Israel’s great virtue is also its liability

In his final discourse with the people of Israel, Moses reports that God set before us both “life and death, blessing and curse. Therefore, choose life, that both you and your descendants may live.” (Deuteronomy 30:19)

Throughout the ages, the Jewish people have followed this exhortation, particularly in ransoming captives, which was not an infrequent occurrence. The importance of this was magnified by Maimonides when he wrote in his Mishnah Torah that the “redemption of captives held for ransom takes precedence over sustaining and clothing the poor. You do not find a greater mitzvah than the redemption of captives, for captivity is in the same category as famine, drought or exposure, and one stands in danger to one’s life.”

Moreover, this obligation is a matter of Jewish communal responsibility, not just of the individual or the family of the captive. It defines Jewish peoplehood and sovereignty.

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In our own times, the oppression of Soviet and Ethiopian Jews fostered numerous operations by Israel and the Diaspora to ransom them, leading to the freedom of close to one and a half million of them. Most were repatriated to Israel.

For the State of Israel, its practice has been to disproportionately release many multiples of Palestinian prisoners for very few IDF captives. The most glaring example is the release of 1,000 prisoners for Gilad Shalit. Unfortunately, one of the freed was Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind of the October 7 massacre, who still is hiding in the tunnels of Rafah, surrounded by Israeli hostages.

I can’t imagine the agony the families of the hostages are undergoing, or the trauma Israelis are facing. Israel is a nation separated by one degree. On the other hand, it is the responsibility of its leaders to exert every effort to free the hostages but also to insure that October 7 can never happen again.

Why did Hamas take 240 hostages after slaughtering 1,200 people? To ensure the leverage it can apply against Israel, knowing its reverence for life. Conversely, Hamas views the Palestinians as cannon fodder in its efforts to destroy Israel.

Hamas is using this leverage to attempt to extricate its leadership and remnant by imposing a ceasefire that would force the Israelis to leave Rafah, the Philadelphi corridor, and other strongholds in Gaza for six weeks. It has succeeded in galvanizing the U.S. and the West for a ceasefire in exchange for freeing some 30 of the remaining hostages.

So what would Hamas do during this interregnum? Bribe Egyptian guards, as they’ve done for 15 years, to escape with hostages into the Sinai desert, regroup, and when ready, launch another October 7. Ceasefires typically denote stopping the fighting in place, not giving up strategic points, as the Israelis are asked to do.

Why are the U.S. and the E.U. applying pressure on Israel instead of on Hamas and its benefactor, Iran? Why are we only playing defense when freedom of navigation is threatened by another Iranian proxy, the Houthis? Some of our soldiers have been killed and many were injured by Iranian proxies, yet we still maintain waivers on sanctions for Iran, even as it races to build a bomb.

This fear of escalation is also hampering Ukraine’s war against Russia. Ukraine still is begging the U.S. to allow it to use long-range missiles to attack oil refineries and other military assets deep in Russia to hamper the latter’s offensive capabilities. This even as the Republican isolationists refuse to re-arm Ukraine, which would lead to a Russian victory and would put Baltic NATO allies within Russia’s grasp. If they are attacked, that would invoke Article 5, involving total war with Russia.

As we must help Ukraine prevail, we should stop micromanaging the Israelis and let it finish the job, particularly as it must face the even greater threat from the North.

Returning to our sources, the Mishna in tractate Gittin says: “The captives are not redeemed for more of their worth, for the sake of the betterment of the world.”

Israel is facing a horrendous choice — to agree to a deal that will release a minority of the remaining hostages, in exchange for leaving the strongholds that took the lives of dozens of soldiers to capture. This choice would be instead of doing everything the IDF can do to vanquish Hamas militarily once and for all.

By doing the latter, Israel will neutralize a strategic liability while helping to ensure that future hostage-taking will not be our enemies’ weapon of choice. This will also help to restore Israel’s deterrence against its enemies.

Max Kleinman of Fairfield was the CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater MetroWest from 1995 to 2014. He is the president of the Fifth Commandment Foundation and consultant for the Jewish Community Legacy Project.