In the podcast, oncewasr discussed the complex dynamics of the hostage situation in Israel, highlighting the cultural priority of rescuing hostages due to the ethos of solidarity. The conversation touched on the public debate where accusations are made about priorities between hostage rescue and political agendas, notably concerning Netanyahu. Oncewasr analyzed the strategic challenges of risking soldiers' lives for hostages, questioning if such actions could lead to more kidnappings. He advocated for a balanced approach, considering both immediate rescue needs and long-term security implications to avoid perpetuating a cycle of violence and abduction.
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Lets quickly have a discussion about the hostages. First,
I think it's important to get back hostages. There is like a discussion,
there's a lot of like public discussion or even public argument
or public fight about it. For one side, it's blaming the other side, hey,
you don't care about the hostages, and the other side is like,
you don't care about winning the warrior, you only care about Danielle.
So these are the accusations.
I don't think the accusations are completely true,
even though they're not like completely devoid of truth. So, however,
I think it is actually important to get the hostages.
It's not unimportant to get the hostages. It's not like,
and the the cartoon accusation is like,
these religious people in the right, they don't care about anything
except like the the Holy Land that God promised to them,
and they don't don't give a damn about the hostages.
As far as they concern, they can all die, not religious and even more.
I think it's a cartoonish accusation, it's not not true,
but I think it is actually true, they care about them less than let's say,
the protesters for the hostages and the protesters in Kaplan.
The protesters in Kaplan,
it's also true that they do care too much about Netanyahu,
who I don't see as something that's that important in in the whole story.
They care too much about,
they hate Netanyahu too much and want him out too much,
beyond what his actual effect is. And that is also a problem.
It's a negative effect on negotiations, it's a negative effect on morale,
unity, and and a bunch of other things. have a point,
but some of them take the point too too far beyond
where it's actually reasonable. Now,
why is it important to get the hostages?
It's an Israeli value of solidarity and caring about your citizens.
And Israel does have like a track record of caring about its citizens more than
any country in the world, I would say. Definitely,
more than any country in the world.
And Israeli society really does care more about people,
and it's a natural thing for a small country,
like a country of 9 million, at the time When this ethos was built,
it was a country of 5 million people, 4 million people. Like,
I think in the time of Anted,
this was a country of just four or five million people.
And everybody kind of knows everybody. It's like you will know somebody
who knows somebody who knows one of the hostages. I know people
who know the hostages
and we should care about them more than any other country.
At the same in the same breath,
Israel also in this war sacrificed something like 800-900 soldiers.
That's also not meaningless. Now, what does it mean?
And what does it not mean? Does it mean you should not
even risk the life of 1 soldier for one hostage? Oh, that's too extreme.
I think sometimes it does make sense to risk the lives of soldiers
even more, even eight soldiers to rescue one hostage or one soldier.
That's that's like the plot of saying private trial.
I don't think the private trial is, I'm not sure it's good, but.
And I'm I'm also not sure it's bad. So however,
at some point it becomes like unreasonable. So
if you know for a fact you're going to sacrifice soldiers to get 30 hostages
back, you know, let's take it to to the complete extreme.
If you know for a fact you're going to sacrifice soldiers to get back
30 hostages, that is unreasonable. This does not make sense at all.
You're going to make like thousands. maybe even families.
I don't know how you call it, but there is a word for it in Hebrew.
Orphaned, widowed,
and all other things like parents losing their their children,
sons usually, or or families losing their father.
You're going to make like thousands up to even of these.
For something that's important, yes, but it's too much.
It's just It's just unreasonable. So at this extreme,
it becomes unreasonable. Now, Now let's say you know for a fact
that you're you don't know for a fact you're Risking the lives of 30 people
to get 30 other people back. That is completely reasonable. Even
if you're risking the lives of more people to get these people back
and it's just a risk and you know, the expectancy is
that like you risk 90 people
and maybe 45 of them will die. That is also very much reasonable
and it would be extreme to say that's unreasonable. Now the truth.
maybe somewhere in the middle. It may not be questionable numbers,
but it might be somewhere in the middle. So if you know for a fact,
and I like to to do this thought experiment,
what would it say if you knew for a fact that.
So if you knew for a fact that after you do that,
you're going to get terrorist attacks every year,
and you're going to have like 10 people kidnapped every year
and held hostage, and you're going to have people kidnapped abroad
and held hostage and being tortured, then you did something bad
because you you created a phenomena
that is now not just weakened as a country,
but is like actually created more suffering in the world.