(Netanyahu sits on a US-brokered cease-fire deal while Hamas terrorists murder six more hostages, including American citizen, Hersh Goldberg-Polin.)
When Hersh Goldberg-Polin’s parents addressed the Democratic National Convention during the third week of August, 2024, their 23 year old son—an American/Israeli citizen, born in Berkeley, California—was still alive. So were cease fire talks being pushed relentlessly by the Biden/Harris Administration, despite stops and starts from both Hamas and the Netanyahu government.
Hamas’ terrorist leaders were inching closer to agreement to free some hostages—Goldberg-Polin rumored to be among them—when Israeli Prime Minister BiBi Netanyahu, at odds with his own Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, threw a last-minute monkey-wrench into the promising cease-fire talks.
The six hostages, including Goldberg-Polin, were murdered by Hamas point blank in the back of their heads, just days after Netanyahu overruled his Defense Minister on a compromise solution that might have saved the hostages lives. Multiple media reports are that Hamas assassinated the hostages on either Thursday, August 29, or Friday, August 30—a full week after Goldberg-Polin’s parents pleaded for his life before a world-wide audience.
As the New York Times, David Sanger reported on Sunday, September 2, 2024, :
“Hamas has demanded that all Israeli forces be withdrawn from the Philadelphi Corridor, a narrow strip of land, less than 9 miles long, on the border between Gaza and Egypt. Mr. Netanyahu has said Israeli troops must remain in the corridor to prevent the movement of weapons and ammunition to Hamas.
The draft agreement calls for a major reduction in Israeli forces in the corridor during the first phase of the cease-fire, and full withdrawal thereafter. Israeli government negotiators have agreed to the phased withdrawal, but Mr. Netanyahu has backed away from that part of the deal, triggering an open dispute with his own defense minister, Yoav Gallant.
“It is too late for the hostages who were murdered in cold blood,” Mr. Gallant said on Sunday, declaring that Mr. Netanyahu had to drop his insistence on the presence of troops in the corridor. “We must bring back the hostages that are still being held by Hamas.”
Biden and Gallant weren’t the only top government officials angry over Bibi’s blatant blowing up of the cease-fire talks, despite the lives of over 100 hostages hanging in the balance. British Government officials, following the Democratic Party’s failure to call for the cut-off of some military assistance to Israel at the Democratic National Convention, decided to act unilaterally this week to do just that.
President Biden, who had previously greenlighted another delivery of military weapons to Israel when he could have withheld them until a ceasefire was in place, was outraged with Netanyahu’s stalling tactics. When Biden learned of the murder of the six new hostages by Hamas, he blasted Bibi. When asked by reporters whether he thought Netanyahu was doing enough to free the hostages in Gaza, Biden gave a terse one word answer: “NO.”
The Times of India (9/3/2024) framed Biden’s response this way: “Biden Slams Bibi for Sabotaging Gaza Hostage Deal.”
The New York Times (9/2/2024) reported the disagreement between Washington and London this way:
‘The British decision puts its government and Washington at odds on the tactics for dealing with Mr. Netanyahu. Washington suspended export of 2,000-pound bombs earlier this year, saying their use could lead to wide civilian casualties and were not needed by the Israelis. But Britain has gone further. David Lammy, Britain’s foreign secretary, said that a legal review concluded there was “clear risk” that a number of weapons would be used in ways that would breach international law. Mr. Biden and Ms. Harris have not reached a similar conclusion.’
Hundreds of thousands of Israeli citizens stormed the streets of Tel Aviv over Labor Day Weekend, while labor unions called for a nationwide work-stoppage to increase pressure on the Netanyahu government to agree to a ceasefire to free the hostages, still alive. Hand-made signs stating “Bibi What Have You Done?” could be seen throughout the massive crowd.
In the United States, some 80% of American Jews are demanding a cease-fire to free the hostages, while some sixty percent of the American public favor cutting off military support to Israel.
Many of us who support both of those goals, while also consistently condemning the brutal October 7, 2023 Hamas attacks killing 1200 innocent Israelis, and the murder of hostages by Hamas, have been condemned by fellow Jews as “undermining” Israel, and feeding into the hands of anti-Semites worldwide, and at home.
Nothing could be further from the truth. Just this week, I was asked by the Social Action Committee of my Congregation in Sonoma County, California, to re-post the series of articles I’ve published since October 7, 2023, making clear our condemnation of the inhumanity of the terrorist organization of Hamas, and of the devastating and disproportionate response of the extremist Netanyahu Government upon tens of thousands of innocent non-Hamas Palestinians, in direct contravention of the IDF’s own Code of Ethics.
Here is that series of one poem and three articles below:
Again, in the aftermath of the inhumane murder of the last six hostages by Hamas, and the continued sabotaging of a cease-fire deal by Hamas and by Bibi Netanyahu, my message is the same today as it was one year ago when I published my first piece on this horrific tragedy: “I Stand With Humanity.”