Hostage dilemma reveals Netanyahu’s top priority – himself

Many Israelis believe that Benjamin Netanyahu has blood on his hands. Since the release of 105 hostages through negotiations last November, the Israeli government has chosen the priority of destroying Hamas rather than securing the release of the remaining hostages. 

The families of the hostages have been calling for negotiations for almost a year – their pleas have fallen on the deaf ears of Netanyahu’s coalition. No wonder the families of the murdered hostages have refused to meet him.

Jonathan Dekel-Chen, the father of a hostage, recently told a London radio station: “I think that in a perfect world, (a release) could happen but there is no army in the world that is capable of retrieving hostages who are being held underground in booby-trapped terror tunnels, being used as human shields by terrorists who have no regard for human life – both Jewish life and Palestinian life. There is no choice other than coming to an agreement with Satan.”

Netanyahu, however, has form in moving the goalposts by adding another issue to hitherto completed negotiations. As early as 1998 at the Wye Plantation talks, Netanyahu surprised and infuriated President Clinton by throwing in the release of the American spy, Jonathan Pollard, into the debate. The false news that Pollard would be accompanying Netanyahu back to Israel had already been leaked to the Israeli media. Clinton refused point-blank to release him.

This time, the new additive to the mixture is that Israel must control the 14km-long Philadelphi Corridor which separates Egypt from Gaza. Last week, Benny Gantz, the IDF Chief of Staff from 2011-15 commented: “The Philadelphi Corridor is an operational challenge but it isn’t an existential threat to the State of Israel”.