Human Bargaining Chips

A Response to "In Gaza, we know why Israel wants to herd us all into one camp – our lives are bargaining chips," in The Guardian

Dear Reader,

Below is a response I wrote to a piece in The Guardian called “In Gaza, we know why Israel wants to herd us all into one camp – our lives are bargaining chips.”

I submitted this response to the Guardian, but it is unlikely they will publish it, so I am sharing it here.

I have linked the original story above so that you may read it yourself.

And to all of The Zionist Voice readers who have been missing our work — I am deeply sorry. I had to leave Israel during the War to get to a conference on how Jewish education can western civilization, and it has been nothing short of a small Odyssey.

We will hopefully return to our regular publishing schedule next week.

But, until then, please enjoy this piece and continue supporting zionist art whenever and however you can.

To speak of this war and human bargaining chips, without mentioning the 250 innocent hostages whose kidnapping launched this war, is ludicrous.

It is a grim truth – wars have always treated people as leverage, but the events of October 7th were not just another chapter in the long history of war.

The mass kidnapping of civilians, torn from their homes, held in captivity for nearly two years, is unprecedented in its scale and its cruelty, even by the standards of other wars.

The beginning of this war was brutal and inhuman.

To forget that, to pass over it, as though it never happened, to act as though Gazans are the only people being used as bargaining chips, is outrageous.

I feel for the people of Gaza – their suffering is tragically real, but this war did not begin in a vacuum.

It started in the homes of innocent people, waking up to celebrate Simchat Torah, who were torn from their families and taken prisoner.

Taken to be used as bargaining chips.

But to bargain for what?

For the release of others who had raped, murdered, and kidnapped innocent people.

So yes, be angry that lives are being gambled with in this war, but do not place the blame on Israel – blame Hamas.

Hamas took Gaza to the casino.

They bet the lives of millions of Gazans when they attacked, and they have had the opportunity to take those lives off the table every day since.

646 days.

646 opportunities to return the hostages and end this war.

646 chances wasted so Hamas could keep gambling with Gazan lives.

If someone is playing with your life like a poker chip, rage is the only response.

But place that rage where it belongs: with the one placing the bet, not the one sitting across the table.

Spread Love, Spread Light,

Am Yisrael Chai

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