“Bring them home.” Those are the words on a wristband I have now worn for an entire year, a daily reminder of the innocent captives held in the dungeons of Gaza. The reminder is especially necessary in the United States where the plight of Hamas’s American hostages has barely registered in the public consciousness. Calls for ceasefires, campus protests, Iranian ballistic missile attacks and international outrage over Israeli military and intelligence operations have dominated headlines since October 7, 2023. The fate of U.S. citizens held hostage by Hamas has been a mere afterthought.
Listening to the Biden administration, one might not know that of the 97 hostages who remain in captivity by Hamas there are seven Americans, including four who are believed to be alive. When they do speak of them, they rarely reaffirm the priority to protect U.S. citizens.
That is more than a tragedy for these seven souls. It is a loss for all U.S. citizens — the loss of security and safety abroad. The blue passport, once the envy of billions of people across the world, has been desecrated.
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We were led to believe that the silence from the White House was simply sophisticated diplomatic and military strategy at work. Then on September 1, 2024, Hamas executed Hersh Goldberg-Polin. This was no accident.
Hersh was perhaps the most high-profile American captive in Gaza. He was featured in a Hamas propaganda video on April 24, 2024, and his parents spoke at the Democratic National Convention in August. Yet, the government behind his blue passport failed to save his life.
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In words that ring hollow with every passing day since Hersh’s death, President Joe Biden promised Hamas would “pay for these crimes.” Exactly what price the U.S. has exacted from Hamas remains unknown and unseen while American captives remain brutalized in Gaza’s tunnels.
Instead of warfare, the Biden administration engaged in lawfare. Following Goldberg-Polin’s murder, Attorney General Merrick Garland charged Yahya Sinwar on September 3 for “financing, directing, and overseeing a decades-long campaign to murder American citizens and endanger the national security of the United States.”
The lawsuit is no more than a talking point that won’t save a soul. Iowa Republican Senator Joni Ernst (R-IA) summed up well the perverse post-October 7 world where Hamas was “emboldened to celebrate the death of Americans when they should be cowering in fear of the response awaiting them for spilling American blood.”
If you listen to the Biden administration, the return of American hostages is tied to a ceasefire deal that might release some hostages — a group that may or may not include Americans. Yet, after a year, it is clear the diplomatic track where the U.S. occupies the passive mediator role and elevates Hamas to state-like status has failed.
It recently leaked that American officials have finally acknowledged in private that a hostage deal is a fantasy. There is no longer an excuse not to unleash the fire and fury of our nation on a terrorist group that continues to harass and humiliate our citizens.
Our leaders have fallen victim to an unprecedented form of fatalism. They have let us believe that America is helpless. We are not. After this year of loss, we cannot also lose our will to defend the words printed in every U.S. passport, instructing the world to allow Americans “to pass without delay or hindrance.”
ROGER ZAKHEIM
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