By Amichay Findling, Israel & Overseas Program Manager
This piece was originally written as a reflection that appeared in the May 2024 Washtenaw Jewish News. It was written following the Spring 2024 Ann Arbor Solidarity Mission to Israel. You can read other reflections from community members here.
My recent trip to Israel with the community’s solidarity mission made me think of many things. One of the issues that most occupied my thoughts was the idea of moral commitment.
This issue came up from different directions: the moral commitment of a government to protect its citizens, the moral commitment of society to assist its weakest members (those whose lives were shattered in many ways by the attack on October 7), but above all, the moral commitment of the Israeli government and the IDF (Israeli Defense Force) to account for anyone missing – leaving no one behind.
As an Israeli, I grew up on an ethos promising me that I would never be left behind. This ethos is based on very clear morals values, rooted in Jewish and Humanistic concepts of human value. This ethos motivated me through years of military service and my civil life – under the terror attacks of the 1990s, the Second Intifada, and just regular life under constant threat in Israel.
During this most recent visit, I encountered two very different approaches to this enduring ethos. One I had known for many years, and another one, new and strange to my perception of Israeli society.
While meeting family members of hostages who have been suffering for half a year in Gaza’s tunnels, I heard their expectation of the government to fulfill this ethos, which they also grew up on. I also met a person practicing this ethos for the last 6 months, in reserve service since Oct. 8th: A dear friend of mine is an officer in charge of locating the missing. He and his comrades invest vast resources, time, thought and innovation into locating life-signs or the remains of the missing – identifying if they are alive or dead, how and where they were taken, and giving their families messages of hope, or sometimes grim reality. The IDF fulfils the ethos I grew up on through the work of my friend, and the work of many others.
On the other hand, I’ve also heard that this ethos cannot be fulfilled in reality. An esteemed journalist we met during our visit to the disaster-struck south, Haviv Rettig Gur of Times of Israel, told us that from neither a political nor a security perspective is a hostage exchange deal possible. “It’s a very clear issue of security,” he explained. “Any terrorist released in such a deal promises future hostages a few years from now.” Haviv was convinced that no sane Israeli leader (and he had very few bad things to say about them) would actually sign such a deal – and that the only way to release the hostages is by constant military pressure, until Hamas is backed to the wall and forced to release (or kill?) them.
That same view also comes from Israeli government officials, at least according to relatives of the hostages. Though not very keen to meet the hostages’ families, when Prime Minister Netanyahu does meet them, he promises nothing but blood, sweat and tears. (This is my take on his ideas, in the words of Winston Churchill, who is Netanyahu’s favorite world leader, and actually managed to win a war).
These views, as portrayed by Haviv Rettig Gur’s analysis, as well as Netanyahu’s actions, give up ethos, humanist values, and moral commitments on behalf of “real politics.” The “real politics” approach confuses long- and short-term possible gains, thinking that giving up the ethos will prevent further future crises, but it instead creates another one – one far greater than another horrible hostages crisis. This new crisis is one of deepening distrust between the Israeli population and its government, of declining motivations to serve and take risks, and of further crumbling of Israeli society – exactly in the way that one of Israel’s enemies, Hezbollah, declared: that Israeli society is like a weak “spider’s web” and will collapse in the face of any external attack.
Thus, while “real politicians” will say that the current hostage crisis is the result of the deal that ended the previous one, humanists will declare vice versa: The impressive standing of Israeli society in the face of attack and disaster is the result of keeping the ethos, of making a “bad” hostage deal and bringing everyone back home.
Since no one believes that this war, as victorious as it might be, will also be the last, preserving the ethos, and thus keeping Israel’s moral commitment to its soldiers and citizens, might possibly be the best, and safest, long-term solution to this war and the wars to come.