In their statement last week outside their home, the Goldin family surprised many by pointing an accusatory finger at a long-forgotten decision — one that, in their view, expressed the abandonment of their son Hadar after he was killed and kidnapped in Gaza in 2014. “They could have conditioned the Covid vaccines on Hadar’s return,” said his mother, Leah.
Few remember that debate from February 2021. The Knesset’s Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee convened — plexiglass dividers between members, masks on their faces. On the table: a plan to transfer 500 vaccines to Hamas leaders. “Anyone who prevents medical staff and civilians from being vaccinated is responsible for the illness or deaths of those people,” said MK Ahmad Tibi.
“I don’t see Yahya Sinwar taking his vaccine and giving it to the kind nurse in Gaza,” replied committee chair Zvi Hauser. Hauser demanded that the government clarify whether it intended “to condition this on the return of the soldiers’ bodies and the hostages, or at least to request a Red Cross visit or some information about them.” The answer, needless to say, was negative.
No one except Hauser emerges unscathed from that throwback — neither Netanyahu nor the opposition. At the time, Haaretz erupted in outrage. “Hauser conducted one of the most dreadful hearings ever held by this Knesset,” wrote Zehava Galon, a veteran of the far-left Meretz party. “When we keep a vaccine from a Gazan woman who has done us no harm, we lose part of our humanity,” she said. Yariv Oppenheimer, former director of Peace Now, added: “Wait a second — what’s the difference between electricity, water, and vaccines? By his logic we should cut off everything.” “This discussion is shameful, and in 20 years your children will be ashamed of your stance,” concluded Tibi.
Five years later, the discussion seems shameful indeed — but not for the reasons they thought. The core failure the Goldin family identified in real time was Israel’s decision to let Hamas have a state but feel like it didn’t. Sinwar outsourced governance: he built tunnels, not shelters; collected taxes, but provided no services. Whenever the citizens of Gaza needed anything, Israel was the one expected to provide or at least enable it. Thus came Qatari cash. Thus came the vaccines.
Israel fought Hamas (supposedly) as if it didn’t care about Gaza — and cared for Gaza as if Hamas weren’t ruling it. There was always someone pressing Jerusalem to “separate the population from its rulers,” and always someone at the top who gave in. There was also a tragic side effect that led to that fateful night of October 6-7: those who think they face a terror organization prepare for a raid — not for an army preparing a full-scale cross-border assault. So the kidnappers got vaccines, and from the hostages we heard nothing.
Let’s hope this sickness finally finds a cure — though it’s far from certain that it will.
The above is an excerpt from my Shabbat column in Israel Hayom. Read it on Israel Hayom’s website here.
