The Best of Bad Options for Recovering the Hostages
A truism of national security is that leaders constantly face a dilemma in which neither choice is good. In wartime especially, that choice can be excruciating. Today, Israel’s leaders confront just such a challenge: hostages.
Hamas has imposed a war on Israel, one set in motion by the gruesome atrocities committed by the Gaza-based Islamist group. In the October 7 attack, Hamas terrorists murdered more than 1,300 Israelis in their homes, at their workplaces, and at a music festival, riddling babies with bullets and mutilating the bodies of others; they took scores of survivors back to Gaza as hostages.
Amid the horror and carnage, those hostages must not be overlooked or forgotten. Israel’s ethos has always been shaped by a sense that its enemies—seeking the Jewish state’s destruction—must understand that for
