On September 1, 2024, 27 Palestinian families woke up to mourn their loved ones, including at least 11 who were killed at a supposedly “safe” shelter, in Safad School in the al-Zaytoun neighborhood east of Gaza City. On the same day, the Israeli occupation military recovered the bodies of six Israeli captives, who were killed as a direct or indirect result of an Israeli incursion into a tunnel in Rafah.

By the end of the day, the smiling faces and names of these six Israelis were prominently featured across digital and print media, while the murdered Palestinians were reduced to mere statistics, nameless and faceless. Both groups, however, share one tragic commonality: their demise was caused by the same killer. Indiscriminate bombing is a murder without distinction.

Despite being warned of the risk of attempting to retrieve the captives by force, Netanyahu opted to sacrifice them to eliminate a political burden that could be seen as an obstacle to achieving his “war goals.” Their disappearance -- by a deal or death -- would free Netanyahu’s hand and ease pressure from the public, who otherwise supports his war of genocide in Gaza.

Inarguably, there is an inherent interest for the Palestinian Resistance in protecting the lives of the Israelis, simply to exchange them with Palestinian hostages held in Israeli jails. On the other hand, the Netanyahu coalition government has a political motive to reduce the value of Israeli captives in the hands of the Palestinians, and their death could be an option.

The Israeli public protesting in the streets today, individually and collectively, is responsible for nurturing Netanyahu’s unrealistic war objectives. The findings of a Pew Research poll conducted last March and April revealed that 67% of Israelis supported Netanyahu's “war goals.” In fact, a staggering 86% believed Palestinians in Gaza should not have self-governance, not even the Palestinian Authority. Less than half of Israelis supported a prisoner exchange, and 60% opposed halting the war for any such exchange.

In December 2023, support for Netanyahu’s war goals was even higher, between 76 and 84%. It's significant to mention that the support for the war among Israeli Jews mirrored that of Jewish Americans. In the US, 62% of American Jews approved "Israel’s" war conduct, compared to 38% of the general American population.

These statistics reflect a broader issue of deep-seated Israeli-Jewish dehumanization of Palestinians. A bigotry germinated in the political Zionist culture, where in the Israeli religious and cultural plurality most Jews perceive themselves to be more equal than non-Jews. Before anyone from the professional victim pack cries out on October 7, this predominant attitude among Israeli Jews is neither an anomaly nor a new phenomenon.

In a 2016 poll, an undisputed majority of Jewish Israelis (79%) believed that Jews are entitled to “preferential treatment” over non-Jews. When asked if Palestinians should be deported from their homes, the majority of Israelis agreed.

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Imagine, the American Jewish leadership protestation if 40% (1/2 of the Israeli percentage) of white or Christian Americans supported a preference over the other. In the meantime, progressive Americans can ruminate on their reaction if a similar percentage of Americans favored expelling Native Americans from their homes.

Palestinians need not imagine, for this is what they face under the American-financed Israeli apartheid.

It is this Israeli public mindset that drove Netanyahu and his racist ministers to take a chance to recover the Israeli captives by force, calculating that success would yield significant political rewards from the same public who is protesting today. In case of failure, the retrieval of bodies reduces the value of the exchange for the Palestinian Resistance. In other words, the Netanyahu coalition favors playing the victim over dead Israelis rather than releasing Palestinian hostages from Israeli jails.

Currently, there are approximately 97 Israeli captives held in Gaza, with 33 confirmed dead, mostly due to "Israel’s" indiscriminate bombings. Additionally, Netanyahu has “successfully” recovered the bodies of 37 dead settlers in the past eleven months. Despite this blunder, Netanyahu capitalized on the innate anti-Palestinian Israeli Jewish bigotry to maintain strong support among Israelis and American Jews for the war of genocide in Gaza.

This time, however, the same public who supported Netanyahu’s “war goals,” amassed in the streets of Tel Aviv blaming him for choosing to save his government coalition at the expense of Israeli captives. Even US President Joe Biden broke his public silence blaming Netanyahu for not doing enough to reach a deal.

Biden’s latest remarks contradicted his own government officials who falsely absolved the Israeli Prime Minister regarding the ceasefire negotiation. Last week, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken claimed Netanyahu had accepted the so-called “bridging proposal,” while CIA Deputy Director, David Cohen blamed the Palestinian Resistance for the breakdown in ceasefire talks.

To contextualize the extent of the influence of the Israeli firsters within the Biden administration, consider recent developments in "Israel". During last week's Israeli cabinet meeting, the Minister of War stormed out accusing Netanyahu of endangering the lives of Israeli captives. At the same time, hundreds of thousands of Israelis filled the streets protesting Netanyahu’s mercurial position on the ceasefire plan. This is while American officials and Israeli firsters, Sayanim, including Zionists like Blinken and Cohen, lie blatantly about Netanyahu’s acceptance of a ceasefire plan when in reality he added 11th-hour demands derailing the plan that was already agreed to by Palestinians.

Western appeasement of "Israel", based on the flawed belief that this would give them leverage over Israeli leaders, is rooted in a corrupt philosophy promoted by Israeli firsters, Sayanim. Israeli firsters in the West use their positions to sanctify Israeli Jewish life while demonizing Palestinian one. In the media, the Sayanim excuse Israeli atrocities against Palestinians, and as government officials, they sanitize Israeli malevolency by forging government expert’s reports helping "Israel" escape accountability and avoid global scrutiny.

Surrounded by Sayanim, Joe Biden has been beguiled by Israeli firsters throughout his political career. This is one of the many reasons the “sanctified” six  Israeli Jews count more than the lives of the 41,000 “dehumanized” Palestinians.