, is this exhortation addressed? Surely not to Hamas, the only group with the actual power to release the hostages. Instead, it’s a bombastic bit of emotional manipulation, daring anyone to defy it while at the same time giving cover to political movements with unclear aims and means. Just like Black Lives Matter—and who would ever argue that they don’t?—the Bring Them Home movement in Israel is now an amalgam of anti-Bibi activists who’ve been marching for years under a host of different banners, bolstered by sheer emotionalism that argues for a deal at any cost, even if it means leaving Hamas victorious.

Thankfully, not all Israelis agree with this defeatist madness. In recent days, a post from an unnamed reservist in Gaza has been going viral in Israel for making a very different argument than the one you hear parroted by self-appointed experts on TV or hear shouted in the streets of Tel Aviv. “The Philadelphi Corridor is more important than hostages,” wrote the reservist. “It’s more important than me and my entire battalion, which has been fighting in Gaza since the beginning of the war.” Approximately every 100 meters, he explained, a tunnel passes through the fence, openings used for smuggling massive amounts of contraband. Therefore, the reservist continued, “leaving Philadelphi for one day means a death sentence for thousands more Israelis … Our blood is no less red than the blood of the hostages, although we are ready to sacrifice our lives for the sake of defeating the enemy.” Take a deep breath, the reservist concludes, “and think again about your rhetoric. Now you are on the side of our worst enemy.”

The clashes unfurling all over Israel these days, then, aren’t really about the hostages, or the war, or even about Bibi Netanyahu. They’re more ontological than political, a referendum on how Israelis see the world and their role in it. For those who can’t imagine life outside of the global maze of governments and corporations and cultural commissars, the chief duty is to return posthaste into alignment with the dictates coming out of Washington. For those who understand that Zionism was always meant to guarantee freedom, not safety, now’s the time to make difficult choices, choices that would almost certainly lead to fresh waves of international condemnations but that would very likely save Israeli lives. But like with every civil war, all we can see now is how it begins, not, alas, how it might end.