JERUSALEM — In Israel, news of an imminent hostage deal with Hamas grips the country. Fifteen months after the attack of October 7, 2023, when Palestinian terrorists seized 250 civilians and soldiers from Israeli territory, nearly 100 hostages remain in Gaza. The oldest is 86. The youngest is 2. Most seem to be dead, murdered by their captors, or killed inadvertently by Israeli forces, but Hamas refuses to divulge how many. The hostages’ faces have become familiar to everyone in Israel. They’re on posters in bus stops, on telephone poles, hanging from highway bridges. We all feel we know them.
Even though not all details of the deal are clear, Israelis are broadly behind it—a poll on January 15 put the number at 69 percent, with 21 percent unsure and only 10 percent opposed. The mainstream Israeli position is that the government must make every reasonable effort to save the lives of captives, whether that means military operations if possible, or freeing jailed terrorists in exchange for hostages if necessary. Opponents of the deal, even if they’re tortured by the suffering of their fellow citizens in brutal conditions in tunnels under Gaza, see the deal as a form of surrender that rewards the tactic of hostage-taking and invites future attacks, saving people in the present while sacrificing people in the future. In my experience, most people actually hold parts of both positions, but when forced to choose, they tend to choose the first.
For external observers trying to understand the current debate here in Israel, the key is to realize that this is an argument that didn’t start with the current deal—or even with the current war. It’s impossible to understand the debate of 2025 without going back 40 years, to 1985. The debate is less about the details of this deal than about a basic question forced on us by the tactics of our enemies, namely: Does our willingness to assume grave risk to save individuals constitute an Israeli strength or weakness?