Freeing hostages should not be Israel’s #1 goal

Journalist Michael Kinsley defined a gaffe as when a politician utters a truth he is not supposed to say.

Right-wing Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich made a gaffe the other day (assuming what he said was not intentional).

What he said was that returning the hostages held by Hamas was important, but not “the most important goal.”

There was explosive blowback, because a huge majority of Israelis, 69%, are willing to end the war to retrieve the hostages. And while Israelis determine what Israel does, and I generally support them, I don’t in this case.

Nor do I support Smotrich’s insane idea that Israel should occupy Gaza. 

First, Israel already did that, and pulled out in 2005, giving Gazans a chance to govern themselves. Gazans chose Hamas (which many have learned to regret), and Hamas started firing rockets into Israel. Gazans failed the self-government test.

But occupation is not the solution. If Israel occupies Gaza, it then becomes responsible for feeding, clothing, and housing Gazans.  That is a millstone Israel does not need around its neck. 

Let the U.N. do it. Or the Arab League.

The #1 focus of the Israeli government must be to win the war, defined as driving Hamas out of the country, and out of governing. 

If Hamas remains in power, it will attack Israel “again and again.”

How do I know this? It’s not a secret.

Hamas has publicly said so, time and time again.

Such as the senior Hamas official vowing “annihilation” of the Jewish state.  When people tell you who they are, believe them. 

Especially when the threat comes from people who brag that they worship death. The 72 virgins nonsense, you understand.

Conversely, for deep-rooted historical and religious reasons, Jews worship Jewish life. This is why Israelis engage in unbelievably one-sided prisoner swaps, including the trade of more than 1,000 Arab terror suspects for a single Israeli. Families of the estimated 24 hostages, and hundreds of thousands of Israelis, are willing to end the war in order to recover their loved ones.

In their position, I might feel the same, but I doubt it.

This is harsh, but the lives of the hostages are no more sacred than the future Jewish lives that will be lost if Hamas is not eradicated. Hamas is dedicated to mass murder of Jews, and the only way to stop that is to kill them first.

Even at the cost of hostages’ lives.

It is war, and innocents die in war.

The United States bombed Tokyo during World War II knowing there were Allied prisoners of war who might be killed. And when the U.S. dropped the Atomic bomb, it did so knowing it would kill American POWs. It was a hard choice, a horrible choice, a tragic choice. But they were sacrificed, if you want to use that word, for a greater goal — defeating Japan. In a sense, every soldier who dies in battle is “sacrificed” in some manner.

Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu never has said, and never will, outside of a gaffe, that the hostages are not his #1 priority.

But they are not.

And they should not be.