Australia/Israel Review

The resumption of Israel’s war in Gaza has produced a predictable reaction in a world that remains determined to malign the Jewish state.

Western media declared that Israel had ended the ceasefire. In fact, the ceasefire had ended more than two weeks earlier. Although Israel had agreed to a further US-brokered deal, Hamas rejected it and refused to release any more hostages.

Hamas left Israel with no option but to resume the war, which it did with an aerial bombardment of Gaza.

The terror group instantly stated that the bombardment had killed 400 Gazan civilians. This was absurd because Hamas couldn’t have known the number of casualties so fast and, as usual, it omitted any Hamas operatives in the total. Yet, in typically reflexive fashion, the Western media parroted this incredible figure without questioning it.

No less predictable have been the Israeli protests that by resuming the war Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has abandoned the hostages – of whom 24 are said still to be alive.

The most bitter and agonising reproach has been voiced by some of the former hostages, who have accused Netanyahu of ignoring everything they’ve been telling the world about the horrific conditions in which the captives are being held.

There can hardly be a single person in Israel who doesn’t desperately want the hostages back home. And there’s no denying the genuine anguish at the failure to get them all back. Their plight is beyond horrific, and the profound emotionalism of the public response is entirely understandable.

Unfortunately, such emotion is a barrier to clear and unavoidably brutal thinking. The only way Hamas will return all the hostages is if Israel surrenders and leaves it in power. The reason it took the hostages in the first place was to ensure that Israel could never win against it.

If it gives up all the hostages, Hamas will be left with no means of holding off the Israelis. It will be finished. By keeping hold of its captives, Hamas doesn’t just have the upper hand; it holds all the cards because it knows Israel feels under a sacred duty to retrieve them. While Hamas keeps them under its brutal imprisonment, it will continue to spin out negotiations over releasing them to paralyse Israel’s military options.

The Israel Defence Forces have known in general for some time where many, if not most of the hostages were being held, but they couldn’t reach them because if they did Hamas would murder them.

The released hostages say that a deal is the only way to bring the rest of them back. The terrible truth is that no deal will bring them all back. Only Israel’s total capitulation will do that.

So, now, Israel is out to destroy Hamas as a military and governing force. This second stage of the war is different from the first because Israel no longer has to fight America, too.

Unlike the Biden Administration, the Trump Administration is backing Israel to win this war. US President Donald Trump is not only providing Israel with the weapons to do so, but he is also supporting Israel’s ban on further humanitarian aid supplies going to Gaza, which was how Hamas was able to keep going.

Indeed, a key reason this war has lasted for 17 months, why so many IDF soldiers have fallen, why the hostages have been incarcerated for so long in such lethal conditions, and why so many Gazan civilians have been killed, is because, by insisting on aid supplies continuing throughout the war, the Biden Administration and Western governments provided Hamas with the means to continue to fight.

Israel says the only way to get the hostages back is through military pressure. According to Israeli Brig. Gen. (res.) Amir Avivi, head of the Israel Defence and Security Forum, this pressure will be ramped up in stages.

The first stage was the aerial bombardment, which was stunningly successful in killing many of Hamas’ top commanders along with hundreds of its troops.

If Hamas still refuses to release the hostages, says Avivi, the next stage will be the ground war, which has now started. This, he states, will be a decisive attack of a type not seen before to force the release of all the hostages and “create a new reality” in Gaza.

But the great dread is that, if Hamas feels its back is to the wall, it will murder all the living hostages. It can’t be denied that this is a very real possibility. So, to some people, doing a deal to get all the hostages back seems a no-brainer.

In Israel, a majority of the public strongly favours this option. The redemption of captives is viewed as an absolute obligation of the state, rooted in Jewish principles.

But those Jewish principles also hold that, while the redemption of hostages is a sacred duty, this must not be achieved if the price to be paid is the capture and killing of more innocents.

This is the terrible dilemma Israel has faced from the start of this war. How does a nation balance the imperative to save some of its citizens from captivity, torture and death with the imperative not to sentence even more of its citizens to the same fate and, instead, ensure their security?

Taking Israeli hostages was a diabolically brilliant tactic through which Hamas is, even now, controlling the agenda – not least by whipping up overwhelming and uncontrollable emotion among Israel’s deeply traumatised population.

From the start of the war, however, Netanyahu has made a bad mistake in not being honest with the public. He has consistently declared that he will deliver the twin goals of destroying Hamas and returning the hostages.

He should have said that while no effort would be spared to return the hostages, it might not be possible to achieve both those goals; and that if a terrible choice had to be made, it would have to be to win the war and protect Israel’s population of 10 million people.

Maybe, precisely because Hamas knows that if it kills the remaining hostages it will lose its only leverage, it won’t murder those who remain under its vicious thumb. Maybe the IDF will get to them before Hamas can do so. Maybe the increased military pressure will force them to release their captives. With no realistic alternative to the war, we can only hope and pray.

Melanie Phillips is a British journalist, broadcaster and author, who writes a weekly column for the Jewish News Syndicate (JNS). Currently a columnist for the Times of London, her latest book is The Builder’s Stone: How Jews and Christians Built the West and Why Only They Can Save It (Wicked Son). © Jewish News Syndicate (JNS.org), reprinted by permission, all rights reserved.