Day 444 in Hostage Crises Then and Now
More than once, hopes for a ceasefire in the Gaza war and release of the hostages have been raised — and dashed.
Dave Schechter is a veteran journalist whose career includes writing and producing reports from Israel and elsewhere in the Middle East.
This column was filed on Dec. 23, 2024 — Day 444 of Israel’s hostage crisis.
That number reminds me of the Iran hostage crisis, which ended on its Day 444 — Jan. 20, 1981 — when Ronald Reagan took the oath of office and succeeded Jimmy Carter as president of the United States.
On Day 1 — Nov. 4, 1979 — hundreds of Iranians stormed the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, taking hostage several dozen embassy personnel and civilians.
[Leaving my newspaper’s office that night, I tuned my car radio to Larry King’s nationally syndicated talk show, where callers raged, some demanding that the U.S. bomb Tehran.]
Iranians harbored decades of grievances against the United States, most notably the U.S.- and British-engineered coup in August 1953 that removed Iran’s elected prime minister, Mohammad Mossadegh, and restored Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi to the Peacock Throne. A couple of years earlier, Iran’s legislature had voted to nationalize its oil industry, and the U.S. feared a tilt toward the Soviet Union.
The Islamic revolution that began in 1978 — fueled by an often brutal response to dissent and a backlash against western influences — threatened the stability of a U.S. ally in the region.
The Shah left Iran on Jan. 16, 1979, for a “vacation” in Egypt, never to return.
Millions of people thronged Tehran streets on Feb. 1 to welcome the Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini on his return to Iran after 15 years in exile.
[At a news conference that morning, I asked a U.S. senator what affect Khomeini’s return would have on U.S. interests. None, the senator assured me, the U.S. relationship with the Shah is solid. Ten days later, what remained of the Shah’s government collapsed.]
Carter initially resisted entreaties to permit the Shah entry to the United States. L. Bruce Laingen, as Charges d’Affaires the ranking U.S. diplomat in country, warned of possible consequences to U.S. personnel in Iran.
After debate in the upper echelons of the U.S. foreign policy apparatus, and external pressure from well-connected figures, Carter yielded. The Shah arrived in New York on Oct. 22, ostensibly as a humanitarian gesture for treatment of cancer and other ailments.
The fuse was lit in Tehran.
A couple of weeks after the Embassy was overrun, 13 female and Black hostages were released. The Shah left for Panama on Dec. 15, 1979. Six Americans hiding in the Canadian Embassy escaped Iran on Jan. 28, 1980.
An aborted rescue attempt ended on April 24 with the death of eight U.S. troops in a desert airborne collision. A hostage suffering from multiple sclerosis was freed in July 1980.
That left 52 American hostages, who were released as Reagan was inaugurated. After medical checks at a U.S. base in Germany, they returned to U.S. soil.
The symbol of the Iran hostage crisis was the ubiquitous yellow ribbon — inspired by the 1973 song, “Tie A Yellow Ribbon Around the Old Oak Tree,” by singer Tony Orlando and Dawn.
The ribbon’s proliferation began with a comment by Laingen’s wife. In an oral history, Penelope “Penne” Laingen recalled that a reporter expressed amazement at her calm, while the American people in general were seething. “Tell them to do something constructive, because we need a great deal of patience,” she said. “Just tell them to tie a yellow ribbon around the old oak tree.”
A yellow ribbon, frequently worn as a lapel pin, also has been a symbol of Israel’s hostage crisis, which began on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-led terrorists slaughtered 1,200 men, women, and children and kidnapped 251 more from kibbutzim, towns, and an outdoor music festival in the “Gaza envelope.”
Of the remaining 100 hostages — more than one-third of whom are feared dead — 96 kidnapped on Oct. 7, two are civilians (both with reported psychological issues) who crossed into Gaza in 2014 and 2015, and the bodies of two soldiers killed in the 2014 war in Gaza.
More than once, hopes have been raised — and subsequently dashed — when reports of progress in negotiations for a ceasefire deal and hostage release came to naught.
Benjamin Netanyahu was Israel’s prime minister on Day 1. He remained prime minister on Day 444.
Israel — and Netanyahu in particular — are due for a reckoning over the intelligence, military, and political failures that led to the deadliest day in Jewish history since the Holocaust. Netanyahu — whose three stints as prime minister total 17 years — has resisted creation of a commission of inquiry, such as that established after the 1973 Yom Kippur war, and whose findings led Prime Minister Golda Meir to resign in April 1974.
Netanyahu told TIME magazine in August that after the war “there’ll be an independent commission that will examine everything that happened before, and everybody will have to answer some tough questions, including me.”
The question, of course, is when that will be.
The Times of Israel has reported that incoming U.S. President Donald Trump told Netanyahu that he wants the war in Gaza finished, with the hostages returned, before he takes office.
Dec. 23 was Day 444. Unless something changes, the inauguration on Jan. 20, 2025, will be day 472.
comments