Gideon Sa’ar said it first and best, but the effect of his words landed harshly on all of us.
“The Israeli hostages look like Holocaust survivors,” he said succinctly. He was right. Like most observers with even an ounce of humanity, Israel’s foreign minister reacted in horror when he saw the gaunt faces, hollow eyes, and the emaciated state of the three hostages released last weekend.
Saar’s assessment was both painfully accurate and unbearably awful. The three men – Eli Sharabi, Or Levy, and Ohad Ben Ami – were in far worse condition than the previous Israelis who have been released since the January ceasefire took effect. Photos of the men taken before their captivity showed three joyful, energetic and enthusiastic individuals rejoicing in three happy and fulfilling lives. The contrast with the footage of their haunted features and anguished expressions is almost too much to bear: news accounts of the torture they endured further deepens our sorrow.
Their haunted features and anguished expressions are almost too much to bear …the photos forced us to confront for the first time the unimaginable cruelty the hostages have endured.
The Israeli people clearly feel the same way. Their delight when the previous hostages were released was overwhelmed by their dismay upon seeing what had become of those men. The scenes of their release were uniquely compelling and visually excruciating, as the photos forced us to confront for the first time the unimaginable cruelty that they have endured.
The other overriding emotions I felt, along with the shock and the disgust, were embarrassment, and shame. Watching the grotesque public relations exercise in which the not-yet-freed captives were forced to participate, I realized how I had been manipulated by Hamas to dramatically underestimate the hostages’ plight over the last 15 months.
Don’t get me wrong: like most of you, I have been furious at Hamas’ barbarism and heartbroken for the ordeal through which the hostages and their families had suffered. But as the days turned into months, I started thinking of those imprisoned in Gaza as part of a broader geopolitical drama. I began calculating the effects of the crisis on the American presidential campaign and the likelihood of Benjamin Netanyahu preserving his governing coalition. I found myself weighing the strategic choices of escalating the war against Hamas or prioritizing the hostages’ release. I raged against campus antisemitism, analyzed the possibilities of a two-state solution and the normalization of U.S.-Saudi relations and found immense satisfaction in the successful Israeli strikes against Hezbollah and Iran.
The hostages themselves suffering in Gaza became just one aspect of the broader conversation, and gradually a less central part of it. The rest of the discussion was predicated on their nightmare, but we spoke less of the men and women being held and more of the surrounding politics and geopolitics. In retrospect, the propaganda sleight-of-hand techniques employed by the terrorists were mercilessly effective: the excruciatingly slow pace of the negotiations made them less newsworthy and less interesting.
The infrequent updates regarding the hostages’ well-being made their distress more abstract and conceptual, so we turned our attentions to more tangible matters such as the war’s impact on Biden, Harris and Trump.
We rejoiced when the first hostages were released last month, forgetting or ignoring that Hamas had orchestrated the timing to free the healthiest of their captives first. We knew in our heads that those who were still being held would be in much worse condition when they finally returned home, but our hearts soared when the first hostages were released with their bodies damaged but their spirits seemingly unbroken. So we buried our dread as to what we knew was likely coming next.
But last weekend’s reminder of Hamas’ savagery was impossible to avoid. Watching those three broken men, and thinking of the damaged and the dead still to follow, have forced us to realize the extent of what Israel and its people have endured.
The catastrophe in Gaza is not another Shoah, but even this shadow of that tragedy still violates our defiant and mournful promise, “Never again.” Mark Twain once said that history doesn’t repeat itself, but it rhymes. In the basements and alleys and tunnels of Gaza, the worst moments of our history continue to echo.
Dan Schnur is the U.S. Politics Editor for the Jewish Journal. He teaches courses in politics, communications, and leadership at UC Berkeley, USC and Pepperdine. He hosts the monthly webinar “The Dan Schnur Political Report” for the Los Angeles World Affairs Council & Town Hall. Follow Dan’s work at www.danschnurpolitics.com.
