Signs are stuck onto empty chairs as people await news of hostages expected to be released by Hamas, amid a hostages-prisoners swap deal between Hamas and Israel, in Tel Aviv, Israel, November 25, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Alexander Ermochenko

I do not know any of the remaining hostages. If I did, I would do all I could to get them out — which would mean protesting.

When you engage in political activity, though, you want to be sure to advance your desired outcome — not harm it.

I have voted in about 10 national and local Israeli elections, but have never voted for Netanyahu, or his Likud Party. The hostages, however, are a matter of national consensus, regarding which I give Netanyahu the benefit of the doubt. I am sure he wants them home as much as anyone (who does not personally know them).

So what is the current government doing about the hostages? From day one, they mobilized hundreds of thousands of soldiers, and went to war. Soldiers have subsequently died, while hostage protesters have demonstrated at the Knesset, at Netanyahu’s office and house, at the Defense Ministry’s Tel Aviv headquarters, and around the country.

Netanyahu, and the Israeli government, are not the ones who took the hostages. Israelis cannot protest in front of Hamas’ headquarters, but they should be protesting be at UN facilities around the country, or at the embassies of countries calling for “restraint.”

When Hamas sees Israelis protesting their own government, they think that the Israeli government is under pressure to make concessions. That only emboldens them to harden their stance. It strengthens Hamas’ negotiating position, weakens Israel’s, and makes it harder to secure the release of the people the protests are intended to save.

The more that Hamas receives for the hostages, the more it encourages anti-Israel terrorists (including groups other than Hamas) to initiate future hostage taking operations.

UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres responded to October 7 by saying that it, “did not happen in a vacuum.” In an address to the National Press Club of Australia that included a slew of inflammatory remarks, given on November 14, while Hamas held 240 hostages, UN Special Rapporteur Francesca Albanese said that, “Israel cannot claim the right of self-defense against a threat that emanates from a territory it occupies.”

Hostage protesters have called for the families of those held in Gaza to have more face time with senior Israeli government officials, but isn’t it more important for government officials to deal with the actual military and diplomatic dimensions of administering the war, and the actual negotiations with Hamas, than for them to be briefing the families? We do not need meetings and handshakes for the cameras. We need freed hostages.

Prior to October 7, protesting Netanyahu was a civic duty. Regardless of judicial outcomes, it is inappropriate for a man with a history of manipulating news outlets, and receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars in jewelry and other items, on demand, to be prime minister. There are others capable of leading the country without such an aura of corruption.

With all respect to the issues that divide Israeli society, however, this moment calls for unity. Those who protest the people trying to secure the hostages’ release undermine their own cause, and may be endangering lives, when they could be in front of UN facilities supporting the Israeli effort.

Born and raised in Pennsylvania, Baruch Stein has been living in Jerusalem for about 15 years, and has contributed to newspapers in both the US and Israel. Articles of his have been translated into Spanish, German, and Italian. A different version of this article first appeared in Yedioth Ahronoth/Ynetnews.com