‘I feel sorry for them’: Rachel Goldberg in message to leaders who failed to close hostage deal to free Hersh
Jacob Magid is The Times of Israel's US bureau chief

Rachel Goldberg is interviewed with her husband Jon Polin by Channel 12 and asked if she has a message to leaders who failed to secure the release of their son Hersh and who are now signing a near-identical deal to the one that was unveiled nearly eight months ago.
“I think I feel sorry for them,” she responds after giving the question some thought.
“I think I feel bad for them, and I think when they have their quiet moments, or when they make whatever quiet conversations with themselves, they have to live with that for the rest of their lives,” she says.
“I don’t need to say anything to them. They have to live with the choices and decisions that they’ve made, and they can justify to themselves and to others publicly however they need to so that they can look themselves in the mirror when they’re brushing their teeth or combing their hair,” says Goldberg.
Channel 12 anchor Ilana Dayan recalls the parents’ decision to decline Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s request to pay a condolence call after Hersh was murdered along with five other hostages in late August. She asks if there has been any contact from the premier since then.

“It’s abundantly clear that we are devastated and disappointed that Hersh’s life and the lives of the five others who are with him ended when and how they ended. It should not have come to that,” Polin responds.
“I don’t think that we need to remind anybody in our political establishment that that is failure — total failure. It’s not opinion. It’s fact. We left our loved ones to suffer for 328 days. They did everything they needed to do, and we failed them. We don’t need to remind anybody of that. That should be something that they live with and they have to wrestle with,” he adds.
Before concluding the interview, Polin asks to provide one more message.
“We lost our child, the dearest thing to us. So many other families have had similar losses,” Polin begins.
“We saw last night video footage — from both Israel and from Gaza — citizens in the streets by and large celebrating the announcement of a deal,” he continues.
“The people of the region are worthy of a better future, and the only thing we could all do to honor those who have fallen as victims in this is to be worthy of them,” Polin adds, urging the Israeli government to follow through with the hostage deal announced yesterday.