In the lead up to October 7th 2023 protests roiled Israel. Some of us thought they were ill intended (funded by foreign powers to bring down a right wing government they didn’t like) or otherwise bad for the country. Some of us thought they were a necessary check on the government to defend Israeli democracy. Most of us weren’t sure what to think and stayed home or got annoyed when traffic was blocked. But our enemies saw us as weak and divided. They saw the protests as a sign that Israel was finally falling apart from its internal contradictions, a process they believe to be inevitable and divinely ordained. They saw this as a sign that it was a good time to strike and cause the collapse of the Zionist enemy. They don’t know that we have no place to go, that attacking us only makes us stronger, that we are an indigenous people not a colonial project which will run away when life is made sufficiently dangerous. They act according to what they see, in accordance with their worldview.
The same protest groups that lead the protests against the judicial reform last year are now joining with (logistically taking over and running) the protests of the hostage families against the government. You might agree or disagree that the government should go, that they are doing a good job, that they are doing everything in their power to get the hostages back. But one thing these protests are forgetting is the most important thing, THE ENEMY. The enemy gets a say. The enemy has agency. The enemy wants to make this as hard as possible for us and the hostages are their best tool for doing so.
Hamas knows the only reason they are still alive is because of the Israeli hostages. They will not give them up short of guarantees that they can survive and recover their former power. That would mean Israel retreating from Gaza and Hamas retaking the area, whatever may be agreed upon with other organizations. If Hamas exists they will kill and intimidate any other Arab power in the area and take over just as they did in 2007. And then the entire war will have been for nothing, our enemies will see us as weak, the vultures will circle, and we will all be in true existential danger, AKA, the imminent death and destruction of millions at the hands of the barbarians at our gates, Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis, and the head of the Hydra, a soon to be nuclear Iran (if we don’t stop them).
The protesters are operating under a false premise, that anything the government can do will bring home their loved ones. The government is not capable of sacrificing the future of the country, not for 136 people, not even if those were their own children. The country would rise up. There would be not the 10-20 thousand protesters we see now but millions. They would be immediately put out of government and another government willing to finish the job would be put in place. Hostages are our Achilles heel. But we are not Achilles. We are not foreordained to follow our weak spot to our own doom. We have the wisdom of thousands of years of survival to tell us when we can and must compromise, and also when we absolutely cannot if we want to live. It does no good to ransom Jews from the gas chamber if they are going to be put right back in line for extermination.
And so, the more the protesters create pressure on the government, the more Hamas believes they have the upper hand and Israel will ultimately cave. They thus raise the price or at least keep their completely impossible terms which Israel CANNOT agree to. And so the possibility of a deal gets harder, not easier. The protests against the government, no matter whether you support them or not, are now one of the problems preventing a hostage deal. It may be impossible anyway. It could be true that it wouldn’t happen no matter what. But the protests push the slim possibility of bringing the hostages home alive even slimmer. I don’t blame them for trying whatever they can however misdirected. They are desperate people doing whatever they can to get their children, husbands, brothers, and friends back alive and to save them from a living hell, but they are making a huge mistake and working against their own interests.