From the Liveblog of
Tuesday, July 23, 2024
Amid attacks on Noa Argamani for joining PM’s trip, politicians and hostage families defend her
Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"
Both coalition and opposition lawmakers condemn virulent criticism faced by freed hostage Noa Argamani and her father Yaakov for agreeing to accompany Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on his visit to the United States, along with several other relatives of hostages.
Family members of other hostages held by the terror group Hamas had urged the Argamanis not to go, claiming this would bolster the premier, whom many blame for failing to secure a deal to free the hostages after more than nine months.
Many relatives of hostages have been waging a months-long protest campaign against the Netanyahu government’s failure to strike a deal with Hamas, while a minority of families have been calling on him to escalate military pressure as a means of coercing Hamas into softening its negotiation stance.
Argamani, who was rescued by Israeli forces last month alongside three other hostages, is set to join Netanyahu with her father and other hostage family members for the prime minister’s speech tomorrow to the US Congress in Washington, DC.
In a post on Facebook yesterday, left-wing Haaretz pundit Uri Misgav — a vehement critic of Netanyahu — said that Argamani and her father “should be ashamed of agreeing to serve as decor” for Netanyahu on the same day that the IDF announced the deaths in Hamas captivity of hostages Alex Dancyg and Yagev Buchshtav.
Retired journalist Dan Margalit echoed Misgav, calling Argamani’s presence in Netanyahu’s delegation a “disgrace” in a tweet to his 164,000 followers.
In response, Diaspora Affairs Minister Amichai Chikli (Likud) tweets that Argamani spent hundreds of days in captivity and has just lost her mother, and notes that her partner Avinatan Or is still being held in Gaza. He calls Misgav a “bottomless pit of gratuitous malice.”
Likud MK Eli Dallal calls Argamani a “real hero” and accuses her critics of “using her suffering for political criticism.” He says this constitutes “terrible, shameful and offensive behavior.”
“It is very good that Noa Argamani joined the prime minister’s delegation with representatives of the hostage families. She should be there to talk and recount what she went through in captivity and the urgency of bring back all the hostages,” chimes in Likud MK Boaz Bismuth.
Yair Golan, head of the left-wing Labor-Meretz union, rebranded as The Democrats, joins in condemning the criticism of Argamani, calling it “indecent.”
“None of us will understand the hell she went through,” Golan tweets, adding that even though Netanyahu’s trip was unnecessary and the premier has “abandoned” the hostages, “I respect Noa’s decision to join him.”
In a statement, the Hostages and Missing Families Forum condemns the attacks against Argamani and her father, saying that “the decision to take part in the prime minister’s delegation to Washington is a personal decision of each family.”
“If only you had heard Noa Argamani in front of the prime minister yesterday, how she sat upright and represented the abductees and the abductees who were left behind, you wouldn’t utter a word of criticism about her decision to fly to Washington,” argues Gil Dickmann, whose cousin Carmel Gat is one of the hostages.
