'You're Dancing on Their Blood': Israeli Hostage Families Outraged Over Resettlement Conference

[Nanjeanne]

Family members of Israeli hostages speaking in the Knesset accused the eleven Netanyahu government ministers who attended the conference of 'giving up on them' while a hostage deal still isn't secured

…

Gil Dikman, one of the leaders of the Hostages and Missing Families Forum, whose cousin Carmel Gat is being held in Gaza, said at one of the meetings: "You don't bother with what is important, which is the hostages. In the morning you throw mud at each other, and in the evening you dance at an event that only harms us. In Gaza, the hostages do not dance."

Snip

Meirav Leshem-Gonen, mother of hostage Romi Gonen, spoke at an Aliyah and Immigrant Absorption Committee meeting on Monday, where she addressed the hosts, Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli and Likud MK Dan Illouz, directly.

"All this talk of transfer made me shudder," she told the ministers, both of whom attended Sunday's conference. "The transfer you talk about refers to ethnic and religious connections to a certain group. Isn't that what was done to us in Europe? We say we want to be better than this, but we are ready to do the same thing to another nation."

Snip

Danny Elgert, whose brother Itzik is being held hostage, echoed these sentiments in an interview on Israeli news outlet Channel 12 Monday morning.

"From our perspective, the conference yesterday was the most terrible thing that could possibly have happened," he said. "This government allowed the murder of 1400 citizens, the kidnapping of 241 people who haven't come back. The bodies are still there. And they are dancing on their blood. What are they doing? They want to build settlements on the graves of the hostages? I do not understand this at all."

Read whole piece here Haaretz Free link https://archive.is/wToqQ]

Haaretz subscribers https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-01-29/ty-article/.premium/youre-dancing-on-their-blood-hostage-families-outraged-over-resettlement-conference/0000018d-5679-d0fc-a9bd-5e7d6c8b0000]

[The Magistrate]

1. Is There A Possibility Of A Snap Election, Ma'am?

Clearly some people need to be far from any position of power.

[patphil]

2. They certainly do; far away indeed.

[Nanjeanne]

3. Considering 12 ministers were at this disgraceful conference, it would require a complete change

in more than just one or two leaders.

[The Magistrate]

4. I Agree

The present government there is a disaster.

It was about a third of the cabinet attended?

[Nanjeanne]

5. Yes.

[Lonestarblue]

6. It's clear to Israelis what their government is doing. Why is it not clear to those who defend Israel's every action?

“The transfer you talk about refers to ethnic and religious connections to a certain group. Isn't that what was done to us in Europe? We say we want to be better than this, but we are ready to do the same thing to another nation." Exactly.

Israel is conducting ethnic cleansing of Palestinians under the guise of fighting Hamas. The IDF has found over 300 mikes of tunnels but few Hamas fighters. Even some of their former military leaders have said that the goal of eliminating Hamas cannot be accomplished by bombing and killing innocent Palestinians. How many more innocent women and children have to die before world leaders say enough?

[Nanjeanne]

7. It's a question I ask a lot. Unfortunately it's impossible to have actual discussion about what

Israel is doing and why there is so much unquestioned support in the US easily. There is a lot of passion.

My own thoughts and passions I’ve learned aren’t easily conveyed on a forum like this.

[Celerity]

8. My explanation (and this goes for issues far beyond just the Israeli/Palestine conflict) for this:

you said:

My own thoughts and passions I’ve learned aren’t easily conveyed on a forum like this.

My feelings on this:


Since I joined in summer 2018 (and long before that, as shown by DU search and other far longer in duration members posting links to historical discussions) I have seen tendencies to impart a a strictly black and white dimension of perception on many, many issues.

Very little nuance or grey areas are tolerated by small, but vocal, well organised cohorts. Most everything, including (at times especially) intraparty Democratic disagreements are forced into 'you are either with us or or are against us and therefore a threat' templates.

Not only that, but if you come off as having a different opinion than these cohorts have, you are too often painted as a priori suspect in nature, and/or anti Democratic Party, and/or being in league with various and sundry malicious forces, up to and including (I have seen this many times) Putin, and/or Trump, and/or (to bring it back to the I/P conflict) Hamas itself, etc etc.

Much of time, dissent against what certain cohorts believe is held up as being against the only viable, the only acceptable option(s) and stance(s). Dissent against these cohorts is far too often falsely judged to be automatically wrong, to be the actions of a threat that needs to be knocked down, discredited, swarmed upon with comminations manifesting an intent to intimidate and/or to silence.

So many subjects are thus reduced to tribalism, with variance of opinion (from the cohort's) and/or the introduction of subtlety/complexity to the debate ofttimes cast as the actions of a malevolent actor whose opinions need to be expurgated.

[Nanjeanne]

9. Exactly there was a time a long while ago where I had informed and interesting discussions that

encompassed differing views and I learned a lot and found it stimulating. Many of those people are gone or barely posting because of a feeling of “why bother”? I’m there on lots of topics now. I started posting again because this particular issue was so important to me — having family in Israel who knew some of the victims and who were involved in peace activism gave me an insight I thought might be shared. Found out quickly how wrong I was.