There are those who embark on a journey willingly, like Gulliver, and those upon whom the journey is forced, like Robinson Crusoe. My parents embarked on many journeys willingly, but this journey was forced upon them.
It wasn’t due to a stormy sea or getting lost in a dense forest but by the force of evil. It was not out of bad luck or confusion, but out of violence, and an ideology that believes cruelty will achieve freedom. This is the worldview of terror.
How can one call those who torture, murder, and rape innocent people who stand in their way – freedom fighters? It is unclear what kind of freedom, or what kind of world they aspire to.
Travel books, photo albums from my parents’ travels, and stamp collection albums from distant countries, and remote islands saved my parents on Shabbat, Simchat Torah, October 7, 2023.
My father attached a heavy bookshelf to the safe room door, and in the gap that remained between the bookshelf and the door handle, he inserted the albums. A makeshift lock, “made of whatever there was around,” succeeded that day in preventing absolute darkness from entering the safe room.
Three times the terrorists entered their home, looted, broke, and shot but failed to open the safe room door.
The forced journey began from the bedroom to the safe room, 15 seconds; and from the safe room, after 12 and a half hours, to a children’s house that became a shelter for the survivors.
On Sunday evening, with a piece of bread in hand and without any luggage, the journey continued to a hotel in Eilat. After three months, they arrived in the Carmei Gat neighborhood in Kiryat Gat. Still it will not end until they return home, as with any journey.
They did not leave the country, but their souls reached abysses that only masterpieces of literature know how to describe, and they have not yet finished the journey or completed their purpose. In any case, in this story, it’s good that there were books.
The complacent world forgot to close the door. My father can teach it how to do this.
A terrorist organization holds hostages. Captives, abductees - choose your terminology. Several years ago, the terrorist organization ISIS kidnapped and executed civilians and soldiers.
From all corners of the globe, this brutal cruelty has been condemned, documented in videos that were disseminated, and told the world who it was dealing with.
ISIS terrorists were declared as committing crimes against humanity. No one stood by their side. The goal was clear – it was necessary to eliminate the organization and the vision of the “Islamic State.”
In 2014, the Islamic terrorist organization Boko Haram kidnapped hundreds of Christian girls, intending to sell them as slaves in areas under its control in Africa. The whole world mobilized for the helpless girls, and even the American first lady, Michelle Obama, joined the “Bring Back Our Girls” campaign.
Fifteen months ago, the terrorist organization Hamas did exactly the same thing and much worse. In greater quantity, with greater cruelty. This time, far fewer people condemned it, and did so in a hushed whisper, and many, too many, supported the attack and the “freedom fighters” who carried it out.
What don’t I understand? What did I miss?
WITHIN LESS than ten years, the world has transformed from a place where terrorists are condemned, where it is clear that they and their cruel and inhuman methods of operation have no place in a civilized world, to a world that supports and justifies them.
Where is the outcry and the demand for a visit and inspection of the conditions of detention? Where are the human rights organizations? Where are the women’s rights organizations? There are people walking around who think that Hamas’s actions are justified.
People who are not among the spreaders of the faith of the Islamic State. People who do not understand that if the world does not put an end to this, they may be next. And the world leaders do not dare to speak out. They are afraid. They do not dare to demand a visit, let alone release.
Worldwide, they pity innocent children who are killed in Gaza. I also pity them; children really shouldn’t pay the price of their fathers. There is a solution for this. The terrorist organization will deign to return the hostages, and their babies and children will no longer be in danger.
That is, they will be in danger, but only from the terrorist organization they were born into; this terror that the civilized world refuses to recognize as a hostile force. Freedom fighters whose goal is to kill and eliminate as many people as possible who don’t think like them.
What kind of freedom do they gain from this? How much positive thinking and future progress do they spread? God, I don’t understand their language. I don’t want to learn it. A terrorist organization that, if it had the chance, would destroy the entire State of Israel and continue on and on.
That has no mercy even for the people it rules over. That believes that the solution is violence and force. If the whole world spoke their language, the land would never be quiet, not even for a moment.
Where is the civilized world that seeks peaceful solutions? Where are its leaders? Where is the global village, the commerce, and the many languages that intertwine to create a beautiful tapestry, a captivating painting?
I cannot understand the language of terror, and even less the language of those who support it. Those who justify unbridled anger, who side with the schoolyard bully who terrorizes the entire class, including the teachers.
Hamas instituting terror
Everyone is afraid of Hamas. The complacent world forgot to close the door to evil. All the books in the world cannot help against evil. At least they helped my parents.
Everyone in the world who holds a position of power, who has political, economic, or social influence, and who accepts the world as it is today, as being a place in which it is possible to live, should be ashamed.
There is no hope for humanity when people have been held captive by Hamas for more than 16 months, and no one knows their condition or can bring them back, and when everyone is afraid of Hamas.
All values melt away in the face of fear. We are learning that only force prevails, not just in our neighborhood in the Middle East, but in the whole world. We are forced to learn their language to survive. And it is so sad, so very sad.
A voluntary journey toward a better, less violent future must begin. Who will lead it?
The writer was born and raised in Kibbutz Nir Oz. She currently lives in Petah Tikva. She has published short stories and poems in various journals and has published a children’s book, The Blanket’s Blanket.