Israel's hostage agony

Netanyahu's dual pledge comes cruelly apart

Rachel, mother of the murdered hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin, speaks at his funeral

This is an expanded version of my column in Tuesday’s Times (£) of London.

As if the unspeakable evil of the murder of the six Israeli hostages in a Hamas tunnel under Rafah wasn’t hard enough to process, what happened in Israel following the discovery of their bodies at the weekend was shocking beyond belief.

It appears that Hamas murdered these hostages just a few days ago because they feared that the IDF were closing in. Their Hamas captors shot them at close range multiple times in order not to allow them to be rescued or released, and then ran to save their own skins.

Appallingly, however, a section of the Israeli public has blamed Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, for the murders. These Israelis are accusing him of having signed the hostages’ death warrants by refusing to agree to a ceasefire deal that would have released them. 

Last night, tens of thousands of Israelis were on the streets demanding that Netanyahu now do such a deal. Today the Histadrut, Israel’s trade union body, called a general strike to ramp up this pressure still further (it was called off when the Tel Aviv labour court ruled that it was illegal).

This is suicidal stupidity and moral perversity on a very high level indeed.