After nearly seven weeks in captivity, 24 hostages seized by Hamas in its deadly Oct. 7 attack on Israel are now free after crossing into Egypt. In exchange, Israel released 39 Palestinians hours later at the city of Ramallah in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
If they’re the result of an illegal, internationally condemned occupation, lack conviction and are ethnically motivated to politically subjugate a group of people. They are hostages.
Even if all of that’s true, which we can disagree about, that’s still not the definition of a hostage. Maybe the term you’re looking for is political prisoner. Words have meanings, and you can’t just make up new definitions to suit the situation that best aligns with your politics.
Well, let’s look at the definition of Hostage, according to the Merrian-Webster dictionary a Hostage is:
Interesting, let’s look further, at the Encyclopedia Britannica:
Fascinating. Let’s contrast this with what Britannica says about Political Prisoners:
Well, considering that the majority of Palestinians detained by Israel are held by the army as military prisoners as they are not considered citizens, therefore they didn’t even had any political rights or are considered under the government jurisdiction to begin with anyway. I would say one term applies, but the other doesn’t. I agree that, words do have meanings. You can’t just make up new definitions to suit the situation that best aligns with your politics.