Yesterday and today I am consumed with the Bibas family. Shiri Bibas and her children, Ariel and Kfir. Hamas has reported them dead and that their bodies will be returned tomorrow, February 20th. I think of Yarden Bibas, Shiri’s husband and Ariel and Kfir’s father. My heart is torn in two for him. He endured nearly 500 days of brutal captivity and torture only to be released into a different type of brutal captivity and torture.
Yet we cannot think that the Bibas family is the only situation where beautiful young Jewish children were murdered simply for being Jewish.
On Oct 7, savage barbarian Hamas animals shot & killed 9 month old Mila Cohen in Be’eri.
This isthe Siman Tov family, an Israeli-American family. Johnny and Tamar, along with their children Shahar (5), Arbel (5), and Omer (2), were murdered by Hamas terrorists on October 7th in their home in Kibbutz Nir Oz, southern Israel. They were burned alive.
Hamas set fire to the family’s house in an attempt to force them out of their safe room and kill them, but they stayed inside. Johnny, the father, sent a final text to his sister: “They’re here. They’re burning us. We’re suffocating.”
Johnny’s mother, Carol, a 70-year-old woman, was also murdered by Hamas terrorists with her dog in her own home
The Siman Tov family. Johnny (z’l), Tamar (z’l), Omer (z’l), Shahar (z’l) and Arbel (z’l).
On that day, over a dozen other children under the age of 10 were brutally murdered among the 1,200 victims. Thirty eight (38) children were murdered on October 7th with 42 children abducted to the Gaza Strip by Hamas and other terrorist organizations. Here are pictures of some of them so we never forget their faces. Note that they are not all Jewish but they all lived in Israel, killed by genocidal terrorists that the world and college campuses glorify.
Yet today it is the Bibas family that is in my soul. For 500 days I hoped and prayed that they were still alive and would be returned alive. I wanted to see Ariel and Kfir play and laugh and grow up. I wanted to see Shiri and Yarden raise their beautiful children and maybe even add to their family. It appears that will not happen as Hamas has reported that Shiri, Ariel, and Kfir’s bodies will be returned to Israel on February 20th. This has not been confirmed by Israel.
This is a picture that should haunt us all forever. It shows the evil of Hamas. A panicked mother, holding her children close, fear exuding out of the image into each of us. What would she have done to save her children that day? What would any of us have done to save our children? Anything and everything that we could. She was powerless and so were we.
I read this powerful piece about this picture and Shiri Bibas and her family. My blood boils. My heart breaks. Imagine it was your children, your grandchildren, your siblings. Imagine it was your nieces and nephews. Babies. This is the face of evil. We cannot let the world close their eyes, bury their heads, and tell more lies. We have gone beyond the place of reason and directly into the fight against evil where there is only one acceptable outcome. Evil is eliminated.
Someone filmed this moment Someone stood there Looking at a mother holding her two babies Protecting them with her body, her heart, her soul. Someone stood there And saw And watched Someone and another someone and another someone and maybe even another mother And no one reached out and said “Come on mama, come on mama…” And all the light went out long ago And what if I were there in her place And what if I had to choose who to keep holding And of whom to let go Because there isn’t a single mother Who can contain her pain over her children And the look in her eyes – this is every mother’s greatest fear It’s a look that stares at the devil And starts a negotiation Take me Leave them Take me, leave one Do with me whatever you want Just have someone take them to a safe corner Only a mother can understand a look like that And I I wasn’t there either…..
Lisa Davidson Oren
When I look at the pictures of the beautiful Bibas children, tears come to my eyes. Sweet, innocent children. A toddler and an infant. Ripped from their home by terrorists. How scared must they have been? How much did Shiri and Yarden try to comfort them? I think back to when my boys were that age and tears come to my eyes, pain in my chest, rage filling my heart.
Rabbi Mendy Kaminker of Chabad of Hackensack wrote this powerful and beautiful poem. It struck me powerfully as I think of this beautiful child, kidnapped, tortured, and murdered simply because he was Jewish. This picture cuts deep in my heart. Evil took him and yet the world responds by encouraging evil to continue.
Oh, young redhead toddler You like a little angle With a smile from heaven But you are stuck in hell
If you were An endangered whale The world would have stopped at nothing To save you
Heads of countries Would have spent millions To bring you back home
But you are not a whale You are just a small Jewish toddler
We prayed for you Your brother, your mother And even now, we keep on praying
And whatever happens We will not forget your smile Because you are our brother
Oh dear Oh G-d Your people have suffered enough We beg you to bring Moshiach And end suffering forever
Far too many of our ‘leaders’ have remained silent or spoken up for the ‘innocent Gazans’ without speaking up for the innocent Israelis. They have been silent about the hostages, complaining about a response by Israel that was too much. How would they respond if the United States was invaded, our citizens mass murdered, kidnapped, taken hostage, and tortured. We saw the results of September 11th which was smaller in scope. A 20 year war. When the claims are that too many people are dying, let’s take a look at what happened after September 11th.
U.S. military personnel
Between 2001 and 2021, 2,459 U.S. military personnel died in Afghanistan
1,922 of those deaths were in action
18 CIA operatives were killed
20,769 U.S. service members were wounded in action
Civilians
The Costs of War Project estimates that 46,319 Afghan civilians died in the war
The Uppsala Conflict Data Program estimates that 212,191 people died in the war
Opposition fighters
The Costs of War Project estimates that at least 52,893 opposition fighters died in the war
Other casualties
1,822 civilian contractors died
Thousands of Afghans died
The war also resulted in injuries, illnesses, displacement, malnutrition, and environmental degradation
The war in Afghanistan began after the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The U.S. government spent $2.3 trillion on the war.
The Jew haters and antisemites try to make Israel’s response to Hamas’s attack, declaration of war, murder, kidnapping, and torture of her citizens as more than normal in war. They try to paint Israel and the Jews as overreacting and going beyond the scope of war. This is a bald faced lie. The numbers above prove it. Displacement is a part of losing a war. We have seen that throughout history. It’s part of what discourages countries from engaging in war. Otherwise there is no risk in losing a war so it would happen more frequently. The world is asking Israel to enable Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran to wage continuous war in an attempt to eliminate Israel and the Jews. That is unacceptable.
When our leaders do speak out, it is important to note it and thank them. Unfortunately they are rare. Representative Ritchie Torres has been one of them. His post below is clear, powerful, and on-target. I thanked him and encourage you to do the same.
Thank you @RitchieTorres for continuing to be a voice of compassion and clarity against evil. I only wish more of your members of the US House of Representatives would follow your leadership. https://t.co/l6Hab1RMg7
My friend Rabbi Leor Sinai reminded us of an important fact that the world fails to recognize. He wrote, “Shiri, Ariel & Kfir Bibas were taken by Gazan civilians, not Hamas. In fact the majority of 3,000+ invaders on Oct 7 were Gazan civilians. Let that sink in. It is a culture and society in disease. This Thursday is going to be hard. All of Israel will mourn.” The media and the world fail to acknowledge that much of what happened on October 7th were civilian driven. I’ll never forget hearing from a man at Kfar Aza who was there on October 7th. His front porch became the headquarters for Hamas leadership as he and his wife hid in their safe room. His description of watching a man come from Jabaliya on crutches, crossing the fields and the broken fencing, going into a home and coming out with a television strapped to his back as he used his crutches to return to Jabaliya, will always remind me that this was not just Hamas. This was civilians. On November 20, 2024, Prime Minister Netanyahu offered $5 million and safe passage out of Gaza to anyone returning a hostage. We know hostages were being held and are being held by private citizens. Three (3) months later, not a single person has taken him up on this offer. It’s not just the Hamas militants that are involved.
On the same day that Hamas announced that the Bibas children and Shiri Bibas were murdered, in the United States, in New York, in Borough Park, we had this violence. There is no condemning of this from the media. Even New York Governor Kathy Hochul issued the weak statment of, “Last night we saw protesters in Boro Park targeting Jewish New Yorkers with hateful rhetoric and antisemitic chants. This is unacceptable. We are grateful to @NYPDnews for their diligent work keeping all New Yorkers safe.” Nothing about the violence. Only about ‘chants’.
The violence in Borough Park from an anti-Israel, Jew hating, ‘pro-Palestinian’ mob.
On November 7, 2023, just a month after the horror of October 7th, Senator John Fetterman not only put up the posters of every hostage on the walls of his office, he also posted this on X and pinned it to his account where it remains today. It’s sad that our allies are so few and inspiring when they are so public.
In my front office I have displayed the posters of the innocent Israelis kidnapped by Hamas.
— U.S. Senator John Fetterman (@SenFettermanPA) November 7, 2023
I am conflicted. With stage 1 about to conclude, with Shiri, Ariel, and Kfir Bibas likely confirmed dead tomorrow, with most of the remaining hostages likely dead, where do we go from here? I hope that Israel demands all the hostages back immediately for there to be a phase 2. I hope the US will back them up. I hope Hamas will agree. I don’t think they will agree. I’m not sure a phase 2 will happen otherwise. The slow process cannot continue. After 500 days it is enough. The hostages have suffered enough. The families of the hostages have suffered enough. The people of Israel have suffered enough. The families of IDS soldiers and those serving in milium (reserves) have suffered enough. The Jewish people have suffered enough. It’s time to put an end to this once and for all. Whatever it takes.
I am reminded of a few quotes from former Prime Ministers Golda Meir and Menachem Begin to ring true more than 40 years after they said them. Read and them and think. Read them and ponder. It’s clear to me what we have to do, no matter how much the world doesn’t want to let us because the world doesn’t want us to exist. I won’t apologize for wanting to live. I won’t apologize for fighting those who want me and all Jews dead. For those of you who do apologize, think of how your words of apology will look on your tombstone if you are lucky enough to have one and not be in a mass grave. That’s the harsh reality we face. The truth isn’t easy and neither is the path forward. But if we want a path forward, we must do whatever it takes to ensure there is one.
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Every day I wake up and the war between Hamas and Israel is continuing. The hostages remain in the tunnels in captivity. Some are dead, some being sexually abused, some being physically abused. None getting needed medication. Iran continues to provide resources to Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthi’s in Yemen.
I never thought I would say this, but I wish the world was silent about all of this. “Why?” you may ask. Because rather than condemn the terrorists of Hamas who still have American hostages among those they kidnapped, instead of condemning Iran, instead of demanding that the Houthi’s and Hezbollah stop firing rockets at Israel, the world condemns Israel for fighting for survival.
I wish I could say it was just the non-Jewish world. Our history as a people, for thousands of years, has us as our own worst enemies. Facing persecution, facing death, facing evil, we have a history of defending those who persecute and kill us, those who are evil, all while condemning ourselves. I don’t know why we do this. I wish I knew. I wish I could figure out a way to stop it. Just like in Germany, we defend those who hate us all the way into the gas chambers.
I am amazed at those who call this war genocide. The definition of genocide is, “the deliberate killing of a large number of people from a particular nation or ethnic group with the aim of destroying that nation or group.” It is clear that is not what Israel is doing. How do we know this? First because according to the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS), the Palestinian population has increased about 10 times since the War of Independence in 1948. Even more recently, according to the PCBS, displacement of more than 200,000 Palestinians, with the majority of them to the Palestinian country of Jordan, after the 1967 war, the Palestinian world population was 14 million by the end of 2022. This means that the number of Palestinians in the world has doubled since 1967. That goes against the definition of genocide. Secondly, during this current war, if Israel wanted to destroy the Palestinian people in Gaza, they could have just bombed the entire country and killed all the people there in a matter of days. Instead, they have chosen to be more surgical in their efforts, doing their best to avoid civilian casualties whenever possible. Once again, you do not attempt destroy a nation or group of people by doing all you can to save civilians.
The other thing that amazes me is when people talk about this being the worst loss of civilian life in conflict. The facts simply don’t back that up. According to the UN and the Red Cross, there are usually 9 civilians killed in armed conflict for every military person killed. That means 90% of all deaths in armed conflict are civilians. Iraq Body Count figures from 2003 to 2013 indicate that 77% of casualties were civilians. So how does the war between Hamas and Israel compare? If we use the statistics provided by Hamas, which nobody really believes is accurate, the ratio is somewhere between 1:1 and 1.2:1. That means Israel is 8-9 times BETTER than the world average and 7 times better than the US in Iraq. And that’s using the numbers provided by Hamas!
Estimates put the ration at somewhere between 1.0 and 1.2 civilians per Hamas Terrorist killed in the war, far better than the normal, accepted ration of 9-1
Just this week, Israel tragically and accidentally bombed trucks from the World Central Kitchen, killing 7 of the aid workers. It is a horrible tragedy. There is no excuse for it. And Israel hasn’t made any excuses. Israel admitted it was a mistake and they were in the wrong. They did an investigation, identified what happened, held those accountable whose actions resulted in the bombing and these deaths, and vowed to learn from this mistake. Listen to an interview by friend Fleur Hassan- Nahoum, the Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem. She, and Israel, isn’t hiding from what happened or how awful it is.
Deputy Mayor of Jerusalem and my friend, Fleur Hassan-Nahoum, is brutally honest about the awful mistake in attacking the convoy of aid workers. This is what sets Israel apart – a willingness to admit mistakes, hold people accountable, and learn from their mistakes.
In October of 2015, the US initiated an airstrike against a Doctors Without Borders trauma center and killed at least 42 people including 14 hospital staff members and at least 24 patients. The investigation found that human errors, fatigue, process, and equipment failures were at fault in the deadly airstrike. US Central command said that, “These factors contributed to the ‘fog of war,’ which is the uncertainty often encountered during combat operations.”
In August of 2021, the US made a mistake and fired a hellfire missile in Kabul, accidentally killing 10 civilians, 7 of which were children. When I was attending the Israel-American Council Summit in Austin, Texas last year, my Uber driver had recently gotten out of the military. He was in Afghanistan during this time and during the botched withdrawal of the troops there. The stories he told me were horrible. The mistakes and errors made turned my stomach. I felt terrible about how we, America, treated the people who served in Afghanistan and those who were our allies in Afghanistan. It was understood that we messed up and made mistakes and that this happens in war.
Every other country in the world gets the grace of making mistakes in war. Not Israel, the Jewish nation. Once again, Israel is held to a different standard. I have said repeatedly that war is terrible. We should do everything we can to avoid war. When you can’t avoid war and you must take on evil, you must defeat it. Otherwise, evil continues to grow. Yet in today’s world, it appears there is a desire to have more evil than Jews.
I listen to people like Bernie Sanders and even friends who are Jewish who unfairly criticize Israel. Where was the outrage about the nearly 620,000 people killed in the Syrian civil war? What about the more than 375,000 people killed in the Yemen civil war between 2015 and early 2022? The 30,000 children killed by Assad in Syria. Israel is the target because it is the Jewish state and that is antisemitism and hate.
Bernie Sanders doesn’t get it – he doesn’t understand evil, he doesn’t pay attention to the data, and despite being Jewish, he hates Jews.
We need people like Representative Ritchie Torres, who is outspoken in his support of Israel, the need to remove Hamas, and holding Hamas responsible for this war. He speaks out against conditions of aid to Israel.
Ritchie Torres on Israel (at the 1:20 mark). He is a vocal supporter of Israel and the right to defend herself and the need to eliminate Hamas.
Senator Hakeem Jeffries has spoken out loudly and clearly in support of Israel. Senator John Fetterman has been one of the most vocal supporters of Israel. He speaks out publicly about the need to remove Hamas, the fact that Hamas hides behind human shields, and the need to support Israel unconditionally.
Senator Fetterman speaks about Israel and Hamas at the 2:45 mark until the 5:20 mark. He is a very vocal supporter of Israel, the right to defend herself, and the need to eliminate Hamas.
My own Senator, Rick Scott, has been vocal about his support for Israel. He tweets daily about the hostages, never letting them fall out of our thoughts.
Senator Scott speaking powerfully in support of Israel. We need more leaders to do so.Senator Scott is active on Twitter reminding everybody about the hostages
So now that I’ve written all this, so what? Other than venting my frustrations, anger, and disappointment, what is the point? The point is that each of us have the ability to make a difference. Each of us can learn the truth. Each of us can speak out loudly. Each of us can challenge those we know when they are spewing venom at Israel that is simply wrong and unfair. Each of us can confront those who we hear are speaking untruths, talking points without substance, and spewing hate. If you want to see how it’s done and how it is done well, watch this clip of Douglas Murray during an interview with Al Jazeera. He doesn’t let the person interviewing him get away with the lies and antisemitic comments she makes.
Douglas Murray is amazing as he takes her apart when she lies.
We can support Israel and the hostages. Wear the dogtags that say “Bring them home now” or “We will dance again” or both. Get a yellow ribbon pin and wear it. Put a piece of masking tape on your shirt every day with the number of days the hostages have been in captivity. Buy things from Israel to support their economy. Be loud and proud. The people who hate us aren’t going away. They are going to be out there spewing Jew hatred in the context of Israel at synagogues, JCCs, in the streets, at people’s homes, wherever they can be. If we hide, they win.
Rachel Goldberg, mother of hostage Hersch Goldberg Polin, started the masking tape. This was day 98. We are not past day 180.
When you are able, visit Israel. I have wanted to go since October 7th but have not because my family was worried about my safety. I love my family and was willing to wait so they felt better. I’m not willing to wait any longer. I’m going in May. You can join me if you want – it will be an amazing trip and very meaningful. I’m not sure how I will feel when I go to the site of the Nova music festival or one of the kibbutzim. I’m not sure what visiting Sderot will feel like this time – the police station, always a stop to see the rockets that were fired at them is no longer there. Being there for Yom HaZikaron and Yom Ha’atzmaut will be different this time. It will be the third time I’ve been in Israel for Israel’s memorial day and Independence Day. I already know this one will be different. I am arriving the night before the trip begins and staying two days after. I wish I could go earlier and stay even longer. I’m going on the Momentum men’s trip. Join me. If you are a woman and want to go, there is also a women’s trip and I can connect you to it so you can go.
Unlike the past, we are not powerless. We are not lambs being taken to slaughter. We have the IDF. We have Israel. We have voices and don’t have to allow the lies to be all that people hear. When people cry for a ‘Ceasefire Now’ remind them that Israel has already agreed to the ceasefire, it’s Hamas who hasn’t agreed. Don’t push Israel for a ceasefire, push Hamas. Push Qatar who houses the leaders of Hamas. And remind them that this war can end immediately if Hamas would release the hostages and surrender.
Write and call your member of Congress and your Senators. Your voice matters. Every member of Congress that I have spoken with, every Senator I have met, have said how much those calls, emails, and letters mean. You have a voice, use it. If you think it doesn’t matter or people don’t notice you are wrong. I get asked about the number on the tape or my dogtags all the time. Be inspired by Cincinnati Reds Assistant Pitching Coach Alon Leichman and his baseball glove for this season. He is making a powerful statement, “Bring them home NOW”. You can join in making that powerful statement of support and stand up to the Jew haters who want us all gone.
A powerful statement on his baseball glove
Don’t be silent. Don’t hide. Don’t allow them to win. We’ve been down that road before and it doesn’t end well for us.
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