A decade after my son was killed by ISIS, a renewed hope has begun to shine
It has been 10 years since my son James Foley was kidnapped and murdered in the deserts of Syria. It was a photo seen around the world — Jim, a freelance journalist, brutally beheaded by members of ISIS. For some people, the image of the orange jumpsuit he wore while kneeling in the sand remains seared onto their retinas. For others the black balaclava of the knife-wielding man is the thing they remember.
But I don’t choose to recall those images anymore.
For me, a light of renewed hope has begun to shine after a decade of grief. And while that light is still not bright enough — and may never fully be, given what we currently see in Gaza and elsewhere — US hostage policies have begun to change and innocent Americans are coming home from kidnapping or wrongful detention abroad more frequently than ever before.
This change in the political landscape helps me to know that the life of my son, as well as those of journalists Steven Sotloff and Luke Somers; aid workers Kayla Mueller and Peter Kassig; retired FBI agent Robert Levinson; and businessman Warren Weinstein, who were all killed while in captivity, were not lost in vain.
Gone are the days when government officials implied that the death of my son would amount to “collateral damage.” Jim was, along with many fellow Americans, cast aside by a callous policy of non-negotiation which echoed through the years. For all his vision and acuity, not even then-President Barack Obama could see that the problem with our hostage policy was there was no room for movement. It was almost as if the policy had taken itself hostage.
In November 2014, three months after Jim was killed, I had a meeting with Obama at the White House. I felt that his administration had abandoned my son and the three other American hostages with him. He drank tea and we exchanged pleasantries. But then the president stunned me by saying: “Jim was my highest priority.”
“I beg your pardon, sir,” I replied as the oxygen bled from the air. “He may have been a priority in your mind but not in your heart. Jim and the others were abandoned by our government until much, much too late.”
The president lowered his eyes, and we said little more.
All grievers, of every sort, in our bottomless sorrow know things could have been different. We understand the pathways of the possible. We don’t always do it, but there are ways that grief can be harnessed and guided toward action.
Those we have lost still influence the pulse of the present. When we choose to remember them, and to tell their stories, it contributes to the possibility of further change.
In the decade that has followed Jim’s death, the James W. Foley Legacy Foundation, along with many others, advocated for the return of Americans held captive abroad. In 2015 we participated in the comprehensive review ordered by Obama that resulted in the establishment of the US Hostage enterprise, which includes the Special Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs and the multiagency Hostage Recovery Fusion Cell, creating a framework dedicated to recovering innocent Americans held abroad. Later, under the Trump administration, more hostages and wrongful detainees began to come home.
The Foley Foundation, along with the Levinson family, advocated for passage of the Robert Levinson Hostage-Taking Accountability Act, which was passed in 2020. The Levinson Act codified Obama’s 2015 US hostage enterprise presidential policy directive, giving the US government specific criteria to identify those Americans who are wrongfully detained abroad and necessary tools to hold captors accountable and deter international hostage taking.
The freedom of more than 100 innocent Americans has been negotiated since my son’s murder, including captives from Iran, Venezuela, and Russia, from which WNBA player Brittney Griner was released in 2022.
The Biden administration has continued to take the mantle, and the president has become a forceful advocate for the return of our citizens.
Since Oct. 7, 2023, President Biden and his emissaries have diligently worked with Israel, encouraging Egypt and Qatar to serve as intermediaries with Hamas to negotiate for the return of hostages and extend humanitarian aid to Gaza. Among the 136 remaining hostages, at least eight are American citizens. Biden has met with their extended families. Those who talk with the president and his administration feel that he is committed to securing the release of their loved ones.
But there are still more than 56 public cases of US nationals held captive abroad, including Wall Street Journal journalist Evan Gershkovich and Radio Free Europe journalist Alsu Kurmasheva, both detained in Russia.
Negotiating with those who target and kidnap or wrongfully detain our US nationals is very complex. How do we bring our loved ones home? I have no simple solution except to say that talking to one another, and attempting to understand one another, even in the darkest times, is essential to freeing our people. Even the payment of ransom, when used as a lure, can free an innocent while helping us hold the captor accountable. Nobody paid for my son.
Almost four years later, in 2018, two of his killers were apprehended in Syria. They were stripped of their British citizenship and brought to justice in the courts of Virginia. At last, we were seeing the best of American justice. One of the killers, El Shafee Elsheikh, decided to go to trial. He was found guilty on all eight counts in the indictment, including the deaths of my son, Mueller, Sotloff, and Kassig, and was sentenced to eight concurrent terms of life imprisonment.
The other, Alexanda Kotey, pleaded guilty, was sentenced to life imprisonment, and agreed to talk to two former hostages and their families.
I went to Virginia and I sat not 4 feet from him. Some people thought it was brave, others thought it was pointless, and others, even my family members, thought it reckless to the core. Who would want to talk to their son’s killer?
But I knew Jim would not want me to be afraid and would want me to hear him out. I also wanted
Kotey to know who Jim was. I had my faith in God and my conviction in the power of change. I wanted to look the man in the eye and tell him that he had not actually killed my son.
Jim, like the others he shared those terrible cells with, had always believed that there were answers that could be found by listening to one another, whether in journalism or in humanitarian work.
When I talked to Kotey, I told him that Jim was still alive in the power of his moral courage and the belief that we all matter, even in the darkest times.
Grief had prepared the way. Positive change will be my son’s legacy.
Jim was, along with many fellow Americans, cast aside by a callous policy of nonnegotiation which echoed through the years.