Like all Israelis, I have many tears in recent weeks watching the scenes of Israelis kidnapped by Hamas returning to their families. Tears of joy and tears of horror. But mostly tears of relief.
But colder calculation and less emotional thinking in Israeli society are necessary. The increasingly shrill and even violent demand by protesters that the Netanyahu government cut "any" deal for "all" the hostages to be released "now" is perhaps understandable from a personal perspective (especially when it comes from hostage families) but it is questionable from national and strategic ones.
I certainly do not accept the most recent slogan of protesters that brands the government a "war criminal" government unless it "immediately" (and miraculously) obtains the release of "all hostages now, now, now, now!"
The streets of Tel Aviv and the front pages of almost all newspapers are plastered with this new slogan: "A government that doesn't obtain all hostage release now is a war criminal government." This echoes the worst defamatory language of Israel's enemies everywhere: the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
According to this unbalanced internal discourse, amplified by around-the-clock television reporting that is uniformly vicious towards Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his right-wing/haredi coalition, the Israeli government is now guilty of war crimes not only against the Palestinians but against its own people.
According to this unbalanced internal discourse, the 76 remaining Israeli hostages held alive and dead by Hamas in Gaza are not the only hostages. All nine million Israeli Jews have been taken hostage by Netanyahu. Hostage to his personal political fortunes, hostage to his Trump-fed "delusions" of total victory.
In my view, this is going many steps too far. Not every deprecatory assault is acceptable in the political campaign to drive Netanyahu out of office. Not every slanderous slogan is kosher even in the struggle for hostage freedom.
And if we are talking in terms of nine million hostages, I say that nine million Israelis must not be taken prisoner in further reckless deals with Hamas that will neither work for the hostages nor bring security to the entire country.
This is the place to recall the dangers of the "stage one" deal already being implemented and the even more wild dangers of potential stage two and three deals: the release of thousands more of Palestinian terrorists.
The released terrorists assuredly will strike again, with God-only-knows how many Israeli casualties in the future. Their release certainly will incentivize future kidnappings, pour gasoline onto the terrorist fires already raging in Judea and Samaria, and catapult Hamas towards its intended takeover of Judea and Samaria.
I know this to be a fact because this has been the case with every previous terrorist release. Israel repeatedly has erred by letting terrorists loose to murder more Israelis.
Therefore, a bit of self-discipline is incumbent on everybody in Israel when demanding that the Netanyahu government cut "any" deal at "any" price on "any" terms for "all" the hostages, who "must" be released "now, now, now."
(Bang the drums, block the roads, strike the ports and airports, and scream "now, now, now" at the top of your lungs in Knesset too.)
Many Israelis will say that hostage release deals are sad but necessary; that it is the government's moral obligation to free as many hostages as possible, as soon as possible, despite high prices; that the suffering of our hostages and their families is intolerable.
Many will say that giving freed hostages one big national hug is the greatest triumph of all, something so necessary for Israel's collective spirit and its resilience over the long term. Even if Hamas retains power and survives to fight another day.
This is a legitimate perspective, as far as it goes.
But nobody has the right to declare skeptics of the current deal, and those of us concerned about imprudent next stage deals, to be "war criminals." Nobody has the right to take me and nine million other Israelis hostage in an untamed campaign of complete character assassination. Some restraint and rethinking are necessary.
