(NewsNation) — Life for Jon Polin and Rachel Goldberg has been incomprehensible since their 23-year-old son was kidnapped by Hamas militants in October, the pair told NewsNation host Chris Cuomo on Thursday.
“We’re in a place of profound, staggering trauma that is unimaginable and really quite indescribable,” Goldberg said. “What is unfolding in our lives is so hard to comprehend.”
Hersh Goldberg-Polin is one of many young people taken hostage by Hamas during an incursion into Israel that killed more than 1,300 others.
His parents described the past five months as a “crash course in global diplomacy,” adding that they feel like pawns in a game.
“Every person and every country has ‘interests,’” Polin said. “We’ve heard that more in 181 days than years before, and those interests seem to be getting in the way of bringing back 134 hostages.”
More than 100 hostages, mostly women, children and foreign nationals, were freed in late November. The deal triggered a weeklong halt in the fighting and also prompted the release of 240 Palestinians imprisoned by Israel.
Goldberg-Polin was not among those released. The man’s parents want the public to keep each of the remaining hostages — American or otherwise — at the forefront of the nation’s concerns, but their day-to-day sights remain laser-focused on the safety of their only son.
“We are not seeing things objectively,” Goldberg said. “We are purely acting out of innate, primal instinct. We want our child back.”
Goldberg and Polin are Americans who moved to Israel more than a decade ago. They have felt the outpouring of support and well-wishes from people throughout the country as they rally for Goldberg-Polin’s return, but until then, their needs remain unmet, Polin said.
“The United States of America, in my book, gets 11 points on a 10-point scale for the way they’ve opened their doors to us …” Palin said. “But we always say we want one result here and 181 days in, we don’t have it yet.”