Two people made a significant contribution to public discourse in Israel this week: Avinatan Or and Brett McGurk. One spent the war in Hamas tunnels; the other spent it in the White House. Both presented, in clear language and based on firsthand experience at the heart of events, two positions that until now have been portrayed in Israel as a death wish, cynical politics, and the abandonment of hostages.
Or, who spent two years as a hostage in Gaza’s tunnels, explained in plain Hebrew why disproportionate deals with Hamas would only lead to more kidnappings in the future. McGurk, a senior adviser to Biden, explained in plain English that no such deal had ever truly been on the table until the military sword was at the terrorist organization’s throat.
I watched Avinatan Or on *Uvda* and once again felt ashamed of the treatment his mother, Ditza Or, received in real time for daring to say those very same things. She and other parents from the Tikva Forum were portrayed as abandoning their children, while those who pushed for surrender were depicted as some kind of adoptive parents of our hostages.
This was yet another example of the distortion whereby those credited with bringing the hostages home were not the soldiers who risked their lives in Gaza, but those who demonstrated to demand that Israel accept Hamas’s terms (terms that, as noted, never actually materialized into a concrete proposal).
I was also reminded of Elchanan Kalmanson, who fell in Be’eri on the morning of October 8. Months earlier, at a demonstration on Kaplan Street, someone had shouted “You draft dodger!” at him simply because he was wearing a kippah.
Certain elements of that political camp make no effort whatsoever to engage in debate. Instead, they focus entirely on portraying opposing views as illegitimate.
I listened to Brett McGurk in a series of interviews and was reminded once again of just how shallow and biased our public discourse has become.
Only in such an environment could Nitzan Alon, who headed the IDF’s Hostages and Missing Persons Directorate, make statements such as “We could have freed them all earlier” without being required to substantiate them with facts.
Only in such an environment could books and “investigations” be published portraying Hamas as eager to reach agreements, while Israel is depicted as cruel, indifferent, and determined to fight forever.
Hostage families should be allowed to say anything in real time (unless, of course, they belong to the Or or Mor families). But for commentators and experts, the truth should also be an option.
Judging by the results, and contrary to all the accusations and predictions, every time a hostage deal was presented, the Israeli government approved it by an overwhelming majority.
The moment a proposal to end the war was placed on the table under terms Israel could live with, the government supported it.
The polls—in which Netanyahu actually reached a new high following the signing of the deal—also demonstrate just how foolish the claim was that Netanyahu wanted an endless war because it was politically advantageous for him.
Until October 2025, and no amount of lying can change this, no proposal had been presented that would allow Israel both to secure the release of all the hostages and to avoid retreating to the previous, blood-soaked border.
As McGurk explained in terms even a struggling child could understand, every proposed framework included an immediate Israeli withdrawal from Gaza, down to the very last Israeli soldier, while the hostages would be released in an agonizing trickle that, according to Sinwar, was never supposed to end.
Anyone who claims there is no difference between a Gaza with hostages but without the IDF, and a Gaza without hostages but with the IDF, is either ignorant or a propagandist—and should preferably be kept as far away from the public as possible. > >