Newsletter
Newsletter Support JNS

Selling hostages

Hamas must be taken out. What do we do next?

Credit: Yaakov (DryBones) Kirschen.
Credit: Yaakov (DryBones) Kirschen.
Political cartoonist Yaakov Kirschen grew up in Brooklyn, N.Y., made aliyah to Israel in 1971 and began drawing “Dry Bones” in January 1973. The internationally syndicated, award-winning cartoons ran in The Jerusalem Post for 50 years. They were reprinted in The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Wall Street Journal, TIME and other mainstream media publications. The “Dry Bones” story has been covered by CBS, CNN and Forbes, among other outlets. He was a member of America’s National Cartoonists Society and the Israeli Cartoonists Society. Kirschen died at 87 on April 14, 2025.

A “Sophie’s Choice” is one between equally bad options.

We have Hamas trapped in Gaza, and its only hope for survival is to use the hostages to break the siege.

Which presents us (and the other countries whose people have been taken) with a painful Sophie’s Choice.

Will we choose to negotiate with the kidnappers? Will the world? Will the world turn against us?

Hamas must be taken out.

What do we do next?

One of the soldiers was killed in an incident in which two others were critically injured and an officer was moderately injured.
“IDF soldiers must stand between Hezbollah and Israeli civilians. We will not wait for the next attack to reach our homes.”
U.S.-Iran talks have been postponed after an explosive drone killed four Israeli soldiers in Southern Lebanon.
Jerusalem cut contact with the top E.U. diplomat after reports she called Israel an apartheid state, exposing growing tensions with Brussels.
“At our own endorsement meeting, when asked to condemn Hamas and its Oct. 7th attacks, she point-blank refused, turning the question into yet another attack on Israel,” the Broadway Democrats wrote about their decision not to endorse Darializa Avila Chavelier, who is running for Congress in New York.
“The gravity of the situation and its widespread impact on our school community make this not the right time for a celebration,” the school stated in an email to parents.