I haven’t been to Israel since the late 70’s but I wept, too, at the news of their murders. I’ve felt incredible solidarity and closeness to Israel every day since October 7, 2023. Thank you for sharing this story.
Those six hostages were brutally executed by hamas, not by the IDF, and the blood of the thousands of gazans killed in this war started by hamas are the fault of hamas and its genocidal goal of slaughtering every Jew in Israel.
I totally respect your emotional connection to those innocent Israelis who were murdered by Hamas. But with all due respect, I was confused by how you saw Israel's failure to bring them back as being a turning point in your feelings about Israel as a nation and Israelis as people.
You are far too analytical and far too familiar with Israel's history to - imho- see that failure as such a dividing line for your emotional connection to Israel. I usually hate that refrain of "whataboutism" -but in this case, there have been so many other things that Israel has done that could have triggered a similar kind of emotional reaction...even though, of course, this one involved 6 individuals who you came to feel very close to.
For me, as a 77 year old American Jew (and a left-wing Zionist) what made me see Israel and even (most) Israelis - in a very recent and deeply disturbing way - has been the lack of concern for the tens of thousand of civilains that have been killed in Gaza.
But just in the last year or two, I learned of a number of things I never knew before....which also caused me to feel differently about Israel. One was learning that in the mid -70s as the Argentinian junta was killing tens of thousands of dissidents - which included large #s of Argentinian Jews! - the Israeli gov't was selling arms to the junta.
Eli - I am NOT trying to criticize you in any way. I was very moved to read how upset you were throughout the entire concert you went to right after hearing about such horrible news. I guess I am just reacting in an honest - and hopefully supportive - way to someone i have come to both respect and like as a result of reading your excellent substack posts.
Thank you as always Ken, for reading it carefully and for your reply. I think you’re describing something real, but I’d put it differently: what broke that day wasn’t my assessment of Israel, it was a promise I’d been raised on - that we’d get our people back.
That promise was specifically about hostages. So the day six were killed underground while a deal sat on the table is where it broke, even though it isn’t the largest thing that’s happened.
I remember vividly the Shalit deal, and the exchange with Hezbollah for the bodies of Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, and the awful prices we paid. We paid them anyway, because that was the agreement between the state and its people.
On Gaza, I don’t think we’re as far apart as you might expect. That’s a different piece altogether that I plan to write in the future.
Thanks for the reply..I wasn't suggesting we are far apart about Gaza - not at all..
As for doing everything (almost literally) to get hostages back...it's so complicated - as you know full well. Was the deal to get Shalit released the right thing to do given what the price was? I don't know what I would have done had I been the PM. In terms of those 6 Israelis, it sure seems that Netanyahu's calculus was in large part self-serving rather than any honest thinking through of the tradeoffs involved...I sure would have made the deal had I been in his shoes!
I also had a surreal experience of attending a concert and crying here in the states. It was the evening of October 7th. Just crying 😢 as Little Feat played Fool Yourself.
I haven’t been to Israel since the late 70’s but I wept, too, at the news of their murders. I’ve felt incredible solidarity and closeness to Israel every day since October 7, 2023. Thank you for sharing this story.
Those six hostages were brutally executed by hamas, not by the IDF, and the blood of the thousands of gazans killed in this war started by hamas are the fault of hamas and its genocidal goal of slaughtering every Jew in Israel.
Eli
I totally respect your emotional connection to those innocent Israelis who were murdered by Hamas. But with all due respect, I was confused by how you saw Israel's failure to bring them back as being a turning point in your feelings about Israel as a nation and Israelis as people.
You are far too analytical and far too familiar with Israel's history to - imho- see that failure as such a dividing line for your emotional connection to Israel. I usually hate that refrain of "whataboutism" -but in this case, there have been so many other things that Israel has done that could have triggered a similar kind of emotional reaction...even though, of course, this one involved 6 individuals who you came to feel very close to.
For me, as a 77 year old American Jew (and a left-wing Zionist) what made me see Israel and even (most) Israelis - in a very recent and deeply disturbing way - has been the lack of concern for the tens of thousand of civilains that have been killed in Gaza.
But just in the last year or two, I learned of a number of things I never knew before....which also caused me to feel differently about Israel. One was learning that in the mid -70s as the Argentinian junta was killing tens of thousands of dissidents - which included large #s of Argentinian Jews! - the Israeli gov't was selling arms to the junta.
Eli - I am NOT trying to criticize you in any way. I was very moved to read how upset you were throughout the entire concert you went to right after hearing about such horrible news. I guess I am just reacting in an honest - and hopefully supportive - way to someone i have come to both respect and like as a result of reading your excellent substack posts.
Thank you as always Ken, for reading it carefully and for your reply. I think you’re describing something real, but I’d put it differently: what broke that day wasn’t my assessment of Israel, it was a promise I’d been raised on - that we’d get our people back.
That promise was specifically about hostages. So the day six were killed underground while a deal sat on the table is where it broke, even though it isn’t the largest thing that’s happened.
I remember vividly the Shalit deal, and the exchange with Hezbollah for the bodies of Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev, and the awful prices we paid. We paid them anyway, because that was the agreement between the state and its people.
On Gaza, I don’t think we’re as far apart as you might expect. That’s a different piece altogether that I plan to write in the future.
Eli
Thanks for the reply..I wasn't suggesting we are far apart about Gaza - not at all..
As for doing everything (almost literally) to get hostages back...it's so complicated - as you know full well. Was the deal to get Shalit released the right thing to do given what the price was? I don't know what I would have done had I been the PM. In terms of those 6 Israelis, it sure seems that Netanyahu's calculus was in large part self-serving rather than any honest thinking through of the tradeoffs involved...I sure would have made the deal had I been in his shoes!
Keep up the great work
In solidarity
I also had a surreal experience of attending a concert and crying here in the states. It was the evening of October 7th. Just crying 😢 as Little Feat played Fool Yourself.