As the war progresses and it becomes clearer this was never about hostages, the talking points are predictably evolving.
If only they had been this honest when they hoodwinked the Israeli and American Jewish public that actually cared about the hostages.
As you know to anyone paying close attention it’s least been clear the hostages are simply a talking point that they use to garner support and deflect criticism. It’s been this way since Oct 8th.
The American media still hasn’t figured it out.
Yeah - I mean, they were fairly clear from the start that they were going to destroy Gaza, I think, with the hostages as a benefit of that process but not a goal.
The thing that's shifted is that they're realizing they can't achieve that.
They weren’t clear. There is an entire propaganda machine that spent the last 8 months selling American Jews in particular on the claim that support for the war was synonymous with supporting the hostages.
I guess part of it depends on the 'they' in question. Bibi was expressing that from the day the first troops crossed the border; the American Jewish leadership still tries to hide from that.
Idk about the Israeli public.
I think that Bibi and his gov panicked when the US, Qatar and Egypt were negotiating hostage release cease fires successfully.
They needed the material and rhetorical support for war crimes flowing from the US gov and Bibi understood the hostages needed to stay hostages or die to maintain that aid.
If they did have all the hostages back, there would be a lot more pressure on them to stop. Recovering hostages at faster than a drip is counter-productive to Netanyahu's goals.
