Free The Hostages, Then Free Palestine From Hamas

It's been five months since the horrific massacre of the Nova Music Festival.

Since that declaration of war, a lot has happened, but with International Women's Day approaching, it's important to remember those young women (and children, and elderly, and men) still being held hostage in Gaza.

Some hostages were exchanged during a six-day ceasefire in late November of 2023.

On November 30th, after several days of hostage exchanges, Israel asked Hamas for a list of the hostages due to be released the next day, and warned that if Hamas didn't provide it, hostilities would resume at 7:00 on December 1st. True to form, Hamas not only didn't provide the list, but they launched the first rocket, breaking the ceasefire, at 6:00.

There was a ceasefire in place on October 7th. Hamas broke that, too.

The unfortunate truth is that Hamas doesn't have any trust to leverage here. No country is willing to take them at their word without concrete evidence to back it up. Not anymore.

From the moment the latest doomed war started, Israel has said that their main goal is to get the hostages back.

Hamas could end the war today by returning the remaining hostages, or their bodies. They know this, yet they still demand a complete withdrawal of IDF forces from Gaza, and 48 hours of Humanitarian aid, uninspected and unescorted, before they promise, for honest-really-reals this time, that they'll give Israel the names of the remaining hostages and begin negotiations over giving them back.

This proposal is, in layman's terms, delusional. Both for the lack of trust as stated above, and the inequality of the demands.

If someone steals your car, live-streams themselves doing it, and you see the footage, you might give them the chance to give it back before calling the police and having them arrested.

Imagine if you offered that chance, and the car-thief says "First swear that you won't call the cops, disconnect your mobile and landline, buy me a new car... and in a week I promise I'll return your car."

How seriously would you take such an offer?

As Golda Meir, 4th Prime Minister of Israel and first female Head of State in the Middle East (nearly half a century before Australia managed a similar feat) said, "There will be peace in the Middle East only when the Arabs love their children more than they hate Israel." ~ Golda Meir

Golda, the "Grandmother of Israel", is another inspirational woman. She survived the violent Russian Pograms, fleeing to America with her family. Her activism started early, in 1905, raising money for textbooks in impoverished schools. She moved with her husband back to what would become Israel, then still under the control of the Ottoman empire.

In 1934, she took on leadership of the Jewish Agency, after the British officials in charge of the then-Mandate of Palestine arrested the male leadership en masse, accusing them of exceeding the very limited quotas of Jews allowed to enter the area (while fleeing the early stages of the Holocaust.)

Serving as an Ambassador, Labor Minister, and then as Foreign Minister from 1956, Golda was elected Prime Minister in 1969, and led Israel during the Yom Kippur War, but was largely blamed for the deaths of 2,700 soldiers during the time, and resigned afterward.

Her political downfall serves as a powerful illustration of the fact that a woman can do everything possible, and still be blamed for not being good enough.

She also said "Once in a Cabinet we had to deal with the fact that there had been an outbreak of assaults on women at night. One minister suggested a curfew; women should stay home after dark. I said, 'But it's the men who are attacking the women. If there's to be a curfew, let the men stay home, not the women." ~ Golda Meir

More leaders could learn from her.

I don't agree with Gwenyth Paltrow on much.

Frankly, the only time I don't roll my eyes as soon as she opens her mouth is when she's palying a character on screen. However, she is one of the few Western Celebrities calling out the double standard of the UN and UN-Associated Governments who refuse to openly condemn Hamas's use of Rape as a weapon, both on October 7th, and on the women still held hostage.

A fourteen year old girl who was relaeased in the first round of prisoner exchanges needed an abortion after being returned to Israel. Think about why that is.

The fact that she's willing to speak up, when so many celebriities who were at the forefront of #MeToo are keeping quiet for fear of being cancelled by the vocal (and uninformed) minority, is inspirational, no matter how much I disagree with her the rest of the time.