Israel agrees to negotiations to end war in Gaza

Israel has agreed to begin negotiations to permanently end the war in Gaza and free the remaining hostages held there. The news comes as Hamas says it will release three living hostages ahead of schedule on Saturday, along with three releases that were already planned. It is also handing over the bodies of dead hostages on Thursday.

In exchange for the four bodies, Israel will release all Palestinian women and minors under the age of nineteen who were detained in Gaza after October 8, 2023, and who were not involved in the fighting.

Hamas leader Khalil al-Hayya said the living hostages will include two men held by Hamas for around a decade. The bodies will include members of the Bibas family, who were taken hostage during the October 7 attacks that sparked the war.

In a statement Tuesday, Hamas spokesman Hazem Qassem said the militant group is ready to free all remaining hostages at once in the second stage of the ceasefire, in return for a permanent truce and full withdrawal of Israeli troops. However, this is likely to be a nonstarter for Israel, which has repeatedly stated that it cannot allow Hamas to remain in power in the enclave lest it stage another invasion in the future.

Terrorists and civilians

As I read the news, the thought occurred to me: Why doesn’t Israel take Palestinian hostages?”

A critic might respond that they have done exactly that with the thousands of Palestinians they are holding in various prisons. However, these prisoners have been jailed for militant attacks against Israelis over the years. Many have committed acts of terrorism, arranging suicide bombings, assaults, and murder.

By contrast, the more than 240 hostages taken by Hamas on October 7 are civilians. Some were attending a music festival in southern Israel near the Gaza Strip; others were residents or visitors at kibbutzim, farming communities in the area; and some were workers from Asia or Africa, many of them Thai farmers.

Given Israel’s overwhelming military superiority in the region, it could easily seize Palestinian civilians as it wished and hold them hostage against Hamas. It could do the same in Lebanon with regard to Hezbollah.

But it does not. Why?

“A rising tide raises all boats”

One reason is that Hamas does not venerate life as Israel does and would not respond to pressure with regard to Palestinian hostages.

As I have noted, Hamas uses Palestinian civilians as human shields and steals money intended for their aid to use for its military purposes. They consider civilians who die in their war with Israel to be “martyrs” destined for heaven.

In their worldview, liberating the land for a Palestinian state would benefit all Palestinians, even if this requires grave sacrifices by individuals along the way. This “rising tide raises all boats” view makes individual civilians a dispensable means to Hamas’s larger ends.

Arab rights in Israel

A second reason is that Israel venerates all life, including Palestinians.

Their culture is historically centered in the biblical worldview, which asserts that all people are created in God’s image and likeness (Genesis 1:27). While they certainly see themselves as God’s “chosen people” in fulfillment of the Abrahamic covenant (Genesis 12:1–3), this view does not preclude valuing others as part of humanity.

There was a time when many Jews viewed Gentiles as “unclean,” a cultural taboo God had to overturn with Peter in expanding the church to include Gentile peoples (Acts 11–12). The Christian movement eventually came to proclaim, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28).

The contemporary State of Israel similarly includes both Jews and Arabs among its citizens. Arabs number approximately 20 percent of the nation’s population. They have the same legal rights as Jewish Israelis; Arabs have sat on the Supreme Court, worked in the foreign service, and served as mayors, judges, and in civil service positions as well as in the Knesset, Israel’s parliament.

While there is significant mistrust between the two populations rooted in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Israel’s Arab and Jewish citizens live and work together in a variety of areas. Israel’s healthcare system has long employed Arab and Jewish medical professionals side by side, for example.

In short, it would be a complete contradiction of Israel’s religious and cultural worldview for it to take civilians as hostages for military or political purposes. By contrast, it would be inconceivable to imagine Jews receiving anything like such fair treatment from Hamas in Gaza.

On the contrary, October 7 showed what the terrorists would do to Israelis if they could.

“Using things and loving people”

It’s been said that a good test of character is to see how we treat people we don’t have to treat well. The next time you could use a person as a means to your ends, ask yourself: Do I want to be more like Hamas or more like Israel?

Pragmatism values things and people by their usefulness to us. This worldview legitimizes abortion and euthanasia, alleging that preborn children and the infirm do not serve a useful purpose. Postmodern relativism encourages us to value others however we wish, viewing them through the lens of our “personal truth.”

By contrast, the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber encourages us to relate to the world through an “I-Thou” and “I-It” prism. In his view, people are “thou” and material objects are “it.” He wanted us to value “it” as a means to serve “thou,” not the reverse.

Many years ago, a song by BJ Thomas made the same point:

Jesus urged us to serve others as he served us, promising that “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” (John 13:35).

By this standard, if you were put on trial for being a Christian, would those who know you offer enough evidence to convict you?