You’ve gotta fight, for your right, to get real information (sorry Beastie Boys).

We have seen the pictures and videos of the hostages coming out of Gaza. They are horrifying. The images of Eli Sharabi, Ohad Ben Ami and Or Levy when they were released was horrifying. It was like watching the survivors of the Nazi death camps all over again.

Eli was brave enough to share his story in a powerful interview. It won’t be shown on 60 minutes or Dateline. It won’t be widely publicized through the western media. The question is if you will have the courage to watch the entire interview. To hear his story of captivity and torture. To experience the evil that he did. And then, will you share the interview? Will you talk about the interview? Will you make sure others see and hear the truth. The video is below. The decision is yours.

Yarden Bibas, who was kidnapped, abused, tortured, and held hostage by Hamas along with his wife Shiri (z’l), and children Ariel (z’l) and Kfir (z’l) spent 484 days in captivity. After his release we all learned that the rest of his family had been murdered by Hamas a month or so after being taken hostage. Brutally murdered, their bodies desecrated afterwards to attempt to hide how they were strangled by their evil Hamas captors. Yarden wrote a powerful letter to Prime Minister Netanyahu this week. In many ways it speaks for the Jewish people. Get the hostages back and then destroy Hamas.

Yarden Bibas giving the eulogy for his wife and two beautiful children, murdered by Hamas

Here os full letter that Yarden Bibas wrote:

Mr. Prime Minister,
My name is Yarden Bibs, and while they read my speech to you, I sit Shiva on my wife Shiri and my children Kfir and Ariel. Innocent and innocent children who were kidnapped from their homes and murdered captive. They could have and should have been saved.

The cursed terrorists conquered Nir Oz with flip-flops, my family and I were brutally kidnapped from our home to Gaza.

On that cursed morning, the state was not in Nir Oz. There were only local heroes – members of readiness classes and brave fighters, who did everything they could and even paid with their lives.
And today, 514 days later – I returned from Gaza to an unimaginable reality in which I was forced to bury my entire family in one day. I don’t wish this horrible nightmare on anyone. And despite the terrible pain, I ask you at this moment to stop. The stage of revenge has not yet reached. At this point we are obligated to immediately return our brothers, including my best friend David Kunyo and his brother Ariel. David, my friend from the first grade, the neighbor from the Kibbutz, who fell in the Hamas tunnels. I know I won’t be able to hug my children and wife anymore. But Emma and Yuli – David’s daughters, who were kidnapped by themselves to Gaza when they were only 3 years old, are waiting to hug him. Sharon’s wife deserves to hug him.

After we bring back David and all the hostages, I will be the first to support all your actions to overthrow Hamas. As a resident of Nir Oz, I know that we will be forced to defeat Hamas because otherwise we will not have security, but we must always preserve the sanctity of life, the honor of the dead and leave no one behind, otherwise we have lost who we are. Mister Prime Minister, 514 days and nights have already passed and you and your government still have not taken responsibility. The demand to set up a state inquiry committee is a demand that with israel united around it – 83% of israel citizens demand it, along with 1,500 October Council families and I am among them. Its goal is not personal persecution, but to produce lessons to prevent the next disaster. I call you Mr. Prime Minister – unite the nation israel give calm to our souls, uphold the will of the people and the families. Inform today about the establishment of a state inquiry committee that will strengthen the security of Israel prevent another disaster, and give me and everyone with israel answers.

How did it happen that nine-month-old Kfir, and four-year-old Ariel were kidnapped and murdered together with Shiri’s mother in unimaginable cruelty?

How did we get to the point that during the long hours at the police station no one came to save us?
I keep thinking and regretting that I didn’t take better care of my wife and kids. It is eating me up inside. And I only had a gun and I will be a simple citizen in a quiet kibbutz. Do you think about it? Do you also find it difficult to get through day and night without a heavy sense of responsibility for what happened? Are you able to say this loud and clear?

So many citizens are asking for forgiveness. So few politicians apologize.

So many civilians and fighters taking responsibility. So few members of government take responsibility.
My sister Ofri said at the funeral a sentence that I deeply connect with: “Forgiveness means accepting responsibility and a commitment to act differently, learning from mistakes.” There is no point in forgiving before the defectors are investigated, and all position holders will be held accountable. Our disaster as a nation and ours as a family should not have happened, and it must not, must not happen again. “I have no interest in closing account of the past, I try to gather strength and look ahead. I ask that we all do our best to make it better, more close and stronger here. From the window of the car that led us on the funeral journey, I saw the people of israel I saw a broken country – religious, secular and ultra-orthodox, standing together with flags and tears. I felt like they were really with me. I didn’t know them but I felt they were my brothers and sisters. What are you doing in leadership to maintain this togetherness? Do you get up every morning to separate or to strengthen us a little more from the inside? In my eyes it’s not less important your role than sending planes to eliminate enemies. This is our strength. This is our spirit.

In conclusion, I appeal to you Mr. Prime Minister, I have not yet entered my home in Nir Oz and I do not know what awaits me inside. I’m asking you to come along with me, to join me for the first time since October 7. I ask we do it together. If we do not look disaster in the eye, we cannot recover.“ 

Yaron Bibas letter published in many newspapers

This should be the lead on the news. After having his wife and two babies murdered by Hamas, he is not calling for vengence. He wants the rest of the hostages home. He also acknowledges the evil of Hamas and that they must be destroyed but the lives of the hostages come first. Despite the lies of the media, despite Hamas using child soldiers and human shields, the humanity of Israel is real and continues to be hidden, the lies continue to be told, and the world continues to believe them.

Amotz Eyal

My friend Amotz Eyal is the founder and CEO of TPS-IL. It’s something you have probably never heard of. Until I met Amotz, I hadn’t either. TPS-IL, officially known as The Press Service of Israel, is an Israeli news bureau. It is the equivilant of AP and Reuters only when it comes to reporting from and about Israel, TPS-IL is actually factual. Their reach across the globe, outside of America, is incredible. Last month, Amotz was in Orlando and we spent two days together. I learned so much, not just about TPS-IL but also about him.

On October 7, 2023, Amotz got a phone call that something was happening but the photographers couldn’t get there to document it. Of course he volunteered to go take pictures and video, even though he is the CEO. He told his wife he would be home by dinner. As he began taking pictures, he quickly realized that this wasn’t something small and he put his camera away and moved towards the fighting. He ended up in Sderot and took over operational command to defend the city against the Hamas invaders. He ended up home 3 months later. He is still active in the IDF, commanding an elite unit. The first morning in Orlando, he stood outside our first appointment on the phone with his unit, planning their raid of Jenin to eliminate terrorists and capture weapons. He hung up the phone, joined me for our meetings that day as if nothing was happening. The next day he showed me pictures of the weapons they captured in Jenin. If only the mainstream media (MSM) would cover what really happens.

Hamas child soldiers. This is what the Jew haters are defending.

Amotz just wrote a powerful piece in the Jerusalem post titled, Propaganda without boundaries: How Hamas exploits, abuses, weaponizes children. It should be on the front page of every newspaper, covered by every major news network, but it won’t. You can read it and see just how Hamas is inculcating hate, using children as weapons and as soldiers. It is horrifying.

The truth is cleverly hidden by the media that we see and the narrative that they tell us and want us to believe. A perfect example is the recent ‘documentary’, No Other Land, about Masafer Yatta in Judea and Samaria (often called the West Bank). The truth of the village is very different than what this alleged documentary claims and what the mainstream western media tells you. Read the article by Honest Reporting and learn the real history.

If you want another source to read, check out the JNS article about Masafer Yatta. The truth is out there. Documented history is out there. You can choose to find out what the truth really is or you can believe what you are being fed. The choice is entirely yours.

It gets worse. Oscar-winning Pallywood star Basel Adra of No Other Land was caught on video, lying about what happened. Here he is setting fire to Palestinian structures —but telling people to say “the Jews did it” for the cameras. Facts don’t matter. The truth doesn’t matter. The media determines the story they want to tell and makes up what they need to tell it. My blood boils when I see it happen over and over and over again and nobody held accountable.

Basel Adra, now an Oscar Winning Director of a documentary that lies, is shown lying on film.

Yesterday, President Trump met in the Oval Office with eight hostages that have been released. I found this video of their interaction incredibly powerful. A few quotes really stood out for me. “Horrible, horrible stories. Not even believable.” Then, “Don’t worry, we’ll get them out.” I don’t care what you think of President Trump. Love him or hate him, it doesn’t matter. These are statements that are long overdue. You can see and hear from these 8 hostages what powerful words and actions mean to them and the hostages still in captivity. Our media will not run the stories of these hostages. The media will not highlight the torture that they endured. Freedom of the press was designed so that the press would be able to report the truth, not so they could hide behind it and lie over and over and over again. Yet that is what we are seeing. Lie after lie.

Over a decade ago, I had the opportunity to learn about a new organization, Fuente Latina, that was doing something unbelievable. Having learned that Iran was targeting the Spanish speaking world with anti-Israel propoganda and lies, founder Leah Soibel decided to create a pro-Israel media outlet to share the truth with the Spanish speaking world. In the dozen years since, the work they have done is incredible. In 2024, they took over 100 journalists from Spanish speaking countries to Israel to see with their own eyes what happend on October 7th and what Israel is really like. The content they provide to the Spanish speaking world is incredible.

They created an incredible 4 part docuseries about October 7th that focuses on the Latin Americans that were murdered and taken hostage on October 7th. Most people don’t know that Latin Americans were the largest immigrant group attacked on October 7th or that the Bibas family is Argentinian. I watched the trailer and was captivated. I don’t speak Spanish and as I listened to the tone of their voices and read the subtitles, I was overwhelmed. There was something about watching these people tell their stories, while in Israel, living as Israelis, and speaking Spanish, not Hebrew, that was incredibly powerful. Once again, you won’t see this on 60 minutes or Dateline. You won’t see this type of reporting in our mainstream media. The truth has to fight ten times harder to overcome the lies. Watch the trailer. I’ve seen it half a dozen times or more and it gets me every single time. I can’t wait for the docuseries to be available.

Fuente Latina’s trailer for the docuseries. I can’t wait to see the full series. Incredibly powerful.

So what do you want to do? Do you want to be a lemming who believes the lies they are told? Do you want to ensure you are on the wrong side of history? Do you want to find real information and fight for truth and against the lies. Are you willing to do the work it takes in today’s world to get beyond consuming whatever those in charge want to feed you and instead learn for yourself?

I always go back to the great CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite for inspiration. He knew his job was to share the news, the facts, and the truth and let the viewer consume, digest, and interpret. His tag line, “and that’s the way it is” was the gold standard and his newscasts should be required viewing for all those who are a part of the media today. His final broadcast as the anchorman of the CBS Evening news, ironically enough March 6, 1981, was a classic, but in hindsight, he was very wrong. He talks about a supurb team of journalists and unfortunately that isn’t the case any longer. The news is part of the entertainment division and they are going to tell you a story, the story they want to tell, and it is up to you to decide if you want to consume it. Far too many people don’t understand they are now watching a story created by the entertainment division, not getting the facts. The hardest thing to hear him say is, “and none of that will change.” Walter was very wrong. It has changed.

Each time I write this blog, I think of Walter Cronkite, because I’m going to tell it like it is, or at least how I see it. I’m tired of lies. I’m tired of being fed BS by those with their own agenda. I’ve long tired of being told by others who is good and who bad, who is right and who is wrong, what I should believe in and what I should fight against. The days of Walter Cronkite being the voice and face you could trust to give you the facts are long gone. Now it’s up to each of us to be our own Walter Cronkite. Are you up for the challenge?

We are at war with utter savages. Not human beings who are capable of savagery. Just savages. Irredeemable savages.

I do a lot of reading to keep up with things. I don’t depend on one source or one type of opinion (although my wife gives me grief for reading the NY Post, but honestly as a Yankee fan, it is for the sports more than anything else).

The latest image and story that has captivated my heart and mind is about Ariel Bibas’s best friend, Yoav. The story that has been shared is that Yoav has been waiting for his friend to come back from Gaza. He saved a Batman costume for him. He wrote him letters. It’s an incredible friendship story that inspires me to be a better person and a better friend. A 5 year old has become my teacher.

This morning, in Daniel Gordis’s substack, Israel from the Inside, he told an incredible story about Yoav. When told that his friend Ariel would not be coming home from Gaza alive, Yoav refused to accept it. He said, “If he’s coming back in a coffin, maybe he’s standing inside it, which means he’s still alive. He’s still alive, Mommy, you didn’t understand correctly. Because if Ariel is a khalal [Hebrew for “fallen soldier”], it means he’s flying in space [the Hebrew word for “space” is also khalal]. He can’t die. In Israel, there are very smart people, right Mom? So maybe they can invent a special potion that will bring Ariel and Kfir back to life.”

Oh to be 5 years old. To think the impossible is possible. To not really understand complete evil. The innocence of childhood. I hope that Yoav never loses that gift and that he never forgets his best friend Ariel. Maybe Yoav will be the one who changes the world, brings peace, leads the effort to eliminate hate. We can only hope.

Daniel also wrote very clearly and powerfully what I have been feeling. He said it much more succinctly that I have been able to do. He wrote, “We are at war not with mere enemies. We are at war with utter savages. Not human beings who are capable of savagery. Just savages. Irredeemable savages.” RIght to the point. Those who protest on college campuses, in the streets, and other places about Israel defending herself simply don’t understand the reality. They want us dead. Period. No ‘ifs, ands, or buts’. There is no common ground to be found. I am reminded of the famous political cartoon that states it better than any words can.

If we met them halfway, their demands wouldn’t change and we would simply have lost half of the Jewish population. That’s the reality. That’s who we are dealing with.

Nobody said that the Nazis should be allowed to stay in power or have their own Nazi Germany state as a part of Germany after World War II. There are laws to ensure that a child molestor won’t live close to their victim but also not close to any child. Nobody expects a victim of sexual assault to give their attacker a room in their home or welcome them to live in their neighborhood. Yet that is what is expected of Israel. To not just welcome these utter savages as neighbors but to enable them to rebuild their military strength and to be able to once again brutally attack, murder, kidnap, rape, and massacre the Israeli people. It’s beyond absurd.

The past week has been one where I flipflop between anger and range and sadness. Ariel, Kfir and Shiri Bibas’s murders and the stories coming out about how they were murdered along with what Hamas and the terrorists did to their bodies afterwards has my blood boiling. I’ve been in a place of anger and rage much more than sadness. Anger for what they endured. Anger for Yarden and what he has lost forever. Rage at the world who continues to enable and defend the monsters that strangled a 10 month old boy and 4 year old boy and then mutilated their bodies trying to cover up what they did. Enraged at fools like AOC and Bernie Sanders who continue to blame Israel for what the terrorists did and continue to do. Bernie pretends to take a moral stand by defending terrorists and is once again attempting to thwart efforts to support Israel against these savages.

In today’s Israel from the Inside, Daniel Gordis gives me hope and something to strive for. He highlights the Statement from the Bibas family about the upcoming funerals for Shiri, Ariel, and Kfir. They recognize that the country and the Jewish diaspora has an emotional attachment with the family and these children. They also recognize their own need to grieve in their own way this horror. It’s an incredible statement with compassion, care, pain, and beauty.

Daniel then points out, “That’s the difference between them and us. Chants for revenge at Nasrallah’s “funeral”, versus a request for a private, intimate parting at a kibbutz. Murderous savages hailed by their “people,” versus a wife who, too excited for words, just posts three words from a classic poem and that brief post makes the headlines of Israel’s most-read newspaper. 

Irredeemable savage evil, versus a people that still believes in the possibility of goodness. A death cult embraced on American campuses “led” by administrations that have so lost their moral compass that they can’t even say that it’s wrong, versus a national liberation movement (ours, and it’s called “Zionism”) that still insists on believing that better days can lie ahead.”

He reminded me that we are different. That our essence is different. We love and treasure life. We revere it. We respect it. We honor the loss of it. They love and treasure death. They revere death. They celebrate death. We are not the same. Recognizing this, the question becomes, so what do I do with this difference? Daniel tells us in his closing of this piece.

“But that that is what we as a people must do is not in doubt. On a week when what we want most is to obliterate them, the way that we win is by being as different from them as we possibly can.” So we have our charge. We must maintain being as different from them as we possibly can. As much as the anger in me wants them to all be destroyed, Gaza to become a parking lot, eliminate them all so that we don’t make a mistake and let any of the evil continue, that is not who we are and that is not who I am. I’m still struggling with me standing in Kfar Aza during May 2024, watching and listening to the bombs being dropped in Jabaliya and that being the only thing that brought relief and peace to my soul. I said it then and I repeat it now, that is NOT who I am. That is NOT who I want to be. It was who I was in that moment. Our job is to lean into life. Our job is to do all that we can to be better human beings, not to match their level of depravity.

I had a friend reach out to me last week with a challenge she was facing and ask for my help. I was happy to help and did my part. The thanks she gave me over and over was overwhelming. I didn’t help for the thanks. I didn’t help because I was a ‘big shot with connections’. I helped because it was the right thing to do. Thank you Daniel Gordis for your piece this morning that reminded me not only THAT we are different from them but WHY we are different from them. And reminding me that vengance will only make me more evil and will not bring light to the world and to my soul. They will get what is coming to them. I need to work to be a better person and to celebrate life every minute of every day. The anger and rage is still there but it’s quieter now. I don’t need vengence to honor the lives of Shiri, Ariel, and Kfir Bibas. I need to bring more light into the world to replace their light that was eliminate by evil.

Art by Joanne Fink. Visit her website for more beautiful pieces that will inspire you. https://zenspirations.com/

My soul burns today

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.

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.

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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