Benjamin Netanyahu is traveling the world again.
If you happen to meet him, please consider asking him to tell his son, advisors and media henchmen to get their vicious hands off the released hostages and their families.
Netanyahu’s immediate circle is directly involved with a smearing campaign against relatives of hostages who dare criticize the government. Many of those relatives do not belong to the liberal center-left, although that demographic is the most vocal in supporting their call for negotiating a deal with Hamas.
As early as October 2023, immediately after the massacre, hostages’ families who went out on the streets with signs in their hands met some angry passers-by, self-proclaimed Netanyahu supporters, telling them (not too politely) to shut up.
At first, those were verbal attacks, few and far between. No one could believe, at that early point, that the government of Israel could actively condone assaults against hostages’ relatives, friends and fellow kibbutz members.
In those early days it seems to many of the hostages’ families, friends and concerned members of the public that silence is golden.
Aided by the Biden administration, Qatar and Egypt, Israel and Hamas signed a hostage and ceasefire deal in November 2023, and which over a hundred Israeli hostages were returned.
It was reasonable to hope further deals are on their way, and that too much of a public outcry would raise the price of release and aid Hamas’s despicable propaganda.
Since then and until January 2025 no deal was struck, very few hostages were rescued, some were accidentally killed by the IDF, and others were brutally murdered in captivity by Hamas or other terrorist groups.
By now, and even as the new deal pushed by Donald Trump is well into its first phase and over a dozen hostages released, most of the hostages’ relatives and friends, and over a half of the Israeli public, believe that Netanyahu would not have signed this deal without Trump’s gun to his head, and is still doing his best to postpone its second phase.
Worse, we also believe and the personalized campaign against hostages’ relatives is orchestrated from above.
Israeli culture had always treated the families of war and terror victims with respect, but these days hostages’ and bereaved families are physically roughed up by police during demonstrations. In Knesset committee debates, relatives of hostages invited to plead for their loved ones have been repeatedly silenced or rudely cut short by the likes of Likud MK Simcha Rotman.
Meanwhile, in the environs of TV Channel 14, whose anchors and panelists are openly identified with Netanyahu’s office and milieu, vocal relatives such as Einav Zangauker (mother of Matan) are regularly derided. Recently, personalities belonging to the close circle of Yair Netanyahu posted debasing and misogynic tweets against some of the released female hostages.
As to Yair himself, during the highly emotional time of the hostages’ release he chose to comment with a single post, blaming their families for employing Qatar-funded advisors. The subtext is clear: the hostages’ relatives are traitors.
Now that some of the released hostages, mainly women, are speaking to the public, the onslaught is targeting them directly. Minister Orit Strook, a member of Ben Gvir’s party, has scolded the recent returnees for speaking out on their pain for the hostages still held in Gaza.
She demanded that they hold their tongues and “be grateful” to the government, herself included, who voted to release them.
The trickle-down effect on the pro-Netanyahu segment Israeli society is sadly obvious. Eli Albag, whose daughter Liri was recently released, was physically assaulted by Likud members at an official party event, when he came to plead for a deal.
On the social media, Albag and Zangauker, among others, have become the bogeymen of a certain group of active, foul-mouthed commenters.
Earlier this month, when returnee Keith Siegel’s family made a public announcement merely describing his ghastly experience in Gaza, readers’ comments on some news sites were mostly sympathetic, but dozens were openly and personally abusive against Keith, his wife and daughters.
The writers were not “pro-Palestinian” trolls but Jewish Israelis opposing the hostage deal.
Common to all these public assaults was Netanyahu père’s total silence on his son’s and colleagues’ behavior.
It is the same Netanyahu who once whispered to a chief rabbi that “the Left have forgotten what it’s like to be Jewish”.
The same Netanyahu who carefully avoids meeting hostages’ and bereaved families from the “wrong” side of the political spectrum.
The same Netanyahu who is yet to fulfil his promise to visit, even once, the ruins of Kibbutz Nir Oz.
How did we get so low?
The personal attacks on hostages and their families are not part of a reasoned discussion against the deal with Hamas.
They are not even an argument about responsibility and blame for 7 October and its aftermath.
This PR campaign by the likes of Yair Netanyahu and Channel 14’s Yinon Magal cannot be understood in terms of normal political division. It is, rather, a direct assault against an ancient Jewish legacy: respectful debate.
Since Mishnaic times, or perhaps since the era of the Prophets, Jews have cherished the art of non-violent dispute.
This legacy echoes an even deeper moral imperative, that of communal and human solidarity. Modern Israel’s public sphere, always rife with political disagreements, has until recently had an impressive scope of civic solidarity. Increasingly, a shadow was cast on this cherished Jewish and Democratic asset.
The assassination of Yitzhak Rabin by Yigal Amir, who had received the blessing of rabbis, was its most ominous sign. And after 7 October 2023, with open supporters of Meir Kahana and Yigal Amir sitting in the coalition government, the left-center part of the Israeli spectrum has strong enough evidence that our government cares little for its own citizens unfortunate enough to have lived, partied or served near the Gazan border on that fatal day.
This text was not written to discourage Israel’s friends; despair, as we say these days, is not a work plan.
The failure of solidarity is occurring along the line running between the left-center and the “Bibist” right wing. In some ways, the Israeli and Jewish tradition of mutual responsibility is alive and well. Other aspects may still be saved and restored.
But please understand: We, Israelis who have surrounded the hostages’ families with love during nearly 500 dark days and echoed their fear, anger and activism, are sick and tired of being asked by well-meaning non-Israelis why we “hate” Netanyahu so much.
Why we are airing the metaphorical dirty linen in public? Why we don’t keep our criticism to ourselves at this crucial hour?
The answer is simple: had we been silent, the returned hostages would still be in Gaza. Not only because of Hamas, but also because of an Israeli Prime Minister who has forgotten what it’s like to be Jewish.
