The answer is the same as in any other dichotomy. It depends who you ask. If you ask a mother about her son being held by Hamas she would obviously say that getting her son back comes above all else.
This morning I saw a brief interview with one such family member who said in pleading tones that Israel should give Hamas whatever it wants. On the one hand I completely understand her pain and position. If it were, God forbid, my son - what wouldn’t I do to get him back safely?! If Hamas said that the only way I could get him back was if Israel abandoned all of Palestine or else he would be killed I would find it impossible to say no - which would in effect be signing his death warrant.
But if you have no close relatives in captivity, then obviously no one would ever suggest going that far. Rightly so. How far Israel should go to retrieve the hostages is a question Israel is struggling with. But in a recent poll one thing was made clear. A plurality (40%) of Israelis prioritize winning the war over the getting the hostages back (32%).
That too is understandable considering the stakes. What Hamas wants in exchange for the hostages is a total cease fire and a complete Israeli withdrawal from Gaza. They might as well be asking Israel to hand over their country to them. If Israel does that now, all the casualties of war for Israel will have been in vain. Hamas will reconstitute their forces and rebuild their terrorist infrastructure in very short order. With the unlimited help of - and resources from - Iran. And find ways to repeat October 7th over and over again until their ultimate goal is reached.
Those whose blind hatred of Netanyahu see his determination to continue this war until victory is achieved as self serving... might want to see what his political rival and war cabinet member, Benny Gantz has said about that. Which is that the only way there will be a cease fire of any length is if Hamas releases all the hostages. That is tantamount to saying that Hamas’s demands are delusional. Which is the way Netanyahu put it. Hate him if you will. But you cannot fault him for pursuing Israel’s stated goal of destroying Hamas. Even though President Biden has back-pedaled from his original full throated support for the war
Biden has taken his eye off the ball. What was originally his full support has slowly morphed into compassion for Palestinian suffering because of the war.
Biden knew that Hamas throws their citizens directly into the crosshairs of Israel’s military on purpose. Which by default means that Israel would be killing a lot of innocent civilians. But he also knew Israel was fighting for its life and has no choice but to deal with Hamas’s deadly tactic. He even stood by his support after losing the Arab vote in the next election. He will not likely be getting any of that back.
But now, with the prospect of Israel’s imminent attack against Hamas in their last refuge, Rafah, Biden has changed course and urging Israel not to do it without a clear plan to minimize Palestinian casualties. Which is a practical impossibility considering the crowded conditions; huge numbers of Palestinians having sough refuge there; and the Hamas tactic of deliberately using them as cannon fodder. And now Biden is even talking about supporting some sort of cease fire resolution at the UN!
Biden’s sympathy for Israel has been replaced by sympathy for Palestinians and moral outrage at Israel’s conduct of the war - even though Israel has not yet succeeded in the goal Biden originally supported.
Netanyahu and Gantz understand what’s at stake. And despite Biden’s warnings, they both know the US will not abandon Israel. Even if Israel defies Biden and attacks Hamas in Rafah. Israel has no choice but to finish the job if they want to prevent anything like October 7th from happening again. Any sovereign nation must first think of its own people before thinking of how their enemies will fare.
Truman knew he would be killing an unprecedented number innocent people with a single bomb. But for Truman it was a justifiable move since it would save even more American lives that would have otherwise been killed by Japan in a prolonged war.
Israel is in the same position now as the US was back then. If it was moral for Truman to kill that many Japanese people in order to save American lives, is it not just as moral for Israel to do the same to Palestinians?
I defy anyone to explain the difference. And even if you could, Israel is not doing anything remotely close to what the US did to Japan. Israel isn’t dropping any of its nuclear weapons in Gaza. Nor are they purposely bombing any of them. As noted by anyone remotely aware if how Israel conducts their wars, They go to great lengths not to hurt anyone. Those that do get hurt and die is not because Israel intentionally targets them the way Truman targeted innocent Japanese.
Please do not confuse morality with the rules of war that were made after Truman dropped the bomb. I get that we now have rules of war that did not exist then. But I’m not Talking about rules. I’m talking about comparing the moral justification of what the US did to its mortal enemy Japan on purpose versus the moral justification of Israel doing unintended collateral damage to its mortal enemy Hamas.
You cannot say that an intentional mass murderer like Truman for the purpose of saving has country was morally justified while the unintentional deaths caused by Netanyahu’s determination to save his country is not moral.
Can’t have it both ways.