Fog of War

What does it mean to keep fighting? For some, it’s the effort to keep up their spirits and hopes — not an easy struggle, especially with our emerging knowledge of the tortures the hostages are enduring. For others, it’s the fight to keep the hostages’ plight in the public consciousness. Some see the military effort as the fight that will bring them home.

And many refer to a different fight. A fight against the villain of this macabre story.

As for who that villain might be, here are the top choices offered in Israel’s mainstream media and public discourse:

• a military and intelligence apparatus that bungled its most essential task
• a prime minister who puts his political survival before innocent civilians’ fates
• an extremist flank of the country that prefers land grabs to lives
• an inept team of negotiators who need their hands forced in order to bring results

The correct answer, of course, is none of the above. The villains are Hamas and its enablers. Seems so clear, doesn’t it? Yet somehow in the fog of this war, too many impassioned, compassionate Jews have forgotten that none of the targets favored by the media, the public, and the protesters want the hostages to suffer. These targets aren’t angels, and they don’t possess Divine wisdom. But they’re also not the guilty party who snatched, starved, and tortured innocent people — and then sadistically dangled and refused deal after deal over the course of more than a year.