Phase One (2)
Another release and happy homecoming. But drama and politics galore.
Another moving moment in the Middle East over the weekend, timed so that quite a few of us on the West Coast stayed up early Saturday morning to take it in. And we witnessed that Naama Levy (of the infamous jeep video), Liri Albag, Daniella Gilboa and Karina Ariev walked out of their captors hands and finally headed home. Four incredibly strong women, refusing to be broken. But, those who have been following the case will note that the four were actually part of a group of five that were captured together from the Nahal Oz base on October 7th and speculation started right away about the fate of the fifth. Where was Agam Berger?
Like the first hostage release there is an awful lot to dig into so here we go in point format:
The Hamas Show - The way it all went down was something else. Hamas carefully orchestrated the event, dressed up the women in Hamas garb and walked them up a stage with a huge banner - where on earth do you get that made in war ravaged Gaza one wonders - and a table where the now infamous Red Cross folks got to sign paperwork before the women were paraded on stage. They were used for the Hamas propaganda machine to show the world how well they had been taken care of. Of course, they weren’t, but more on that later.
The Deal is Working - Is it? The original deal stipulated that female civilian hostages would be first and the four that came out on Saturday ahead of others were military captives. The expectation was that civilian Arbel Yahud would come out and, Shiri Bibas and her two children, Kfir and Ariel. But no, the hostages designated as having a military status came out first and, it is not often reported, these attract a different number of released Palestinians terrorists. So for a civilian hostage there are 30 released from Israeli prisons, for a military hostage, Israel opens the door to 50 inmates to walk free. So Hamas did not live up to its side of the deal and managed to benefit with a net of 80 Palestinian fighters released in their favour. It is simple yet bizarre math. Israel consequently decided to nix its next step, allowing Arabs to move from south to north in the Gaza strip and all of a sudden it felt as if the entire deal had entered unstable territory.
Tweaking the Deal - But miraculously, the deal got tweaked last night and it has now been confirmed that Arbel Yahud, Agam Berger and a third unidentified hostage will be released this Thursday ahead of the next scheduled Saturday release with another three released. In return Israel has allowed movement of people to the north of Gaza which is a dramatic move as it will ensure that resuming the war in that arena will be much more difficult, if not impossible. This is a major shift that will set the conflict in a very different direction.
The Individuals - As time moves on and I listen to some of my Israeli sources it is ever more clear that we have to prepare for the worst when it comes to the Bibas family. Remember that in Phase One we are dealing with a total of 33 released hostages of which 8 are deceased and Hamas, as part of its intentional psychological torture, has to date refused to advise who on the list is alive or dead. Again it is a very dark mathematical journey where the ratio of dead to living hostages is increasing by the week without knowing who they are.
There has also been caution to not try and coax information out of the released hostages, respect them and give them time to adjust. The details that are trickling out however are depressing. The released hostages so far have been exposed to slave labour, forced to cook but not eat it, torture, lack of medical and sanitary care, starvation and many days or weeks in dark dungeons underground with no fresh air. Daniella Gilboa it turned out still had a bullet in her leg. The religiously observant Agam Berger acted as the rock of the group and even was so brave to put up resistance by refusing to work on Sabbath.
The West’s pro-Hamas Camp - Of course they wasted no time to comment on how well the women looked as evidence of Hamas’s humanitarian focus. Yes, there are people who think that and if you don’t believe it, go on social media and drop a few comments here and there. You will be surprised what you get and more sanitized versions will make their way into mainstream media. But there is now evidence that Hamas has used all sorts of techniques to make the hostages look healthy. And they will also rub it in that the four were military personnel captured and therefore not hostages. To which I would say, well then how come they were not treated according to the provisions of the Geneva Convention? And received Red Cross packages? The questions answer themselves.
Trump goes there - So a lot of moving pieces in the Gaza war this weekend, but there is always someone to give it a fitting and finishing touch. Last week I pointed out how it pays to listen to Trump riffing because not only does he mean what he says, quite a bit of it is turned into actual policy. Late on Saturday he indicated that it was time to ‘clean out’ Gaza and send its inhabitants to Jordan and Egypt. It is not an illogical thought given the disaster zone that the place has become after Israel retreated in 2005 and Hamas’s long reign of terror and destruction. But Jordan will not think it is a great plan. Egypt will never open its borders. The Saudis won’t like it either. And the Gazans will be loath to move. Other than that, it is a great idea.
Finally - It is International Holocaust Remembrance Day today. But it is established by the UN and has over the years become the day for non-Jews to perform their ‘never again’ routines. It is for many - like Justin Trudeau, UN Chief Antonio Gutteres the chance to express their feelings and in doing so to forget to mention who was actually on the receiving end of that murderous orgy of violence that cost 6 million people their lives. They will not mention it was the Jews. And that makes things a lot clearer. Because Jews actually remember on a different day, 27th of Nisan (which is usually end of April or early May). This is the day the uprising in the Warzaw Ghetto started. The day Jews started to fight back.
Photos: the moment of release on Saturday morning (top), the five women on the day they were captured (Agam Berger is second from left) and at the weekly Vancouver hostage event the crowd yesterday listened to Reverend Treza Supeyo among many other speakers. Note Agam Berger’s photo is in the foreground. Let’s hope we can see her alive on Thursday this week.