An interview with Israel’s delegates to NATO’s Parliamentary Assembly Spring Session in Dayton.

By Marshall Weiss, The Dayton Jewish Observer

Member of Knesset Boaz Bismuth, formerly a veteran journalist and editor-in-chief of Israel Hayom, kept checking his smartphone for the latest news.

The leaders of Canada, the United Kingdom, and France had hours before issued a joint statement strongly opposing Israel’s expansion of military operations in Gaza.

“The level of human suffering in Gaza is intolerable,” the statement read. It called for Hamas to release the 58 remaining Israeli hostages “they have so cruelly held.”

The statement continued: “We have always supported Israel’s right to defend Israelis against terrorism. But this escalation is wholly disproportionate. We will not stand by while the Netanyahu Government pursues these egregious actions. If Israel does not cease the renewed military offensive and lift its restrictions on humanitarian aid, we will take further concrete actions in response.”

According to JTA, after Israel blocked humanitarian aid from entering Gaza for two months, aid groups have said Gaza’s 2 million residents face starvation. Israel claims Hamas commandeers the food and aid entering the strip for itself. Through a U.S.-Israeli operation, JTA reports that aid is now beginning to be distributed in Gaza.

A member of Knesset since 2022 with Netanyahu’s Likud party, Bismuth drafted and led the passage of 2024 Knesset legislation that banned United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) operations in Israel, amid the IDF’s documentation that UNRWA employees have been in league with Hamas operations and terrorism.

UNRWA provides Palestinians with health care and educational services.

Bismuth and Member of Knesset Sharon Nir, with the Yisrael Beiteinu party, were Israel’s delegates to the NATO Parliamentary Assembly Spring Session in Dayton, May 22-26.

Both are members of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee. They arrived in Dayton May 20.

Israel is a major non-NATO ally. In 1994, Israel joined the NATO Mediterranean Dialogue, which enhances regional security, military cooperation, joint exercises, and strengthens Israel’s ties with NATO countries.

“We’re observers,” Bismuth said of his and Nir’s roles as Israel’s NATO delegates.

“Look at the countries that form NATO. These are our friends. This is the free world such as I know. Yet, when you look at the actions being taken by the international community these days, our country — especially in the Gaza war — we were surprised to see that they are angry at us for defending ourselves because we want to win the war, we want to conclude. It’s unbelievable how we are viciously considered by some to be the aggressors.

“NATO, for us, is more something to get the credibility Israel needs nowadays in the changing world. We don’t come here to tell them, you do the work for us. No. But we come here in order to tell them, allow us to defend ourselves. Something that should have been so obvious, so straightforward.”

A week later, Germany and Italy would also publicly rebuke Israel, calling on it to end its military campaign in Gaza.

Along with attending the sessions in the NATO Village, Bismuth and Nir brought an extensive list of delegates to meet with on the sidelines.

Bismuth’s daughter and Nir’s son both serve in Gaza. “It’s a very tough time in Israel now,” said Nir, a brigadier general in the reserves who served more than 31 years in the IDF.

Nir was the first woman to command an operational communications battalion. She was the first woman to command Israel’s cyber and communication military school. She was also appointed in 2016 as the gender advisor to the IDF chief of staff and expanded the roles of women in combat. Like Bismuth, Nir also joined the Knesset in 2022.

An existential threat to Israel
“Every family in Israel has an impact from the Seventh of October,” Nir said. “Most of the families in Israel have a son or daughter or a husband or someone serving in the IDF in the Gaza Strip. All the Israelis have to pay the price in this situation.”

Hamas, she said, is an existential threat to Israel. “On the Seventh of October, Hamas attacked families, babies, without notice. It was horrific attacks. But you know, the people in Israel, the society in Israel is very strong. I believe in the people of Israel because, even when we fight with each other, when we have tough times, we know how to do it (come) together.

“We must eliminate Hamas. We don’t have any other choice. In order to live and have a safe border in the south of Israel, we must eliminate this terror organization.”

Nir prioritizes bringing the hostages home first. “The hostages’ families are in the Knesset. Every day, they come. They look in our eyes and they expect — they should expect — government should bring back the hostages, the 58 hostages that are left in captivity in the tunnels of Hamas.”

Dealing with Hamas, Nir said, is like dealing with serpents.

“We must bring the hostages home. After that, we must, must defeat Hamas. To bring back the hostages is also a moral purpose. And to eliminate Hamas is a security purpose. So we must do both of them.”

The Times of Israel reported May 1 that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that victory over Hamas, not the return of the hostages, was the supreme objective of the war in Gaza.

Three days later, The Times of Israel reported that IDF Chief of Staff Eyal Zamir warned government ministers that Israel “could lose” the hostages in Gaza in its full-scale maneuver there. Zamir added that the war’s two goals of defeating Hamas and rescuing the hostages “are problematic in relation to each other.”

Bismuth told The Observer both objectives are achievable. “Of course, both. We have no other choice. The fact that you have to bring back the hostages urgently, this is a fact. The equation is simple: Hamas wants Gaza without the IDF, the hostages stay behind. Israel wants Gaza without hostages and without Hamas. Now, after Oct. 7, can Israel accept an entity (Gaza) with terrorists (Hamas) ruling over it?

“Can you have both? Listen. In life, it’s very simple. If we now tell the world it’s impossible, that we have to choose, it is impossible. But our message to the world is kind of clear — and the military pressure. Would you believe any nation in the world would respect that Palestinians should live under the authority of Palestinian huns, barbarians like Hamas? So we do not just do the job for us, we do the job for them.”

The Times of Israel reported that as of May 26, the Hamas-run Gaza health ministry reported more than 53,000 people in Gaza killed or presumed dead in the fighting and more than 113,000 Palestinians injured since Oct. 7, 2023. Those figures don’t distinguish between civilians and combatants and are questioned by Israel and the United States as likely inflated or inaccurate.

Since Oct. 7, 2023, Israel reports more than 850 Israeli military killed, more than 800 Israeli civilian killings, as well as the 1,200 people in Israel that Hamas murdered on Oct. 7, 2023.

Bismuth said that since Oct. 7, 2023, he’s spoken at more funerals of slain IDF soldiers than he could ever have imagined before that date.

“We live in a country that has had so many wars, ever since this country was born in a war,” he said. “It’s not strange or odd to us. Yet this is an event that was not supposed to happen.”

He said no one speaks about the wounded. “If you walk through Tel Aviv and you go to a park, the amount of young kids — 20 years old is young to me — he doesn’t have a leg, a hand. So many. Meaning we’re living a one-and-only event that isn’t historical but biblical. In 500 years, people will talk about this event.”

Bismuth sees Judaism as a permanent journey, with hurdles in the middle.

“You see this young generation? We shall be much stronger. We didn’t even imagine that we’d have such an amazing generation. So brave. So tough. Determined to win the war. Anytime I go to a funeral, I’m surprised. You see the warriors, they come to you instead of you thanking them as it should be, as we do. They come to thank you to allow them to finish the job.

“Here in Dayton, you would like to see peace. In order to win the peace, you have to win the war. In order to win the war, you have security, stability, and maybe, maybe, have peace afterwards.”

When asked if there’s something Israel should do in dealing with Hamas that it currently is not, in order to rescue the remaining hostages and defeat Hamas, neither Bismuth nor Nir had an answer.

Before attending the NATO sessions, Bismuth, Nir, representatives from the Consulate General of Israel in New York, and a Knesset staffer toured the Wolf Holocaust & Humanity Center in Cincinnati, the National Museum of the U.S. Air Force in Fairborn and Prejudice & Memory: A Holocaust Exhibit on display there, met with leaders of Dayton’s Jewish community, and in Columbus, met with Ohio elected officials, legislators from both parties, and clergy.

“The relationship to the Jewish community in the United States with the State of Israel is very important for us,” Nir said. “And the close relationship with the United States and the state of Israel is very, very important for the State of Israel. You have a very important role in this.”