Heartbreak
We are shattered. We are angry. And that anger is justified.
The Jewish world mourns as one.
For 16 months we have shared Israel’s anxieties over the fate of the hostages in Gaza, but one family in particular has been close to our hearts. We had hoped – even as we somehow knew that hope was hopeless – there may yet be a happy ending for Ariel, Kfir and Shiri Bibas.
Nine-month-old Kfir, with his wide open grin as he clutched his plush toy. Four-year-old Ariel, gently and curiously enamoured with his baby brother. Mother Shiri, who protected her children to the end as Gazan civilians ripped them from their idyllic home and into a nightmare.
Last week our worst fears were realised as these beautiful, sweet children, who had their whole lives ahead of them, along with their mother returned from Gaza in coffins.
We are shattered. We are angry. And that anger is justified.
It didn’t have to end this way. The world abandoned these children – the UN, the Red Cross, the international community. Many of our political leaders too, as they were too busy cautioning Israel on its conduct in a defensive war. If instead there had been worldwide pressure on Hamas, on Qatar, Turkey, Iran, the Bibas boys might have lived.
But they have also been abandoned in death. There was no global outrage over their murders or how they occurred.
No official statement from our government, either. Foreign Minister Penny Wong could only manage an emotionally detached sounding answer about the way their coffins were handed over when asked in an interview.
So yes, our anger is justified.
Then there are those who still march regularly in our streets, work in our universities and hospitals, or in Canberra (looking at you Greens), who refuse to condemn Hamas generally, continue to make excuses for the terror group, or worse yet defend them.
It takes an unfathomable kind of evil for someone to knowingly and methodically put their hands around a defenceless young child’s neck and squeeze until they are dead. This is what anyone who excuses or defends Hamas is defending.
For the sake of humanity, there is no option but for the evil death cult of Hamas to be completely expunged from the earth.
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