Day 460 Swords of Iron – “Hostages”

Chaim starts by saying that the sun is going down on another day and we still haven’t been able to bring all the hostages home from the Gaza Strip. He says that everyone in Israel has a shadow of October 7th hanging over their hearts and minds. THe negotiations are deepening this shadow with their mix of hope and anguish.

Chaim mentions that there have been hostage crises before, including the drama surrounding Gilad Schalit. Chaim says this has traumatized Israelis and the hostage situation over the last year is adding to the trauma. He mentions that about half of the hostages who were kidnapped were released in previous rounds, giving everyone hope that the rest would soon be found and released. Then there was a long period where nothing happened, punctuated by days when remains of hostages were found, or hostages were rescued alive. It’s kept everyone in a state of constant tension and heartache.

He compares the trauma of Hamas deliberately targeting civilians to the attack on September 11th, 2001, in the United States.

But Chaim says that throughout all of this, he still thinks it’s unwise to agree to a hostage deal like the one that got Gilad Schalit released in exchange for over 1,000 Hamas terrorists held in Israeli prisons. This set up the circumstances for more problems in the future, especially since one of the terrorists released in that deal was none other than Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind behind the October 7th attacks.

He then lists all the kinetic fronts that Israel is fighting on, including Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Judea and Samaria, the Houthis in Yemen, the Shi’ite milias in Iraq and Iran itself. He says that the battle on YouTube and other social media platforms is also important.

He also says that 75% of the Israeli public supports a deal to get the hostages released, as the efforts to get them out via kinetic force are very dangerous and expensive in both blood and treasure.

But Chaim encourages his viewers to stay hopeful as it’s a new year, full of possibilities. He also mentions the recent decision by Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook to take down some of the restrictions on content on Meta platforms. Chaim says that this will make it easier to share Aliyah Return Center content on social media and he encourages his viewers to visit the ARC website and sign up for the Ambassador Academy