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2024-01-21 Israel-Palestine-Jordan
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An ideological minority of parents of hostages held by Hamas oppose negotiations
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| Long, sad, but encouraging that not all are as short-sighted as the noisy ones. |
[IsraelTimes] Tikva Forum is a grassroots, right-wing alternative to the main hostage advocacy group, the well-financed Hostages and Missing Persons Families Forum based in Tel Aviv. Its members, primarily pro-government religious Zionists, say they are putting country before loved ones
| “We feel that the demand to release hostages ‘now,’ that emphasis on ‘now,’ is liable — not intentionally, of course — to hurt the hostages,” said Tikva spokesman Eitan Zeliger. “It plays into the hands of Hamas, who might be encouraged to raise the price.” |
Tzvika Mor is a co-founder of the Tikva Forum, made up of relatives of hostages in Hamas captivity. “Tikva” in Hebrew means hope; the national anthem is called “HaTikva.” The Tikva Forum supports — through volunteer lectures, prayer rallies, demonstrations and media appearances — the government’s declared objective to use overwhelming military might to force Hamas into releasing the people its terror operatives abducted on October 7 during a massacre of 1,200 people. Of the 240 people seized as hostages that day, 132 are thought to still be held in Gaza — not all of them alive. The Israel Defense Forces has confirmed the deaths of 25 of those still held by Hamas, citing intelligence and findings obtained by troops operating in Gaza.
The Tikva Forum is not connected to the Tikvah Fund or the Kohelet Forum although, like those organizations, its members tend to be on the political right. Its message carries particular resonance coming from the parents and siblings of hostages. Indeed, Mor and the other members of the Tikva Forum are uniquely positioned to provide an alternative to the dominant voice among the families of hostages. This dominant voice, given expression by the well-financed and well-staffed Hostages and Missing Persons Families Forum based in Tel Aviv, also seeks to focus public attention on the suffering of the hostages.
The differences between the two forums are nuanced and are generally more about tone than substance. Members of both forums are acutely familiar with the pain of being a parent or relative of a hostage. Spokespeople and members of both forums take care to express themselves diplomatically and generally refrain from attacking the other side. Several members of the Tikva Forum who spoke with The Times of Israel expressed gratitude to the many volunteers of the Hostages and Missing Persons Families Forum for providing both material and emotional support to the hostages’ families.
On January 10 the two forums organized an event with music, speeches and prayers. The event was emceed by two young women, Emuna Libman from Kiryat Arba, whose brother Elyakim Shlomo Libman is being held captive by Hamas
 ...the braying voice of Islamic Resistance®,...
in Gazoo
...Hellhole adjunct to Israel and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, inhabited by Gazooks. The place was acquired in the wake of the 1967 War and then presented to Paleostinian control in 2006 by Ariel Sharon, who had entered his dotage. It is currently ruled with an iron fist by Hamas with about the living conditions you'd expect. It periodically attacks the Hated Zionist Entity whenever Iran needs a ruckus created or the hard boyz get bored, getting thumped by the IDF in return. The ruling turbans then wave the bloody shirt and holler loudly about oppression and disproportionate response ...
, and Yarden Gonen of Kfar Vradim, whose sister Romi Gonen is being held hostage.
Emuna and Eliyakim’s father, Kiryat Arba council chairman Eliyahu Libman, is one of the founders of Tikva. Gonen is active in the Hostages and Missing Persons Families Forum.
NOT AT ANY PRICE
Nevertheless, Tikva front man Eitan Zeliger said that while the two forums were united in their desire to release the hostages, there are important differences.
"We feel that the demand to release hostages ’now,’ that emphasis on ’now,’ is liable — not intentionally, of course — to hurt the hostages," said Zeliger. "It plays into the hands of Hamas, who might be encouraged to raise the price."
Cradling a picture of his son Eitan, 23, who is being held hostage by the Hamas terror group in Gaza, Tzvika Mor explained to a group of high school students why he opposes freeing Paleostinian murderous Moslems jugged
Drop the heater, Studs, or you're hist'try!
in Israel in exchange for his son’s release.
"It’s not just about my personal suffering as Eitan’s father; it’s about the nation as a whole," Mor told the girls in late December at the Tohar religious Zionist high school in Yad Binyamin, about 25 kilometers (15 miles) east of Ashdod.
"I can’t let my personal hurt take priority over collective interests," said Mor, shifting the weight of the shoulder strap supporting his Glock 19 handgun. "Letting murderous Moslems go free endangers Jewish lives. And Eitan wouldn’t want that."
The Hostages and Missing Persons Families Forum’s website is called BringThemHomeNow.net. Some activists use slogans such as "Time’s running out, free the hostages now," or "Keep on freeing them until the very last hostage."
Zeliger noted that the position calling to free the hostages now, no matter the cost, was expressed recently by Yesh Atid MK Mickey Levy during a meeting in the Knesset with hostages’ families. Levy, who was sitting next to Ronen Tzur, the head of the Hostages and Missing Persons Families Forum, became emotional at one point during the meeting because of his connection to one of the hostages.
"I say this in my own name, and I say this in the name of my party: any price, any price. I said this from the first day, all the 6,000 [Paleostinian prisoners held by Israel], a complete ceasefire, I don’t care, at any price, any price, bring them home now," said Levy.
Many, though not all, of the families of hostages present applauded in response to Levy’s declaration.
ONLY MILITARY PRESSURE ON HAMAS WILL RELEASE HOSTAGES
"The second difference," said Zeliger, "is that we believe that only military pressure on Hamas will get the hostages released. All the negotiating, all the diplomacy, all of it, is not worth anything without the military pressure. And we think that pressure should be increased, including a curtailing of humanitarian aid ."
The sense that more can be done to pressure Hamas into releasing the hostages is shared by families not necessarily aligned with either Tikva or with the Hostages and Missing Persons Families Forum. On January 9, a group of relatives of hostages converged on the Kerem Shalom crossing and attempted unsuccessfully to stop trucks carrying humanitarian aid from entering Gaza. The protest was not organized by Tikva.
Zeliger said that Tikva opposes any demonstrations, rallies or marches that can be construed as pressuring the government into making concessions to Hamas.
"We believe that every attack on the war cabinet not only does not help; it hurts," he said.
But when Zeliger was asked about concrete measures, the differences between Tikva and the Hostages and Missing Persons Families Forum were less clear. Zeliger said, for instance, that some Tikva Forum families, like families in the Hostages and Missing Persons Families Forum, supported the temporary truce deal brokered at the end of November by Qatar
...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi...
, Egypt and the United States that resulted in Hamas releasing 105 hostages — 81 Israelis, 23 Thais and one Filipino — and Israel releasing 240 Paleostinian prisoners.
Others did not.
Zeliger said the Tikva Forum is not opposed in principle to negotiations conducted by Mossad head David Barnea or other official government representatives in Qatar, Egypt or elsewhere to secure the release of the hostages.
"We just think that none of that will work without heavy military pressure," he said.
On January 10, numerous sources reported that Israel’s war cabinet was again mulling a Qatari proposal for a hostage deal and ceasefire. That offer was said to go beyond a temporary truce and to provide a roadmap for ending the war that includes Hamas’s leaders going into exile and Israel withdrawing troops from the Gaza Strip.
NO REPEAT OF ’THE ERROR OF THE SHALIT DEAL’
Meanwhile,
...back at the mall, Clarissa suddenly spied Mr. Bartlett at the checkout counter. He was buying Grecian Formula!...
co-founder Mor said that he and other members of the Tikva Forum were spreading a message of what he calls "collective responsibility," so that Israel "doesn’t repeat the error of the Shalit deal."
Gilad Shalit, an IDF soldier taken hostage in 2006, was released in a prisoner swap in 2011 in exchange for 1,027 Paleostinian murderous Moslems and prisoners held by Israel. It was the most lopsided prisoner swap in Israel’s history.
At least six Israelis were murdered in the four years following the Shalit swap by murderous Moslems released under the deal. Among those released was Hamas’s Gaza leader Yahya Sinwar, believed to be the criminal mastermind behind the October 7 massacre in southern Israel. In comparison to the Shalit deal, the conditions of the hostage swap reached between Israel and Hamas at the end of November were radically better. Israel released approximately three Paleostinian security prisoners for each Israeli hostage.
On October 7, Mor’s son Eitan was taken hostage together with his childhood friend Elyakim Shlomo Libman. The two were working as unarmed security guards at the Supernova music festival, near Kibbutz Re’im, when they were taken hostage. Libman is named after his paternal uncle Shlomo, who was murdered in August 1998 by murderous Moslems who, after being captured, were later released in the Shalit deal.
Mor said that his son has "a huge heart" and his apartment in central Jerusalem was known for being open to anyone in need.
Noting that "nothing is a coincidence," Mor said that just four months before Eitan was kidnapped by Hamas, the family had discussed the Shalit prisoner swap.
"Eitan said to us, ’If I am taken hostage, do not do a prisoner swap to let me free.’ That’s our household. That’s my educational message to my children," Mor said. "If we agree to a deal, it means people we don’t know, whose faces we can’t see, will be murdered... We don’t know who they are but we know they will be murdered."
’I HAVEN’T GIVEN UP ON MY SON’
The opposing approaches between the two hostage family forums were on display during a December 17 appearance on Kan TV in which Mor was berated by Alon Nimrodi, the father of Tamir Nimrodi, an IDF soldier captured by Hamas.
Mor said, "Pleading with [Hamas] to speak with us is ridiculous and irresponsible. You wouldn’t even buy a secondhand electric scooter that way."
Responded Nimrodi: "Tzvika, if you have given up on your son... I haven’t given up on my son. I am not willing to hear words like that, and in my opinion, you are in a total minority with that position of yours. Those statements of yours are arrogant. I’m sorry to say this to you."
Mor then charged that Nimrodi was "reading word for word from a PR messaging page prepared in Tel Aviv."
Mor later broke down and cried on air.
Since that exchange, Mor and Nimrodi have had a rapprochement.
"He tried reaching me right after our TV appearance, but I was so upset I could not answer my phone," said Mor. "The morning after, we spoke at length. I don’t blame Nimrodi — just before our appearance on TV he had attended the funeral of his son’s best friend. What made things worse was that the producer did not tell us we would be on the show together."
Mor makes it clear that just because he is opposed to negotiating with Hamas doesn’t mean he cares any less about his son.
"Not a day goes by that I don’t cry for Eitan. But that doesn’t mean I wallow in self-pity," he said.
Mor and other relatives of hostages who oppose public protests that can be construed as attempts to pressure the government say they have encountered antagonism from within the Hostages and Missing Persons Families Forum. With the lives of their loved ones hanging in the balance, the emotions of parents, grandparents, spouses, and children of hostages are understandably at a breaking point, and at least in the eyes of Nimrodi and other like-minded relatives of Hamas captives, Mor is promoting a course of action that could endanger the lives of their family members.
"We saw there were a number of families within the Tel Aviv forum that attacked us and bullied us and we were unable to express our ideas in a democratic way," said Mor. "These families are by no means the majority, but they are the most vocal. They set the tone." "We saw there were a number of families within the Tel Aviv forum that attacked us and bullied us and we were unable to express our ideas in a democratic way," said Mor. "These families are by no means the majority, but they are the most vocal. They set the tone."
Mor said that the Hostages and Missing Persons Families Forum messaging was dictated by a left-wing, anti-government political agenda.
Indeed.
"We can’t agree with the anti-government strategy of Ronen Tzur," said Mor, referring to one of the co-founders, and present head of the Hostages and Missing Persons Families Forum.
Tzur, a former Labor MK, is a political strategist and public relations campaigner who was instrumental in the campaign to free Shalit. In recent years he led a campaign against Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called "How to defeat Bibi-ist terror." He was a former adviser to current war cabinet minister MK Benny Gantz.
Other dominant voices in the Hostages and Missing Persons Families Forum include former Labor MKs Emilie Moatti and Colette Avital, and J Street Israel director Nadav Tamir.
A HOUSE DIVIDED
Soon after the October 7 attack, families of hostages realized they had to cooperate, share information and formulate a campaign. The Mor and Libman families were initially part of this effort. A group of lawyers, media strategists and former diplomats volunteered to help. They formed the Hostages and Missing Families Forum.
Cybersecurity firm Checkpoint donated a building on Leonardo Da Vinci Street, adjacent to Hostages Square, which is now the headquarters of the Hostages and Missing Persons Families Forum.
Donations from businesses and private individuals have enabled the Hostages and Missing Persons Families Forum to conduct a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign to raise awareness of the plight of the hostages both locally and worldwide.
There are finance, legal and medical staff as well as international relations, a graphics team, social workers and psychologists operating out of the headquarters — all volunteers. The organization also provides food to families of hostages.
Due to the location of the Hamas attack, in the southwest Negev, a disproportionately high percentage of hostages are from secular kibbutzim that have traditionally supported Labor, which seems to explain the strong presence of Labor-affiliated people working for the hostages forum. Fittingly, the building now housing the Hostages and Missing Persons Families Forum was once the headquarters of the Kibbutz Movement.
But not all the families of the hostages fully identify with what they see as the Hostages and Missing Persons Families Forum’s political agenda.
"We can’t condone a strategy of capitulation to Hamas that Ronen Tzur is spearheading, as though we have to give them an offer that Hamas can’t refuse," said Mor.
He claimed that many families were not happy with the way the Hostages and Missing Persons Families Forum was being run and that only about 15 families were really active in the forum.
One source in Tikva that preferred to remain anonymous claimed Tzur is exploiting the hostage crisis to lead an anti-government line as a continuation of his "Bibi-ist terror" campaign.
Tzur said in a written response on January 10: "I respect Tzvika Mor and I wish for him and for everyone the speedy return of Eitan. I extend my hand to Tzvika, as I did this week in the Knesset and offer to work together for the return of the hostages and to unite the people of Israel after their return, God willing."
Tzur said he was not aware of the bullying Mor referred to and that he personally had never participated in a meeting where there was such bullying.
"The Hostages and Missing Persons Families Forum includes 110 families, representing more than 90 percent of the families of hostages, and decisions for action are made by vote," Tzur said.
Tzur added that the pain of the families as expressed in public, including in the Knesset meeting with Levy, is authentic, deep and full of real anger and fury.
"To claim that the expression of this pain and sorrow is motivated by politics is patronizing," he said. "In summation, I have a personal request for Tzvika: Don’t tell any volunteer like myself that he is working for Hamas. We are all brothers and we shouldn’t forget that."
Regarding the Hostages and Missing Persons Families Forum’s position on specific steps such as increasing military pressure, releasing Paleostinian murderous Moslems in exchange for hostages, or some form of ceasefire, Tzur said, "The Families Forum acts to release the hostages in every possible way and does not interfere with the war cabinet’s operational considerations for the IDF and the security establishment."
’WE AREN’T THE ONLY ONES IN THIS’
At Tohar High School, Mor ended his hourlong lecture and took questions from the girls.
"Aren’t you worried about ripping the nation apart again?" asked one girl, referring to the demonstrations and public festivities over the Netanyahu government’s proposed overhaul of the judicial system in the months leading up to October 7 that nearly tipped the country into a civil war.
(A few days after this question was asked, the Supreme Court struck down a key element of the government’s proposed judicial overhaul, the latest blow traded in the ongoing struggle.)
"I believe that 95% of the people are with me," said Mor. "So that is not called ripping anything apart."
Mor was temporarily drowned out by the roar of a fighter jet, apparently headed to Gaza.
"On its way to another satisfied customer," quipped Mor before continuing. "I tell those families who want a deal at any price, ’People are sick of seeing you putting yourselves first.’
"I tell them, ’You are losing the support of the people. You aren’t the only ones in this. There are families who don’t sleep at night because their sons are fighting in Gaza. There are evacuees. Try to be with the people.’ They are so stuck in their sorrow that they can’t lift up their heads," he said to the girls.
The Tikva Forum, Mor told The Times of Israel, was established when it became impossible to voice a more pro-government position within the Hostages and Missing Persons Families Forum.
Tikva has a distinctly religious Zionist political leaning and several members are residents of West Bank settlements. In addition to Mor, a resident of Kiryat Arba, the Tikva Forum’s two other founders are also settlers: Kiryat Arba council chairman Eliyahu Libman, the father of Elyakim Libman, and Shilo resident Ditza Or, the mother of Avinatan Or.
Shira Libman, CEO of the Yesha Council, who is also the sister-in-law of Eliyahu Libman and the aunt of hostage Elyakim Libman, said that one of the goals of the Tikva Forum, the way she sees it, is to support families that want to publicly present a different voice over the fate of the hostages.
"It’s not easy," said Libman, "to be so selfless, to be willing to speak up so forcefully in favor of pressuring Hamas into freeing the hostages when the natural response of any parent whose child is taken hostage is to focus solely on getting that child free at any price."
Libman said that while additional families may not be in favor of paying any price to release their relatives, they feel isolated and afraid that if they speak up they will be seen as uncaring — or worse, that they could be endangering their relatives in captivity who are at risk of Hamas retaliation.
"What makes it even more difficult is the fact that there was a major failure — that because the state failed on October 7, now the government should pay whatever price to get the hostages back," she said.
"But if we continue to pay the price, there will be no end to this. Hamas will learn to continue this strategy and the next time instead of 250 hostages there will be 2,500 hostages and instead of 1,200 people murdered there will be 12,000, God forbid."
Mor said it’s "incomprehensible" that Hamas is setting the terms for a deal and Israel is not forcing it out of its tunnels by cutting off its water, its food, its fuel.
Mor’s position is based on the premise that even a temporary truce, like the one agreed upon at the end of November to facilitate the release of Israeli hostages, takes pressure off Hamas. The food, fuel and water permitted into Gaza — as humanitarian measures, but often commandeered by Hamas — undoubtedly enable Hamas to continue fighting. He also argues that organizing public pressure against the government to strike a deal with the terror group inflates the price Hamas will demand.
But would Mor feel the same about the previous hostage deal, or a future one, if his own son were on the list of hostages slated for release?
"Any deal that hurts our national dignity; that shows we are weak, that we don’t have the ability to persevere, that we are not willing to sacrifice — and as a result undermines our security and will lead to Jews being murdered in the future — I will oppose," said Mor. "Even if my son is on the list of hostages slated to be released."
Not all members of the Tikva Forum are willing to declare themselves on board with that.
Shilo resident Ditza Or, mother of Avinatan, preferred not to say whether she would be capable of opposing a hostage deal that would see her son released.
"What I can tell you is that I’m in favor of a deal — and I am actively working for such a deal — in which the IDF will completely dismantle Hamas to the point where those senior Hamas members who remain will give up the hostages to save themselves," she said. "They’ll get their lives in exchange for the life of my son."
Or’s son Avinatan appeared in a Hamas video posted on Telegram together with his girlfriend Noa Argamani. The video shows Argamani, who has both Chinese and Israeli citizenship, being forcibly held, sitting between two murderous Moslems on an all-terrain vehicle on its way to Gaza as she reaches out her arms to Avinatan, who is being marched away from her, surrounded by at least three more terrorists. The two had been at the Supernova festival. 
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