Given that it’s difficult to predict what will be in the best of times – and these are not the best of times – I’ll stick to looking at what has already happened.
I’m writing these lines before Yuval Raphael, Israel’s entrant to the Eurovision Song Contest, is due to take to the stage in Thursday night’s semi-final. Although she is considered to have a good chance of reaching Saturday night’s final, I’m not willing to bet on anything. I want to put the spotlight on the nature of her participation.
Raphael, 24, is a survivor of the massacre at the Supernova music festival, when Hamas terrorists murdered some 300 people as part of their mega-atrocity on October 7, 2023. (Altogether, 1,200 were slaughtered that day and 251 abducted to Gaza, including many from the music festival).
Raphael stayed alive by hiding for eight hours under the bodies of friends and other rave-goers in a tiny rocket shelter as terrorists lobbed in grenades. Although she suffered shrapnel wounds, she was one of just 11 survivors out of roughly 50 people taking cover in the shelter.
Her song “New Day Will Rise” alludes to dealing with her experiences. As in the 2024 Eurovision, several singers and national broadcasters have tried to ban Israel from participating in the contest this year. Like Eden Golan, last year’s entrant, Raphael has been practicing singing over boos to help her deal with likely heckling while on the stage in Basel.
Under the slogan “United by music,” this is the biggest song contest in the world and was watched last year by 163 million viewers, according to the European Broadcasting Union.
It’s not Israel that needs to feel ashamed; it’s the pro-Hamas supporters, trying to silence a singer just for being an Israeli Jew.
Jewish survivors throughout the millennia
Former hostage Emily Damari, abducted from her southern kibbutz home on October 7, was given a refreshingly warm welcome in London this week where she was the guest of her favorite football team, Tottenham Hotspurs. Spurs fans had regularly declared: “She’s one of our own” and called for her release. Damari, who spent more than 470 days in Hamas captivity, reminded the crowd that her friends, twin brothers Gali and Ziv Berman, are still being held by the terrorist organization.
Before her trip, Damari called out a particularly shameful award. Palestinian writer Mosab Abu Toha was granted a Pulitzer Prize for essays about the situation in Gaza.
“This is a man who, last January, denied the very fact that I was held captive,” Damari wrote to the Pulitzer board. “He posted on Facebook, asking, ‘How is it possible that this girl is called a captive?’ He denied the murder of the Bibas family, cast doubt on whether Agam Berger was a captive, and downplayed the horrors that took place. This is not about word games – this is a blatant denial of documented crimes.
“I suffered from hunger, abuse, and humiliation. I witnessed the suffering of my fellow captives, saw hope slowly fade away. And even today, after returning home, I carry that darkness with me,” she wrote.“... [Toha] is not a brave writer – he is the equivalent of a Holocaust denier in our era. By honoring him with this prize, you have joined the ranks of those who deny the truth.”
The release on Monday of hostage Edan Alexander was facilitated by the US and is perceived as being part of US President Donald Trump’s Middle Eastern tour. Alexander is a dual US-Israeli citizen and was abducted by the Hamas terrorist organization from his army base near the border with Gaza on October 7. He reportedly spent most of the more than 580 days of captivity chained and in a cage in Hamas terror tunnels.
His release brought the number of remaining hostages down to 58, of whom 20 are believed to be alive, 35 are thought to be dead, and the status of three is unconfirmed.
The reason Israel doesn’t know the exact number of live hostages in Gaza is because the captives are being held by Hamas and other terrorist organizations – entities that do not answer to international laws or even basic laws of humanity.
The International Red Cross Committee has not visited them or even delivered medication. There is no international pressure on Hamas, or even on the Red Cross, to carry out this basic function – just demands that Israel allow ever more humanitarian aid; aid that props up the Hamas regime and, in many cases, doesn’t reach the general population.
It is absurd – grotesque – that the first time the hostages see Red Cross representatives is when they are finally being released, when the international body takes part in the handover and transport from Gaza to Israel.But that is not the only absurdity and double standards related to the fate of the hostages and the situation in Gaza. As journalist Lahav Harkov tweeted this week, “Qatar is getting Edan Alexander out as a gesture to President Trump. Qatar letting their beneficiary Hamas keep 20 more hostages in Gaza is a different gesture.”
Forget the Eurovision. The real winner right now is Qatar, whose world standing keeps growing while they pay no price for their support of terrorism.
Acts that are hard to understand and difficult to digest aren’t restricted to Gaza. As first reported by Channel 14 and the right-leaning HaKol HaYehudi news site, Israeli authorities recently permitted Palestinian Authority official and BDS supporter Jibril Rajoub to visit a relative who is in a hospital in Israel.
Rajoub, who is secretary-general of the Central Committee of Fatah and heads the Palestinian Football Association and the Palestinian Olympic Committee, among other positions, has constantly supported the boycott of Israel, lobbied to have the Jewish state banned from sporting events, and has justified the October 7 attack. Incidentally, despite his calls for boycott, divestment, and sanctions of Israel, Rajoub himself has been treated in Tel Aviv’s Ichilov Hospital in the past.
Rajoub has spent several terms in Israeli jails for terrorist offenses. During the First Lebanon War, he was one of 1,150 Arab prisoners freed in the 1985 exchange for three Israeli soldiers held by the Palestinian terrorists affiliated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
He was rearrested for further acts of terrorism during the First Intifada and deported to Lebanon but returned to the West Bank (Judea and Samaria) following the Oslo Accords.
Poignantly, on Sunday, when news of Alexander’s pending release was published, Israelis learned of a very different homecoming. In a special operation by Mossad and the IDF, the body of Sgt. First Class Tzvi Feldman, who fell in the Battle of Sultan Yakoub in Lebanon in 1982, was retrieved from Syria and brought home for a proper burial.
In 2019, the body of Zachary Baumel, who fell in the same tank battle, was returned from Syria with the help of Russian President Vladimir Putin. There is still one more MIA from that particular battle, Yehuda Katz.
As far back as World War I, in which the pre-state Jewish Brigade participated, there are still more than 500 soldiers whose burial place is not known, and four official MIAs.
Although the country and Jewish people pray for the safe return of the remaining live hostages from Gaza, it is also important to bring back the bodies of the dead for decent burial.
Having closely followed the fate of PoWs and MIAs since 1982, and having attended the funeral of a sort of relative more than 60 years after he fell in the 1948 War of Independence, I can attest to the joy of a released prisoner of war and the comfort of closure for bereaved families who finally have a grave to visit. I have always been touched by the fact that the IDF never gives up on trying to find the remains of missing soldiers, even after decades.
When Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met Feldman’s siblings this week, he quoted the prophet Jeremiah: “There is hope for the future, says the Lord, and your children shall return to their own border.”
Or, in the less elegant words of Raphael’s Eurovision entry, “New Day Will Rise.”
Supernova survivor Raphael is a link in a chain of generations of Jewish survivors throughout millennia. We will continue singing, dancing, and celebrating – celebrating life, not worshiping death.