Amit Segal admitted: "I watched and I was just ashamed"
Israeli journalist Amit Segal criticized the public and media reaction to the families of hostages from the "Tikva" forum, who opposed concessions to Hamas. The trigger was an interview with Avinatan Or on the program "Uvda". Segal pointed to a distortion of the public discourse, in which hostages were supposedly saved not by soldiers but by participants in demonstrations. He also recalled the fallen fighter Elhanan Kalmanzon, who was insulted at a demonstration.
Israeli journalist and political commentator Amit Segal sharply criticized the public and media reaction to the families of hostages who were part of the "Tikva" forum. The trigger was an interview with Avinatan Or, broadcast on the program "Uvda". Segal spoke about the heavy feelings he experienced while watching and wrote: "I watched the interview with Avinatan Or on 'Uvda' and was again ashamed of how his mother, Ditza Or, was treated at the time for daring to say such things. She and other parents from the 'Tikva' forum were portrayed as people who had abandoned their own children, while those who pushed for capitulation were depicted almost as foster parents of our hostages." The journalist pointed to what he considers a distortion of public discourse and added: "This was another example of distortion, in which hostages were supposedly saved not by soldiers risking their lives in the Gaza Strip, but by people who took to the streets demanding acceptance of Hamas's terms — terms that, as has been noted, never materialized into a full-fledged proposal." Segal then recalled Elhanan Kalmanzon, who fell in battle in Be'eri on the morning of October 8, 2023. "I also remembered Elhanan Kalmanzon, who fell in Be'eri on the morning of the eighth of October. A few months before that, during one of the demonstrations on Kaplan Street, someone shouted at him: 'Hey, draft dodger!' because they saw a kippah on him," the journalist wrote. In conclusion, Segal sharply criticized the approach to public debate in a certain part of the political camp. "Some representatives of this camp make no effort in the debate itself — they only try to portray the opposing point of view as illegitimate," he concluded.