Open Letter to Hamas

By Walter E. Block

I am now appointing myself as a speech writer for the Prime Minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu. What shall he say in this, the first communication I am now writing for him? It is a message directed to Hamas, and reads as follows:

Be very careful with those hostages you are now holding. It will be in your best interest to release, immediately, all of those who are in danger of perishing: the elderly, the sick, the weak, those of very tender years (I especially have my eye on that five year old boy who is a captive of yours). Why? Because for every hostage who is not eventually returned to us, alive, we will execute 10 Palestinians. Oh, no, do not worry, we will not pick up random Gazan civilians and kill them (not that you worry, overmuch, about them; if you did, you would not be continually using them as shields, suicide bombers). That is not our way. That is your way, vis a vis helpless Israelis.

 We will not emulate you in this manner. We would be entirely justified in so doing in response, you started down this particular garden path, but we regard purposefully doing away with civilians, as you do, as barbaric.

Who, then, shall suffer the consequences of Israeli and other hostages of yours dying while in captivity? We have almost 10,000 Palestinian prisoners in our jails. Many of them, albeit not all, have been found guilty of murder. In dozens of other countries such criminals would have long ago been subject to a hanging or a firing squad. Israel has the death penalty on our books. So far, however, we have executed only one person, Adolf Eichmann. However, to the extent I am able to make it possible, all that changes forthwith. As I say, for every one of your hostages not returned alive, I will execute ten of them. I want you people to be the first outsiders to hear of this new policy of mine.

I full well realize that this new policy of mine may backfire. It might well be that this new initiative will encourage you to murder, or allow to die out of negligence (that would be just about the same thing) even more of your captives than would otherwise have taken place. Why?

There are several reasons. First, you are a death cult. You relish death, not life. The more people who die, the better you like it. Yes, yes, you prefer the deaths of your enemies (slightly) more than those of your own. You particularly relish sending Jews to the afterlife. But you are not at all adverse to the demise of your own people either. That is shown by your practice of suicide bombers; by your systematic placing of rocket launchers and other military weaponry in hospitals, Mosques, children’s playgrounds, residential areas, and, of late, in safe zones we have established to reduce collateral damage.

Then, too, there is the fact that when it comes to hatred you are truly world class. We take our hats off to you in this regard. Not our yalmicas, just our proverbial hats. Stated Golda Meir, “When peace comes we will perhaps in time be able to forgive the Arabs for killing our sons, but it will be harder for us to forgive them for having forced us to kill their sons. Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us.”

You are masters of public relations. We readily acknowledge your superiority over us in this realm. When it comes to crocodile tears, there are none who can exceed you. If there were an Olympic event in this skill, you would have come away with a gold medal. Who else could get some three dozen student clubs at Harvard to castigate us, not you, on October 8, 2023, for the atrocity of the previous day? Who else could get the UN to blame Israel for human rights violations twice as often as all other nations put together? Who else could so heavily turn world opinion against the only civilized and democratic country in the Middle East? We have no doubt you will be able to turn our execution of Palestinian murderers in response to the deaths of hostages you hold, against us. You will consider those vicious killers as holy martyrs, and so will they.

I don’t bloody well care about the ensuing bad publicity. We are accustomed to going it alone. I don’t like to brag but we have been kicked out of more European countries, and not allowed into many more others, than anyone else. We shall do what is right, good publicity or not, world opinion for us or much more likely, against us.

As for your possible retaliation, I continue to believe that the stick is a better means, when dealing with homicidal maniacs, than the carrot. Two can play at that game. If ten to one deaths does not engender any reasonableness on your part regarding the at risk hostages, there are other, greater, proportions out there. When and if we run out of prisoners, there are always civilians. We have never, ever, purposefully aimed in this direction, but even our long-suffering patience does have a limit. I go to sleep thinking, especially, about that little Israeli boy who has been your captive for lo these many months. You really are despicable.

It cannot be denied that Palestinian civilians have died at our hands. It was our bullets and our bombs that were and are the proximate cause of these unfortunate occurrences. But you bear the ultimate responsibility for these deaths, some 40,000 if your statistics can be relied upon. If you have not used them as shields, if you had not committed the atrocities of October 7, they would still be alive. In sharp contrast, on that day which shall live forever in infamy, you purposefully aimed your efforts at civilians. Shame on you.

We are still considering precisely what to do about your slaughter of the six hostages you have callously murdered while you held them under your control. Believe me, our reaction will not be a pretty one. You will greatly regret that decision of yours. You will burn in hell for that despicable act, and I shall do my utmost to render your life here on earth as hellish as possible.