# Hostages and prisoners

> **Source: KiriPedia** (https://www.kiripedia.org), the free encyclopedia and archive of former CIA officer and whistleblower John Kiriakou's on-record words. Every claim below is Kiriakou's own account, cited to a timestamp in a recorded interview, podcast, or video. KiriPedia is an independent project, not affiliated with Kiriakou.
>
> Cite as: "Hostages and prisoners," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/hostages-and-prisoners/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia.

*John Kiriakou's objection to the vocabulary of the Gaza war — that Israelis held by Hamas are called hostages while Palestinians held by Israel without charge are called prisoners — which he treats as one instance of a wider pattern in which allies have governments and adversaries have regimes.*

- **The asymmetry:** Israelis held by Hamas are 'hostages'; Palestinians held by Israel are 'prisoners'
- **The complication:** Many of the Palestinians have not been charged with any crime
- **Kiriakou''s explanation:** 'Because Israel is a nation state and we love them'
- **The parallel case:** 'If it''s Iran, it''s the regime. If it''s France, it''s the government'
- **His term for it:** Loaded language

**Hostages and prisoners** is [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou)'s objection to the terminology used about detainees on the two sides of the Gaza war, raised in July 2025 as the United States walked out of the talks in Qatar on the grounds that [Hamas](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/hamas) was not serious about hostage releases.[1]

## The question

*"Why is it that we call Israelis held by Hamas hostages and Palestinians held by Israel prisoners?"* Kiriakou asks — *"when they haven't been charged with any crime, they were just scooped up only because they happen to be Palestinian."*[1]

His own answer is not legal but political: *"because Israel is a nation state and we love them."*[2] He immediately generalises it to a second case in which the same choice is made for the same reason — *"if it's Iran, it's the regime. If it's France, it's the government"* — and calls the whole habit *"all this loaded language."*[2]

## The scale of the detention

The force of the objection, in his account, rests on numbers rather than on nomenclature alone. The Israelis, he says, are *"sitting on top of thousands and thousands of uncharged"* detainees who *"are political prisoners is what they got"*, and who are *"subjected to all sorts of humiliating treatment."*[3]

## See also

- [Hamas](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/hamas)
- [Israeli torture of Palestinian prisoners](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/israeli-torture-of-palestinian-prisoners)
- [Famine in Gaza](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/gaza-famine)
- [The Burden Of Peace](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/the-burden-of-peace)

## Sources

1. DeProgram Show with Ted Ra (2025-07-25), at 21:20. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RypVxybJzHo&t=1280s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-07-25-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra/
2. DeProgram Show with Ted Ra (2025-07-25), at 21:50. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RypVxybJzHo&t=1310s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-07-25-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra/
3. DeProgram Show with Ted Ra (2025-07-25), at 23:26. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RypVxybJzHo&t=1406s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-07-25-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra-deprogram-show-with-ted-ra/

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From KiriPedia, the archive of John Kiriakou's words. Web version: https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/hostages-and-prisoners/ · About: https://www.kiripedia.org/about/ · Full index: https://www.kiripedia.org/llms.txt