To arrive in Israel is never just a landing. For millennia, Jews faced this land in hope and longing, turning toward Jerusalem even when the path was blocked by oceans, armies, or fate itself. Countless generations passed on without ever setting foot on the stones their ancestors walked.
The architects of Ben Gurion Airport understood this ache.
Between the terminal and passport control, travelers move through parallel glass corridors — one for those entering the land, one for those departing. You can watch them the entire way: people going home, people leaving home. From above, the scene resembles Jacob’s Ladder, angels ascending and descending, a ceaseless movement connecting heaven and earth. Biblical commentators taught that the angels Jacob saw were the guardians of the Land of Israel — one set departing when he left, and a new set arriving to accompany him in the diaspora. So too here: those making aliyah rising in spirit; those heading abroad descending from holiness for a time, yet still tethered by an invisible thread.
In the last two years, this modern ladder of the Land of Israel took on a painful weight. Along the railing, as every arriving passenger stepped into the corridor, 251 photos lined the wall — the faces of each hostage seized by Hamas on October 7. Every person entering the land confronted them. No one could step onto the soil of the Jewish homeland without understanding the national wound, the unfinished promise that Israel would bring every soul – living and dead – home.
Photos of the hostages hung from railings meeting every person arriving in Israel at Ben Gurion Airport in 2024 (photo: First One Through)
On my most recent trip, the first picture I met was that of Dror Or. I did not pass. I lingered. For two years, his body was held in Gaza — a grotesque bargaining chip in a war the captors refused to end. Israel kept searching, praying, fighting, refusing to abandon its dead. A week after my arrival, his body was finally returned to his family and to the state. When I walked back through the airport corridor to depart, his photo was gone. His picture had been removed, but his passing — and his dignity — stayed with me.
On arrivalAt departure
In Israel, passings are never casual. In this small land, every encounter feels like a reunion: bumping into someone you have not seen in years; meeting friends to celebrate a simcha; honoring the memory of someone who has passed on; meeting a stranger and then talking intimately for twenty minutes. Moments here are not ordinary. The land itself seems to insist that they matter.
To pass by someone, to pass through a hallway, to pass from life — in the Jewish homeland, is not trivial. This is a country stitched together by arrivals and departures, by longing and fulfillment, by angels ascending and descending in steady and deliberate devotion.
During the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, as you fast and pray and reflect on life, I would like to ask you to consider incorporating the Christian approach of Lent in the period before Easter, in which people give up on certain things they enjoy as a form of penance to grow spiritually.
While Christians normally give up on something that they enjoy physically, like alcohol, meat and candy, I request that you relinquish the dozens of hostages which you stole from their homes in Israel.
Ramadan is meant to be a time of increased charity and kindness towards others. It is a time for gathering together as a community for evening meals. All of this can be achieved by releasing all of the hostages. None of this can be achieved while holding them captive.
To date, the world has been shown by your actions that those who have a deep Islamic faith burn families alive, rape women and intentionally murder babies. Show the world a different face: hand over the Israeli hostages to their worried families. Help end the fighting which has decimated Gaza because of your stubbornness to keep Israeli civilians in tunnels for over 500 days.
Leaders do not always charge into battle; they can lead with humble faith that allows for peace and spiritual growth for all of their people.
Use this time to show an Islam of peace to the world, not one devoted to producing the maximum number of martyrs.
The world will not wait for you. You have to make the move.
On January 19, 2025, three young Israeli women who were held in captivity in Gaza for 471 days were released in exchange for 90 Palestinian Arabs held in Israel. Among those Arabs were Khalida Jarrar, a convicted member of the Palestinian terrorist group, Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) who was involved in several plane hijackings; Nawal Abed Fatiha, who stabbed a 70-year-old Israeli man in a 2020 attack in Jerusalem; and Ibrahim Zamar, who shot two people near the Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood in 2023.
The gross inequality of the exchange in QUANTITY (but not quality) raised the eyebrows of the media, questioning the thirty-to-one ratio of people, while ignoring the equivalization of civilian women torn from their homes to convicted terrorists.
New York Times noting the “uneven exchange” of numbers while minimizing the qualitative difference of civilians for terrorists
But that is the story of the Middle East.
The Jewish State, is a liberal democracy which is roughly 76% Jewish, with 7.2 million Jews. It sits amongst 450 million Muslims in its immediate vicinity (about 62 times as many Muslims as Jews), in countries which are autocracies and almost completely Islamic. Just past those neighbors are another 500 million Muslims, some of whom have called Israel a “cancer” which must be removed from the planet.
The Israeli women who were freed – Romi Gonen (24), Doron Steinbrecher (31) and Emily Damari (28) – were simply living their lives when an estimated 3,000 Palestinian Arabs from Gaza stormed into Israel, killing their friends, family and pets, and then abducted them. That is in sharp contrast to the Palestinian Arab terrorists released by Israel who were waging a war of ethnic cleansing to rid the region of Jews when they were taken prisoners.
The media’s framing of the story whitewashes the difference in the nature of the exchange of innocents for criminals, asserting that they were just “accused of terrorism.” It calls out the numerical difference as rational, even while it vilifies Israel for the difference in the number of dead in the Hamas-initiated war.
New York Times describing Palestinian prisoners as simply “accused of terrorism”
The qualitative symbol of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict is Neta Sorek, a Jewish feminist peace activist slaughtered by Palestinian terrorists as she walked in a forest in 2010. The quantitative symbol of the broader Jewish-Muslim Conflict in the Middle East is the grossly uneven exchange of 2025.
I have been fortunate to visit Israel dozens of times. I have come for work and to vacation. To celebrate Jewish holidays and family and friends’ celebrations. During wars and “intifadas” as well as times of peace.
July 2024 was different. I came to a country held hostage.
The Individual Hostages In Gaza
The first thing one sees upon arrival at the airport is a large sign “Bring them home now!” with sample dog tags showing the date October 7 when over 250 people from Israel – living and dead – were seized by Palestinian Arabs and hauled into Gaza.
The faces of the hostages were found everywhere: in the airport, on the streets and in office lobbies. On stickers, banners and shirts. Israel is consumed with the people abducted by terrorists. Their faces, names and stories refuse to be forgotten.
Hostage To Memories And Emotions
Outside the Tel Aviv Museum is Hostage Square, an encampment of families and friends who sit in shelters to talk to people about the abducted amidst a range of emotional tributes and installations. Most of the people try to avoid talking about politics or the war, and are solely focused on the innocent people ripped from their homes and regular lives.
One of people I met in a tent for one of the kibbutz communities attacked was a Ukrainian-Israeli who confided that she liked to talk to tourists. She felt it difficult to talk to fellow Israelis who were enmeshed in the ongoing tragedy but could “unload” to strangers and not be alone.
She pointed to a picture over the door and said that the bearded man was her old boyfriend who was killed on October 7 and his body was hauled into Gaza. The Israel Defense Forces retrieved his body just a few weeks earlier.
While this woman talked to me, another women from the kibbutz had been talking to another female visitor. That kibbutz woman introduced a middle aged lady who shared that she was a neighbor of the Ukrainian’s old boyfriend. The Ukrainian covered her mouth and began to bawl. She attempted to speak and then fled the tent.
Hostages To War
I have visited the Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem many times. In 2003, during the Second ‘Intifada’, I had the opportunity to get a tour of the new emergency room by Dr. David Applebaum two weeks before he and his daughter were killed in a Palestinian terrorist bombing on the eve of her wedding. I came to visit now to see how the hospital was functioning during a war.
The hospital lobby has a long table filled with pictures of family members of hospital workers who were killed over the nine months of war. Some were killed during the October 7 massacre while others died in the fighting to free the hostages and to bring the terrorists to justice.
Lobby of Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem, July 2024
The guide shared that this war had an enormous casualty-to-death ratio relative to past wars. The reason is that many soldiers who would have been killed in the past were saved due to some tactical measures.
Firstly, Israeli soldiers entered the hornet’s nest of Gaza wearing tourniquets. With a battlefield loaded with booby traps, many people were losing limbs as bombs exploded. In the past, those soldiers would have bled to death but now, tourniquets provided precious time for them to be rescued.
Behind the wave of infantry were medics equipped with various equipment to stabilize the injured quickly for immediate transfer out of Gaza into Israel a short distance away. As soon as the injured entered Israel, well-equipped medical helicopters flew the seriously injured to hospitals like Shaare Zedek, a short 15 minute flight, while those in non-life threatening situations were transferred via ambulance. The sophisticated medical helicopters had advanced equipment like sonars which evaluate the soldier’s condition to prepare the emergency room at the hospital to receive the injured and operate quickly. There were cases that a person was on an operating table less than 45 minutes from the moment of attack.
The tour of the hospital also featured a large empty underground intensive care unit, should air sirens be blasted in Jerusalem and very sick patients need to be moved into a shelter.
Underground ICU in case of bombing
Hostages To The Government
Many Israelis are deeply upset with their leadership and Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu. They are angry at the failure to protect the border, allowing the October 7th massacre to occur. They are furious at the inability to finish off Hamas and release the hostages.
Graffiti around Jerusalem angry at Netanyahu
They are angry at Bibi’s failure to conclude a hostage deal and his refusal to step down and hold elections. They feel trapped by his incompetence and ego but have few tools to call for an early election.
The Saturday night protest near the prime minister’s house in Jerusalem was not shrill and it seemed like the the crowd was worn out from many months of little progress.
But they keep turning out.
Hostages To Family Fighting
Many Israelis are exhausted in every manner of the word. They have family members who have been fighting in Gaza or up north on-and-off for nine months. They all have or know of families who have lost loved ones. They are desperate to leave the country for a much needed respite but feel unable to do so while family is on the front lines.
Those who remain in the country ask each other difficult questions: do you postpone a wedding until after the war? Do you start dating someone who is on the front lines, who might suffer a terrible injury or death?
The soldiers occupy their every action and prayers. They have also been captured into a war zone since October 7, a war which no one wanted.
Hostages To Tradition
In the Jerusalem neighborhood of Romema, many new buildings are going up to accommodate the rapidly growing numbers of ultra-Orthodox Haredi Jews who want to live in Jerusalem, Judaism’s holiest city. While the vast majority of that community do not serve in the army, many are trying to contribute to the war effort in their own way.
On the first floor of a small building, a cramped kitchen has been set up by volunteers who cook and pack meals for families who have people fighting in Gaza or the Lebanese border. They pack hundreds of meals including soup, meatballs, spaghetti and dessert. Each package is customized according to the size of the family who has asked to receive the meals. The day I came to help pack, the meals were going to the community in Beit El.
Car packed with meals for families with people serving in the army, cooked and prepared by Haredi Jews in Jerusalem, July 2024
Economy Held Hostage
Israel has a citizen army in which everyone serves. While 18 to 21 year olds serve before they attend college, people also continue to get called up for milu’im, occasional service as the army needs people. In the course of this war, thousands of people in their 30s, 40s and 50s have left their jobs to fight the Palestinian Arab terrorists. Beyond the direct financial cost of the war, the impact on the country’s economy has been dramatic as millions of work-hours have vanished to defend the country.
There is still no end in sight all these months later, as fronts with Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houtis in Yemen open up further.
Homes Held Hostage
Many hotels and apartments in Jerusalem have unusual activity. Whole families from the country’s north near Lebanon, as well as from near the Gaza Strip have relocated to the middle of the country. For nine months, they have been living as internally-displaced people. In the immediate aftermath of October 7, the numbers surpassed 200,000 but is now closer to 90,000.
According to UN Watch, “Despite the unprecedented massive displacement within Israel, both the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) and the UN Special Rapporteur on Internally displaced people (IDPs), Paula Gaviria Betancur—the two UN representatives one would expect to champion the rights of the displaced Israelis—have been largely silent on the issue.”
Israelis – roughly the population of Duluth, MN – have lost access to their homes, and the world has remained silent.
Hostages To Creeping Ambivalence
So many Israelis share the refrain that they “do not want the situation of hostages to become normalized.” They refuse to live in a country in which it is accepted that more than one hundred people are trapped in Gaza. They rail against a world which cannot fathom the deep trauma of the country that innocent civilians were kidnapped from their homes by thousands of terrorists.
As each day morphs to another, people afix new numbers to tape on their chests: 278, 279, 280, 281… People are not only more fearful about the fate of the hostages as time goes by but that their lives and stories grow more distant to the world.
Resistance
While many feel trapped by the current war, Israelis are taking action incorporating the new reality. They try to transform points of pain to rays of light.
Shuva Junction, about 5km from Gaza, was originally the location where people brought dead and wounded people from the October 7 massacre. Since that time, it has become a makeshift hub where Israeli soldiers come to rest and get food. Roughly 1,500 people are fed every day at a cost of roughly $5,000, all done by volunteers.
Already an outlier among countries allowing sperm extraction from a dead man by a spouse, Israel is debating allowing parents to do posthumous sperm retrieval for their fallen sons post-October 7. The bereaved parents want their sons to live on somehow, after sacrificing everything for the nation.
Beyond the war is living life. While it felt strange to go out for dinner or shop while a war was raging and over a hundred people were still being held hostage, the overall environment always felt like it included both fighters and hostages.
I was fortunate to attend a Hanan Ben Ari concert in the Sultan’s Pool right outside the Old City of Jerusalem. The stage was illuminated by the number of days that hostages were captive along with a yellow ribbon.
Stage for Hanan Ben Ari concert at Sultan’s Pool, Jerusalem in July 2024
I was unfamiliar with the singer and my Hebrew is not great, so I needed to listen particularly closely to the words. I heard a man praying for his children. I listened to a singer honoring his grandfather who was buried on Har Meuchut, on the other side of the Old City walls.
Hanan Ben Ari at Sultan’s Pool
And I watched the crowd of secular, modern and ultra-Orthodox Jews sing along. I saw young and old, men and women dance and sway to the music.
And cry.
Hanan Ben Ari put up a picture of one of his road managers, along with one of him with his family. Hanan spoke of him and how he was working the Nova music festival and slaughtered on October 7. Ben Ari then showed two people in his crew who were still held captive in Gaza.
He then asked people to hold the flashlights on their phones if they know of someone killed in the war. All 6,000 people in the audience raised their arms and began crying to a mournful song, Shvurei lev, a song of a broken heart.
I have been to Israel durings wars and sensed a people who had long ago accepted that they lived in a region amongst people who did not accept their basic presence or humanity. Still, they believed the episode would pass; the country will prevail in the near-term battles and in the longer-term, peace will prevail when the Jewish State’s enemies internalize that they are never leaving.
But that was not the nation I visited in July 2024.
Woman crying over fate of the murdered, the fallen and the hostages while she surveyed her fellow countrymen raising their arms at a Hanan Ben Ari concert, that they have suffered deeply in the 2023-4 Hamas war.
Israelis are deeply scarred by those killed and the manner in which they were butchered on October 7. They were rocked by the government and army’s failure to protect them. They are tortured by the ongoing hostage situation. They are deeply troubled by their strongest ally of the United States being rocked with rabid antisemitism which had previously only been displayed in Europe. They are livid at being blamed for a war they never wanted and want to end as quickly as possible.
The Jewish State is being held hostage in Gaza because Judaism believes that every life is a world. It is being held hostage by the scars of the barbarity of October 7 massacre. It is being held hostage by the fear of living next door to people who support such crimes against humanity. It is being held hostage by its own government that won’t step down and hold new elections. It is being held hostage by a false narrative at the United Nations and the ICC. It is being held hostage by a single powerful ally fading in its support.
There are more than 100 hostages. There are millions.
Israel has long known war and is confident that it can defeat Palestinian terrorists.
This is more than a war against a weak genocidal foe. This is a battle in the cramped crevices of hearts and minds to salvage humanity. Alone.
Air traffic control of Tel Aviv airport – the main international airport for the entire country – lit up with yellow ribbon for hostages held in Gaza, July 2024. Over the first nine months of the year, before the October 7 attacks by Hamas, passenger traffic surged by an annual 38.5 percent, to 19.1 million. But since then, traffic has plunged, culminating in a 78 percent drop in November and 71 percent dive in December, according to the Israel Airports Authority.
On Saturday June 8, 2024, Israeli security forces rescued four of the Israeli hostages who were kidnapped to Gaza from the Nova Music Festival on October 7, 2023. In the action to bring everyone back to Israel, one of the Israeli vehicles got stuck and was surrounded by Palestinian terrorists. Israel called in the Air Force to provide protection and scores of Palestinians were reportedly killed.
Pro-Israel media portrayed the rescue operation as an enormous success. Israelis celebrated on the streets at the return of the seized peaceful party-goers who were held illegally in captivity for eight months by Gazans.
NY Post cover pageWall Street Journal cover page
The anti-Israel media lambasted the operation as it killed many Palestinians. It mocked the rescue as being inhumane because of the toll on Palestinians who were part of the Hamas infrastructure imprisoning the Israelis.
Pundits went on to speculate that Hamas would now likely move hostages from apartments to the underground tunnel network and embed them with Palestinian soldiers.
That is inverted logic.
Hamas has no possibility of militarily defeating Israel, a fact made abundantly clear over the past eight months. The only war Hamas is attempting to win is one of public opinion, which it tries to do by getting the woke anti-Israel media to see Israel as mercilessly killing civilians – ideally as many women and children as possible. Hamas watches the news, and celebrates the latest victory that so much of the media has not condemned it for keeping hostages in the heart of a residential neighborhood.
It will make the next attempt even more heinous.
After the daring rescue operation, Hamas is likely to move remaining hostages into nurseries, to force Israel to kill as many Arab infants as possible, should the Jewish State attempt another rescue. It would be a huge victory for Hamas, as it offers infant martyrs for the cameras.
On October 7, 2023, thousands of Palestinian Arabs stormed the barrier separating Gaza from Israel, butchering and killing roughly 1,200 people and taking another 240 captive. It is estimated that eight Americans remain among the 136 hostages still held at this time by the Hamas political-terrorist party and possibly other groups. As many as 50 of the hostages may have already been killed.
The United States is working with regional players including Qatar and Egypt to negotiate a release of the 136 hostages, and proposals for the exchange have included hundreds of Palestinian terrorists held in Israeli jails alongside a pause in the fighting. Thus far, no one has publicly mentioned infamous Palestinian assassin Sirhan Sirhan as part of the exchange.
Sirhan Sirhan shot and killed Senator Robert F. Kennedy, brother of President John F. Kennedy, on June 5, 1967, the one year anniversary of the 1967 Arab-Israeli War. He killed Kennedy because of the senator’s strong support for Israel and had written before the murder “RFK must die. RFK must be killed. Robert F. Kennedy must be assassinated.”
Senator Robert Kennedy shot by Palestinian terrorist Sirhan Sirhan on June 5, 1968
Sirhan Sirhan was handed the death sentence in 1969 which was later commuted to a life sentence. He has repeatedly tried to get released but has been denied parole each time, the last one, his sixteenth attempt, in March 2023. California Governor Gavin Newsom said of Sirhan that “his release on parole would pose a threat to public safety…. He cannot be safely released from prison because he has not mitigated his risk of fomenting further political violence.”
Israel knows full well about the danger of releasing politically-driven murderers: the mastermind of the October 7 massacre, Yahya Sinwar, was released from Israeli jails in 2011 along with 1,000 other Palestinian prisoners for a single Israeli soldier, Gilad Shalit.
The Biden Administration is actively attempting to coax a Hamas-Israeli deal which could release dangerous Palestinian Arab murderers of Israelis. It remains to be seen if America will similarly release a known Palestinian killer of an American senator to free American civilians taken hostage into Gaza.
Sirhan’s release would be a cause for huge celebration among Palestinians, and it’s likely that public squares would get named for him. He might even become the next president of the Palestinian Authority, just so Palestinian Arabs could shove a middle finger into the heart of American consciousness.
Israel and Hamas are reportedly ready to commence an exchange of 50 Israeli hostages for 150 Palestinians held in Israeli jails. All of the people on both sides are reported to be women and children. The public has not heard who will be released but the information thus far has completely omitted the mention of two particular names as part of the transaction: Ahlam al-Tamimi and the Palestinian Authority.
Ahlam al-Tamimi
Ahlam al-Tamimi remains on the United States most wanted list for her role in killing 15 people, including a pregnant woman and seven children in a bombing in Jerusalem, Israel in August 2001. The casualties included three Americans.
When Yael Lampert was in her confirmation hearing on May 4, 2023 to become the United States’ Ambassador to Jordan, she said (1:08:00) that “I will do everything in my power to ensure that Ahlam al-Tamimi faces justice in the US for her horrific crimes.” In response to possible US action, Jordan was rumored to look to transport Tamimi to either Iran or Qatar, possibly at the direction of Hamas.
Tamimi continuing to walk free under protection of the king of Jordan is an atrocity. The evil axis of Hamas, Iran and Qatar are continuing their carnage and protecting the murderers around the world, and Israel and the US are willing dupes.
As part of this hostage-prisoner exchange, the United States should insist that Tamimi be extradited to face justice for her crimes.
The Palestinian Authority
The Palestinian Authority is viewed by everyone – including Palestinian Arabs – as completely corrupt and inept. Yet the United Nations and the world advance the idea that the PA should rule Gaza after the current war.
How is that remotely possible? Will the PA suddenly be viewed as competent after the evil axis of Hamas, Qatar and Iran run the chessboard?
The PA must be inserted into the dialogue to give them some shred of credibility for the day after.
Hamas is only agreeing to the prisoner swap now in a sign of weakness, and Israel is engaging in it due to pressure from the United States because of the horrible civilian death toll in Gaza. Rather than use the current dynamic to set a future course where the Palestinian Authority has a pathway to leadership and Hamas understands that its terrorists will never escape justice, even and especially when so many are being released – including women, the Evil Axis is seizing victory from defeat.
Its like rewatching former Secretary of State John Kerry botch negotiations on both the Iranian nuclear deal and Israel-PA peace process in 2014-15, setting the region on a pathway for violence.
The evil axis of Hamas/Iran/Qatar beat Israel in the initial battle of the 2023 Gaza War by butchering 1,200 people in Israel. The United States is responsible for the second loss, setting the stage for a future where terrorism is allowed to win.
ACTION ITEM
Write White House on form: “Demand the extradition of Ahlam al-Tamimi as part of the hostage-prisoner exchange, and find a role for the Palestinian Authority to play for there to be a chance to peace. The current dynamic leaves the Evil Axis of Hamas, Iran and Qatar running the region.” one-click
An estimated 290,000 Jews and Zionists came to the National Mall in Washington, D.C. on November 14, 2023 to march for Israel, the release of hostages and against antisemitism. News reports share that it was the single largest turnout of Jews in D.C. ever.
Hundreds of thousands of people at the National Mall rally on November 14, 2023 (photo: FirstOneThrough)
While marked as a “march” to run from 1:00PM to 3:00PM, the rally started at 11:00AM and ended well past 3:00PM. Speakers and singers addressed the large crowd who came from around the United States, Canada, Europe and Israel. There were masses of Israeli flags everywhere, as well as American flags, as everyone attending appreciated the simple ability to come out without fear in America’s capital.
There were sections set aside for members of Congress, and both Republicans and Democrats were proud to show their support for Israel and Zionists. Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) was an early speaker, and the most forceful American politician from those invited to speak. He roundly condemned Hamas and spoke with moral clarity about the fight against evil.
Other Democrats who were not given the podium, like Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), were happy to speak to various people about the war, including Nir Barkat, former Mayor of Jerusalem and current Minister of Finance in Israel. Republican speakers included new House Speaker Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) who was only second to Rep. Torres in clearly articulating standing firmly with Israel and against Hamas, and that America’s support was a bipartisan effort. Many other Republicans attended, including from California, Arizona, Georgia and Texas.
Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz at rally for Israel in Washington, DC on November 14, 2023 (photo: FirstOneThrough)
Beyond the familiar names were the new names.
Families of the over 200 hostages held in Gaza came to Washington. They stood and held each other and demanded the return of their loved ones. Many took the stage and spoke passionately about their sons, daughters and family members abducted amidst the slaughter of October 7.
Family of Hersh Goldberg-Polin
Rachel Goldberg-Polin spoke to the audience as she has done many times at any forum where she can try to help advance the release of her son Hersh, whose arm was blown off during the October 7 massacre. She shared that she did not know if he was alive and buried in the tunnels of Gaza, or had died from bleeding out from his wounds. But she knew she needed to speak out as best she could.
Other parents also spoke on behalf of their children. Some held placards with the names and faces of the captives. These were not “Kidnapped” signs that could be ripped from lampposts as thousands have been by anti-Zionists in America’s cities. These signs held up the tortured families, standing somewhere between shiva and hope.
In many ways, that was the essence of rally. While people leaned on each other for support and blessed the United States for both standing with Israel and being an open welcoming society, everyone knew that this was no celebration.
Over 1,200 people in Israel were slaughtered and butchered. Antisemitism was skyrocketing. University professors and students shouted their joy at the death of Jews. Politicians and world governments were calling the Jewish State a racist genocidal country not worthy of existing. Global crowds cheered the jihadists’ auto-da-fe.
So thousands came to America’s capital in a counter-demonstration of love and peace.
Jews and Christian Zionists came to be together. At times they accepted comfort from the array of speakers and other times they shouted back “Bring Them Home!” and “No Ceasefire!” in reply. The crowd stood for hours, talking to people around them to understand their personal stories of how they’ve been impacted, as well as to simply embrace friends traumatized by unfolding events.
Families of hostages demand the return of their loves ones in Washington, DC on November 14, 2023 (photo: FirstOneThrough)
The crowd came to the capital to collectively mourn the unholy death in the holy land. They came to get and demand reassurance from powerful politicians that they will be safe in America and make sure Israel can have peace.
And they openly showed their fear.
Like the 240 hostages in Gaza, roughly 300,000 people are not sure whether this was a time for hope or a time to mourn. Perhaps this is a post-Ecclesiastes world when time and state are no longer paired; a time for shiva and hope concurrently.
Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY16) represents the eighth largest Jewish district in Congress. He represents Americans.
And he has abandoned them all.
On October 16, 2023, while nearly 200 hostages remain captive in Gaza by the Palestinian political-terrorist group Hamas, the American far left-wing “squad” put forward a resolution which ignored them.
The “CeasfireNOW” Resolution leads that “between October 7 and October 16, 2023, armed violence has claimed the lives of 2,700 Palestinians and over 1,400 Israelis, including Israelis, and wounding thousands more.”
There was no acknowledgement of the sickening and unprovoked terrorist attack which started the violence.
There was no mention in the resolution of the hostages taken, which President Biden’s team said “are the highest priority. He [Biden] has sent hostage experts to coordinate and consult with the Israeli government on hostage recovery efforts.”
There was no statement to bring the Hamas perpetrators to justice. Quite the contrary, it called for “the Biden Administration to immediately call for and facilitate deescalation and a ceasefire to urgently end the current violence,” to allow the butchers to remain free, laughing at Israel and taunting the hostages.
Jamaal Bowman and fellow extremists Rep. Cori Bush and Rashida Tlaib, have abandoned innocent hostages and are working to ensure that Hamas terrorists are never brought to justice, free to wantonly kill Jews whenever the mood strikes.
Is the squad being paid by Iran too?
ACTION ITEM
Email White House: “The CeasefireNow” Resolution put forward by the left-wing radical fringe including NY’s Bowman ignores Hamas terrorism and the hundreds of hostages held by the jihadi group. It is disgraceful and alarming surrender to violence. It must not only be rejected but the sponsors should be censured.”
In response to the heinous massacre of Israelis and kidnapping of an estimated 150 Jews, Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant announced a “complete siege [of Gaza]. We are fighting barbarians and will respond accordingly.” The siege is anticipated to include halting the supply of electricity, food, water and fuel as Israeli soldiers scour the region in search of innocent hostages.
For its part, Hamas announced that it would “respond to any targeting of our people who are safe in their homes without warning, with the execution of our civilian hostages, and we will broadcast it with audio and video.”
The United Nations Secretary General immediately took sides on the competing threats – one by Israel to halt supplies while it sought to redeem its captives, and the other by Hamas which threatened to execute the Jewish civilians and broadcast it to the world.
He sided with Palestinian terrorists. His statement read:
“I am deeply distressed by today’s announcement that Israel will initiate a complete siege of the Gaza Strip, nothing allowed in — no electricity, food or fuel. The humanitarian situation in Gaza was extremely dire before these hostilities; now it will only deteriorate exponentially.
“Medical equipment, food, fuel and other humanitarian supplies are desperately needed, along with access for humanitarian personnel. Relief and entry of essential supplies into Gaza must be facilitated and the UN will continue efforts to provide aid to respond to these needs.
“I urge all sides and the relevant parties to allow United Nations access to deliver urgent humanitarian assistance to Palestinian civilians trapped and helpless in the Gaza Strip. I appeal to the international community to mobilize immediate humanitarian support for this effort.”
That is not a misprint.
United Nations Secretary General Antonio Gutteres said that the UN would rally the world to ignore Israel’s search and rescue mission for Jewish hostages marked for public execution in Palestinian territory, and instead focus on Palestinian civilians who were “trapped and helpless” ruled by Arabs which they support and elected.
Bound Israeli female hostage pulled into Hamas jeep for Gaza
Blinded by its long-standing desire to help Palestinian Arabs, the United Nations has lost all legitimacy, and now participates in crimes against humanity and the murder of Israeli Jews.
First One Through 