Israel woke up on Sunday morning to a tragic and awful Sept. 1, the first day of the new school year after the summer holidays. News had broken that six Israelis, held hostage by Hamas in Gaza for over 300 days, had been murdered in cold blood.
The tragedy united the nation for only a short time. Almost immediately nationwide protests erupted calling for a hostage deal.
“It was a great shame that instead of a collective outpouring of grief, the protestors turned the demonstrations into an indictment against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, calling him a procrastinator and murderer. This prevented many people from joining,” Likud Party Knesset member Hanoch Milwidsky told JNS.
“It is absolutely clear—if hundreds of thousands had gone out and told the world that it needs to do more to release the hostages it would have had a huge effect,” said Milwidsky.
This view is shared by many Israelis, who didn’t understand why Hamas terrorist leader Yahya Sinwar wasn’t mentioned at some protests. They believe that these protests are exactly what Hamas wants—to increase the pressure on the government to compromise in the hostage deal negotiations.
Since the news of the murder of the six hostages, a national debate has focused on whether the Israel Defense Forces should withdraw from the Philadelphi Corridor, the 8.7-mile border between the Gaza Strip and Egypt, for 42 days during the first phase of the ceasefire-for-hostages deal.
Since Israel’s disengagement from Gaza in 2005, huge numbers of tunnels were dug under the Corridor allowing massive amounts of weapons and equipment to be smuggled from Egypt into the Strip.
Hamas has demanded a full withdrawal from the Corridor as part of the first phase of the deal. Netanyahu this week publicly said he would not allow this.
U.S. officials revealed to JNS they were frustrated by Netanyahu’s statement about remaining in the Corridor. They did not understand why he brought up the issue of Philadelphi for a vote in the Israeli Cabinet.
“The Philadelphi Corridor is obviously important, as are additional points along the border. But I don’t understand, how it became the most important thing,” Knesset member Karine Elharrar, from Yesh Atid, the main opposition party, told JNS.
“With all the threats, all the problems facing the State of Israel. How it became the most important thing. I’m asking myself ‘why only now.’ Why didn’t Netanyahu discover that importance at the beginning of the war?’”
“For me, Netanyahu made it clear that going back to Philadelphi after the 42-day first phase of the ceasefire will be very complex. And this is something that was not emphasized before,” explained the Likud’s Milwidsky.
“This can account for the differences between the position of the defense establishment which deals with operational needs, and can say ‘yes, there’s no problem going back,’ and Netanyahu who says ‘No, the international community won’t let us go back.'”
Knesset member Michael Biton, of the opposition National Unity Party, partially agrees. “I do not underestimate the statements that there are important security matters here, and we must not allow a terrorist army on the border to be rebuilt, and we need to be able to act in Philadelphi. But if in order to release hostages you have to leave this place for two months, then yes, you have to do it.
“We know they want to destroy us, but we have a moral duty. Israeli society will look different if we fail to bring at least some of the hostages home,” Biton added.
The vexed question of what should be the price that Israel can pay in order to release the hostages has already taken its toll on Israeli unity.
This allows the country’s enemies to look on with satisfaction.
