Eight hundred and forty-three days of captivity brought scenes of horror previously unimaginable: extracting bodies from ice-cream freezers, digging through cemeteries in search of bones. In the second week, it was even considered granting all hostages American citizenship after Hamas hinted it would release foreign nationals first.
But one scene was spared: had the Shamgar Commission report been legislated—the commission that proposed extremely rigid rules for negotiations with kidnappers in 2012—would a stunned Israeli society have allowed it to stand? Or, under Hamas pressure, would the Knesset have convened and repealed the law at Sinwar’s demand?
The commission recommended severing all contact between hostage families and decision-makers to prevent undue pressure—a decree the children of winter 2023 would not have endured. It demanded preventing publication of negotiation details—an innocence that now provokes bitter laughter. And it also reached an interesting conclusion, long before October 7: the state has a greater obligation to return a captured soldier than a civilian.
Did it envision a scenario of a mother abducted with her two soft, red-haired children?
Four prime ministers have served since the Shamgar Commission was established—or by its unofficial name: the commission to end extortion by kidnappers of Israelis. Some prime ministers drifted to the far left, some forged alliances with the radical right, but all shared one thing: none adopted the report. Even before the hostage crisis, there was a prime ministerial principle at work—people addicted to influence and power do not like tying their own hands. As the Israeli author Ephraim Kishon once said: I do not make a habit of undermining myself.
But the main reason the law was never passed is that, like the draft law, culture cannot be changed through legislation. A state’s or a sector’s ethos—right or wrong—will wash over any Knesset or government decision. Even Itamar Ben-Gvir deceives himself when he advances mandatory death penalties. What would Israel look like if such a law were repealed at the demand of the next terror organization?
Israel, as a state, must now clean up after itself and repair the immense damage caused by the hostage-terror arena. One can bask in what happened at Hostages Square and say, “We brought them back.” Or one can look reality straight in the eye and see the terrible price that was paid.
Even the late President Shamgar focused only on the number of terrorists released per Israeli. He never imagined a day when the enemy would demand strategic prices in return—such as withdrawals or an end to the war.
Therefore, the required tool must combine broad national consensus and be less rigid than the Shamgar Commission but tougher than current Israeli policy. Perhaps a charter of basic principles signed by most party leaders, perhaps a public commission. As the Israeli poet Natan Alterman once suggested:
“To place my hand in the craftsman’s guiding hand,
and hear him say, as I approach the task in fervor:
‘Child, hold the tool firmly—but gently.’”
