A few months ago, my six-year-old daughter asked me, “Is there a war in Israel?” “Yes,” I said, as I braced myself for the next question. While we are Americans, she knows that much of our family—my aunts, uncles, and cousins—live in Israel. “Has anyone died because of the war?” she asked next, and I answered truthfully. “Yes,” I said, “Sadly, many people have died.” “Has anyone in our family been killed?” she asked. “No,” I said, but I didn’t know how much longer I would be able to give that answer.
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When
In the first 24 hours, we learned of the kidnappings and, after hours of trying to reach Keith and Aviva, we began to understand that our nightmare had just begun. A few days later, we saw video evidence that they had been abducted along with over
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As I have learned, each family trapped in this unthinkable situation starts to negotiate in their own minds. I told myself that because Keith and Aviva were grandparents and civilians, their captors would realize their mistake, and set them free. Then I told myself that because Keith is an American, they would release them quickly. Surely, Hamas doesn’t want a problem with Uncle Sam. But after a while, all of us families began to understand that the kidnapping has little to do with the person who has been taken. The hostages were all taken because of a political goal. And that realization left us feeling helpless and caught up in a political dynamic that put our loved ones on a list among many other things that this side or that side wants.
Long before Oct. 7, the U.S. government learned that lumping in hostage release negotiations with various policy issues was the wrong approach. So in 2015, a
But the Netanyahu government has not learned that lesson, and that’s what scares me most. The hostage crisis is a humanitarian one. Yet as I try to reunite my family, and bring Keith home, I have no choice but to look at the politics that are dictating whether he lives or dies. There is only one party responsible for the devastation that occurred on Oct. 7, and that is Hamas. But today, the Netanyahu government is a major obstacle to securing a deal for all the hostages to come home. The Prime Minister is
What he has failed to realize, but what is abundantly clear to the families of hostages, Israelis and Gazans alike, and the international community, is that there is no winning here. Tens of thousands of innocent lives, most of them Palestinian, have been lost in the name of a status quo that is politically untenable, broadly unsafe for all civilians, and
In November, my aunt Aviva was freed from Hamas captivity after
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On Feb. 6, the U.S. and Qatar announced that Hamas had accepted the deal in principle and efforts were underway to work out remaining details. So now, we wait. We know that Keith is waiting, and hoping, too. Hoping he won’t be in the wrong spot when a bomb goes off. Hoping he can survive another day in the tunnels. Hoping that he’ll see his family again.
“Why is there a war in Israel?” That was my daughter’s final question to me that day. “There are many reasons,” I said. “But war and violence is never the answer.” We need leadership that is focused on the needs of its citizens over all other interests. Many international leaders, but especially President Joe Biden and his