Things seem to have moved after the Cabinet meeting this morning, but there are some pretty big caveats:
[The announcement] will stipulate the need for the release of all the hostages still held by Hamas and be based on a guarantee the terror group no longer rules Gaza, sources say.
Also made me wonder how Starmer’s conversation with Trump went yesterday. Not good?
why are those held by hamas “hostages” but those held by zionists “captives”?
Oh this one is simple.
Basically…
Well, Hamas explicitly kidnapped those people with the aim of using them for negotiations, whereas the people held by Israel are either prisoners or POWs.
Obviously, I don’t trust the Israeli government an inch in terms of the guilt of those prisoners, fairness of the process or the conditions they’re being held in, but there is a difference just as a matter of definition.
what is the difference between a kidnapped person and a pow if both are held for the purposes of negotiation?
hamas is a group fighting colonialism and invasion.
“israel” is a group doing colonialism and invasion.
I think the difference is civilian vs combatant. Unfortunately, Israel has designated all Palestinians as combatants to justify their slaughter.
https://www.aaiusa.org/library/debunking-all-palestinians-are-hamas
POWs aren’t captured for the purposes of negotiation, that’s the point. The Allies negotiated with the Axis over the release and transfer of POWs after WW2, but no one would call them hostages, on either side.
Look, as I said, Israel’s government is terrible and treats people appallingly, but the answer to your original question really just is: because Hamas kidnapped those people intending to use them as hostages.
and you still don’t see my point - calling them hostages when they are actually pows is a thing because it delegitimizes the struggle hamas has in booting zionists out of palestine. call them what they are: pows.
heck if only because israeli adults are conscripted military assets anyway.
But not all the hostages were adults, nor were they even all Israelis, conscripted or not.
cool. the point still stands. hamas is not holding “hostages” if israel is holding “prisoners.”
You can’t call people who got arrested by israel in land that doesn’t belong to them prisoners. They may not be hostages but them being abducted is a fact
My argument is that they’re not hostages, so I’m glad we agree.
I don’t know why you’ve introduced this new argument about whether they’re ‘prisoners’ but I suggest you take it up with, e.g., The Palestinian Prisoners Association.
Also good for Israeli PR…
I mean, as I said elsewhere, there’s plenty to get annoyed about without also imagining new things. If an organisation kidnaps a bunch of civilians with a view to using them for extortion, those captives are hostages, and it is different to when even that very same organisation captures soldiers in a war, because those captives are POWs. Words do actually have a meaning! Not every usage of words is a matter of some overarching nefariousness!
There is no difference between what Hamas did and what Israeli regime does both are extra judicial detention aka kidnapping.
Okay, but, not to be excessively pedantic here, the question was not ‘Are they both kidnappers?’ (which, if a state can be said to kidnap people, then yes, I agree, they are), but ‘Are all the captives hostages?’ which, as I keep saying, is not at all clear.
But this isn’t even a comparison which makes the Israelis look good! With hostages there’s an implied intent to eventually release them (in exchange for whatever you want to extort). One of the reasons the Palestinians held by the Israelis aren’t hostages is that Israel clearly has no intention of releasing them.
Abducting people without any demands from the captors is worse
Yes, that’s what I said in the comment you’re replying to.
Same way people moving to the UK are referred to as migrants, but people leaving the UK call themselves ex-pats.