At funeral, Israeli president asks for forgiveness from Goldberg-Polin family
(JTA) — Israeli President Isaac Herzog apologized for Israel’s failure to free the captives held by Hamas in his comments at the funeral of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, the 23-year-old American Israeli hostage murdered in Gaza last month.
Herzog was the first speaker, preceding Goldberg-Polin’s parents, Rachel Goldberg-Polin and Jon Polin. He spoke first in Hebrew and then in English, in a nod to the many English speakers among the mourners, and the broad international interest in the funeral of a young man who had become a symbol of Israel’s hostage crisis thanks to the advocacy of his family.
In both languages, Herzog used the vocabulary of apology — “slicha” in Hebrew, “sorry” in English.
“As a father and as the president of the State of Israel, I want to say how sorry I am, how sorry I am that we didn’t protect Hersh on that dark day, how sorry I am that we failed to bring him home,” he said in his English comments. “In his life and in his death, Hersh has touched all of humanity deeply. He has shaped our world and woven his essence of light and love into the story of the Jewish people and into our human story,” he added. In Hebrew, he had offered more expansive comments, asking for forgiveness directly from Hersh and his family.
“I apologize on behalf of the State of Israel, that we failed to protect you in the terrible disaster of Oct. 7, that we failed to bring you home safely. I apologize that the country you immigrated to at the age of 7, wrapped in the Israeli flag, could not keep you safe,” Herzog said.
Herzog also spoke in Hebrew with more force about the roughly 100 hostages still known to be in Gaza — and in acknowledging the breach of the state’s responsibilities in allowing them to be taken and kept there.
“Now – the State of Israel has an urgent and immediate task,” he said. “Decision-makers must do everything possible, with determination and courage, to save those who can still be saved, and to bring back all our sons and daughters, our brothers and sisters.”
He added, “This is not a political goal, and it must not become a political dispute. It is a supreme moral, Jewish, and human duty of the State of Israel to its citizens. We did not fulfill this duty. And now – we have a sacred and shared obligation, to stand up and bring them all back to their homeland.”
The remarks were a nod to the new wave of anger within Israeli society that has opened since the discovery of the bodies of Goldberg-Polin and five other hostages. Protest has spread over the government’s failure to bring the hostages home since they were taken during Hamas’ Oct. 7 invasion of southern Israel. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the main target of the anger over the perception that he has blocked ceasefire proposals that Israeli security and military leaders endorse, apologized directly to the family of one of those killed, marking his first public apology to any family affected by Oct. 7. But other families declined to take his calls.
Netanyahu apologizes for the first time to a hostage family, blames Hamas for captives’ deaths
Ron Kampeas
(JTA) — Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu apologized for not freeing hostages as Israel woke up to the shattering news that Hamas terrorists murdered six captives who were on the verge of being rescued.
Some of those killed had been slated for release under a failed deal in July, an anonymous Israeli official told the Israeli news outlet Ynet.
Netanyahu’s apology, delivered Sunday, Sept. 1 to the parents of one of the six, Alex Lubnov, was a first for the prime minister who until now has said that accountability should come after Hamas is defeated in the war it launched with mass killings and abductions. He had previously apologized only that Oct. 7 had happened, and only in response to a question in English-language media.
“The prime minister expressed deep regret, and apologized to the family, that the State of Israel did not succeed in returning Alexander and the other five hostages alive,” his office said in a statement.
“I would like to tell you how much I regret and request forgiveness for not succeeding in bringing Sasha back alive,” the statement quoted Netanyahu as telling Oxana and Grigory Lubnov.
The statement said that Netanyahu would reach out to the other five families. Two of them reportedly declined to take his call.
The apology tour was a sign that Netanyahu understands the depth of public anger over the hostages’ deaths and over his failure to end the war and bring home the more than 100 hostages still held by Hamas. The Hostage Families Forum, which promised a “quake” in Israel minutes after the revelation that the army had recovered bodies, had by Sunday, Sept. 1 planned rallies in Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and New York.
In a statement mourning the dead, the group blamed the hostages’ deaths on “delays, sabotage and excuses,” an allusion to reports that Netanyahu has moved the goalposts in the U.S.-brokered efforts to bring about a ceasefire deal that would release the remaining hostages.
“A deal for the return of the hostages has been on the table for over two months,” the statement said. “Were it not for the delays, sabotage, and excuses those whose deaths we learned about this morning would likely still be alive. It’s time to bring our hostages home — the living for rehabilitation, and the fallen and murdered for burial in their homelands.”
The deal appears to be held up in part over Netanyahu’s insistence that the army maintains a substantive presence on the Egypt-Gaza border, in an area known as the Philadelphi corridor. Hamas — whose shifting demands have also frustrated a deal — wants the troops removed. Israel’s defense establishment, led by defense minister Yoav Gallant, believes Israel can move the troops and still secure the area.
Netanyahu took a harsh stance against Hamas in a separate video statement posted on social media on Sept. 1. “Whoever murders hostages — does not want a deal,” he said.
Gallant, meantime, called for a government vote on the proposal to move the troops from the border. “The cabinet must gather immediately and reverse the decision made on Thursday,” he said in his own statement, referring to a decision the previous week that culminated in a much-reported shouting match between him and Netanyahu. “It is too late for the hostages who were murdered in cold blood. We must bring back the hostages that are still being held by Hamas.”
Newscasters on the state-run broadcaster, Kan, were so taken aback by Netanyahu’s apology that one opened the news hour after the prime minister’s office put out the release by quoting Elton John’s song Sorry Seems to be the Hardest Word.
Carmela Menashe, who has for decades been Kan’s military reporter, contrasted Netanyahu’s apology, nearly 11 months into the crisis, with the late Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, who in 1994 immediately called a press conference after a botched raid to rescue Nachshon Waxman, a soldier held by Hamas. The radio ran tape of Rabin’s apology. Netanyahu is known to chafe at comparisons with the prime minister who was assassinated in 1995 by a Jewish extremist.
The shock for Israelis was sharpened because some of the dead hostages, who were reported to have been shot in the head just as Israeli troops were closing in on where they were held in a tunnel in the border city of Rafah, had become the faces of Israeli anguish. The dramatic stories of their capture, and the heroism of some as they resisted the terrorists and endured confinement, are part of the lore of the deadliest attack in Israeli history.
Among them was Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23, an Israeli American who lost his arm during the Oct. 7 raids and who was filmed being taken away in a pickup truck. He appeared in a video Hamas released in April. His parents, Rachel Goldberg and Jon Polin, brought the Democratic National Convention to a standstill last month when they appealed for a deal to release the hostages.
Three of the hostages killed — Goldberg-Polin, Eden Yerushalmi and Carmel Gat — had been on a list of those who would have been released under the terms of a July 2 ceasefire proposal, according to the Ynet report. The proposal faltered and soon after, U.S. President Joe Biden issued rare open criticism against Israel over its efforts to reach a deal.