The Fight is Worth It, Even When it's Hard and the World is Against You
Just Ask Former Peace Activist Ada Sagi What She Thinks and Why
I’ve often wondered how peace activists can justify their stance. Don’t get me wrong. I understand that war brings death and destruction. Any country that goes to are is going to end up with years worth of liabilities, whether in repairing the physical damage done to the country, indemnifying the families of those killed in service, caring for those who were wounded in the fighting, to include those with mental injuries, and probably a billion and one other things. I get that.
War is terrible and I get that. Maybe not as well as someone who has seen combat, but I do get it. War is something that no country should engage in unless necessary. The difference between myself and a peacenik is that I believe that there are times when war is necessary and that there are worse alternatives than fighting. Ada Sagi used to disagree with that. Having been held hostage by Hamas, she now sees what needs to happen. She shared her thoughts with the BBC.
An Israeli peace activist who was seized from her home on 7 October and held hostage for 53 days in Gaza has told the BBC how her ordeal destroyed her belief that peace is possible between Palestinians and Israelis.
In her first UK interview since being freed in November, Ada Sagi, 75, also told Emma Barnett on Radio 4's Today programme how she was held in an apartment by paid guards, that Hamas kept her in a hospital before her release - and that she now believes the world hates Jews.
"I don't believe in peace, I don't sorry," the Arabic and Hebrew teacher said. "I understand Hamas don't want it."
Ms Sagi lived for decades in the Nir Oz kibbutz near the Israel-Gaza border, trying to help reconciliation efforts by teaching Israelis Arabic to speak to their neighbours.
So a woman who lived in the shadow of Hamas aggression, who actively worked to promote good feelings between the two sides of the Arab/Israeli conflict no longer sees peace as an option. I kind of feel bad for her. Turning her back on her life’s work must not have been an easy thing for Ms. Sagi. It wouldn’t be for me. So what happened to turn her away from the path she had walked all of her life?
In the autumn of 2023, she was planning to come to London to visit her son Noam and celebrate her birthday.
But all that changed when Hamas attacked southern Israel, killing about 1,200 people and taking 251 hostages into Gaza, Ms Sagi among them.
Ada, who turned 75 while held hostage by those she describes as “Hamas terrorists”, was finally freed 53 days later.
I can see where that would be enough to do it. Keep in mind that Ms. Sagi is a woman who has worked her whole life to repair the breach. Hamas didn’t care. They took her anyway. To them she was nothing but a way to gain leverage over the Israeli government. She was used as a pawn by people who hated her. Think about that for a second. I’m not sure she would phrase it that way, but I would imagine that she’s thought something similar.
So what was happened while she was illegally incarcerated by Hamas?
Ms Sagi describes how, when she was first taken into Gaza, she and some other hostages were hidden in a family home with children, but the following day taken to an apartment in the southern city of Khan Younis because it was "dangerous".
The apartment owner, Ms Sagi said, told them his wife and children had been sent to stay with his in-laws. The man, she added, was a nurse.
She said students were being paid to watch over them. "I heard them say... 70 shekels [£14.82; $18.83] for a day," she said.
"It's a lot of money in Gaza because they have no work. And if you have work not with Hamas, it's no more than 20 shekels for a day," she said.
Ms Sagi was among 105 hostages released in November in return for a week-long ceasefire and some 240 Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails.
She described the terrible uncertainty of the run up to her release on the fifth day of the deal along with nine other Israelis and two Thais.
"Every knocking on the door you think there is somebody coming to take you," she said.
When the hostages heard there was a deal and that the older women would be released, she said one of the women eventually freed with her was "terrified" she might have been too young to be included.
"But our housekeeper said: ‘No. You came together, you go together,’" she explained.
On day 49 - a Friday - Ms Sagi said they were told: "You are going home", which she didn't believe.
"At lunchtime, they gave us food... they take us by car to Khan Younis and we go [un]til the border of Rafah [on the border with Egypt]."
But something had gone wrong and they had to return to Khan Younis.
"We are told they are releasing women with children, [and you feel] all the happiness that you are going to be released, and [then] something goes wrong," she said.
When they got into the city, Ms Sagi said, they were taken to a hospital - which she believes was southern Gaza's main hospital, Nasser - and told: "You are staying here."
Ms Sagi said: "People say that they are not involved. They're involved... and getting money for each of us."
Testimony from a number of other released hostages places 10 hostages in total at Nasser hospital, one of whom remains in captivity.
I’ll leave out the fact that Hamas, which is in no way a liberal democracy and does not lead a capitalist country keeps it’s people so broke that less than nineteen dollars is considered to be a good day’s wage. That’s too easy and it’s not part of the point I’m trying to make here. It would be interesting, however, to find out how the war is effecting the seventeen thousand Gazans that were working in Israel before the war started.
The fact remains that an enemy that will do this to your people is an enemy worth fighting. If the only way to keep them from doing it again is to kill their soldiers, their leadership and any civilians unfortunate to be caught in the way then so be it. And honestly, if the people are acting as hostage holders they’re no longer civilians. If Hamas cared about the lives of the civilians on their side they’d build their tunnels and hide their hostages in non-civilian areas. I hate to say it, but the other side’s dead civilians are not an adequate reason to stop fighting.
And let’s not forget what happened on October 7. The dead. The kidnapped. The carnage. All because Hamas wants to kill Jews.
And don’t forget this either: Gaza hasn’t been occupied since 2005. Israeli settlers were forced out of Gaza by the IDF, some literally at gunpoint. That didn’t stop Hamas from killing Israelis.
The only thing Hamas will be happy with is the total annihilation of Israel and every Jewish person in it. Hamas’s goal is no less than a Second Holocaust. “First comes Saturday, then comes Sunday,” right? Or was it “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be (Jew) free?” Take your pick, I guess.
Or choose this one: “From the Sea to the River, Israel shall live forever.” Or at least as long as the IDF can defend it. And that’s worth fighting for.
As for Ms. Sagi,
"I lost my home. I lost my freedom - the whole place that I [have] to go back. Our village - kibbutz - is destroyed," she said.
“I cried good. I'm not ‘iron woman’, like everybody says. Sometimes you cry and it's good. My mother would say: ‘To cry, it cleans the eye.’”
Let’s hope we don’t have to see too many more clean Israeli eyes. As for the Palestinians, Hamas could stop their tears tomorrow if they would accept the fact that a nation that already exists isn’t going away.