Why does Israel continue to stand up to the constant criticism of its acts of self-defense? The videos of hostages Evyatar David and Rom Braslavski show precisely why Israel has no choice but to tune out this criticism.
To watch those videos is to witness pure evil. Evyatar was forced to dig his own grave. Both hostages were reduced to skin and bones, the result of deliberate starvation by their Hamas and Islamic Jihad captors. The arm of a well-fed Hamas terrorist involved in the daily torture is visible, proving that there is enough food for the hostages, Hamas is just not giving it to them.
Israel’s critics bear a high level of responsibility for this evil, because in their rush to blame Israel for everything and absolve Hamas of all responsibility for its actions, they abandoned the hostages to this fate.
The Red Cross, an organization dedicated to protecting the medical needs of all sides of every conflict and to ensuring that prisoners are well-treated, has pretended that the hostages do not exist for the last 22 months. They have never visited a single hostage in Gaza in that entire time and have never made any real effort to either secure such visits or to shame Hamas for violating international laws and norms by denying the hostages the right to be visited by the Red Cross.
The Red Cross, if it had done its job, would have launched an international campaign to call attention to these outrages and do everything in its power to pressure Hamas into allowing it to visit the hostages. Instead, it abandoned Jewish civilians as they were tortured and starved, just as it abandoned the Jewish victims of the Nazis during World War Two. Its sole act was to serve as a glorified uber when Hamas released hostages during ceasefire deals, where it only served Hamas’ interests by setting the stage for the weekly humiliation ceremonies the hostages were subjected to upon their release.
Is Israel supposed to listen to the criticism from the Red Cross when the Red Cross never lifts a finger to help the hostages?
The United Nations General Assembly has refused to condemn Hamas for the October 7 massacre or for continuing to hold hostages. It only ever condemns Israel, no matter what evil Hamas is guilty of. Its officials deny Israel’s right to self-defense.
Its Special Rapporteur for Palestine, Francesca Albanese, actually called it “unacceptable” to demand that Hamas release the innocent hostages, even that it release the babies it had taken hostage. UNRWA employees are members of Hamas and took part in the October 7 massacre and the abduction of hostages.
Is Israel supposed to listen to the criticism of the UN when the UN cannot condemn Hamas for massacring innocents, murdering and kidnapping babies, is directly complicit in those atrocities?
Is it supposed to listen to the criticism of an organization that condemns people just for calling for the hostages to be released?
The New York Times decided recently to have a photograph of an emaciated child in Gaza take up a huge section of its front page in an attempt to turn public opinion in the US against Israel. The paper had wanted its propaganda to be accompanied by a picture of a starving child, only its editors insisted that it find a picture of a child whose malnourishment was not the result of preexisting conditions, making the propagandists’ jobs much harder, as such photographs do not seem to exist.
The photograph they splashed all over the front page turned out to be just what their editors told them to avoid. The paper published a retraction on its smaller X page, the page that has a readership in the tens of thousands, avoiding doing so on the page that has millions of readers.
It has not run the real images of the starved Israeli hostages the way it had run images it now knows were misleading, of supposedly starving Gazans.
Is Israel supposed to listen to the criticism of media outlets that uncritically regurgitate all Hamas propaganda and refuse to treat the reality of starving hostages as seriously as their own wishes for proof of starving Gazans that still does not exist?
Recently, France and Canada have vowed to recognize "Palestine" next month and Britain has threatened to do so, all while the holding and the torture of the hostages continues. Their governments may condemn the videos of the hostages, but there is no evil Hamas can commit that can convince them not to reward Hamas with a state. They insist on making Hamas the rulers of "Palestine" with their actions, giving Hamas every reason to continue starving them and torturing them and giving it no reason to become an iota more humanely.
Is Israel supposed to listen to the criticism of the nations who are actively encouraging Hamas to continue holding and torturing the hostages, to commit more October 7s, who reward terrorism, antisemitism, and mass murder?
What worth does the criticism of a government that is actively ensuring that Hamas has no reason to even engage in ceasefire talks have?
Criticism only has value when it is constructive. When it comes from sources that are on the side of Hamas, that abandon the hostages, that refuse to condemn the murder of Jewish children, that seek to reward evil, that have no solutions other than allowing Hamas to continue to murder, kidnap, torture, and starve, it is worse than useless. It is in the service of evil.
Standing up to that criticism is a moral necessity.
Gary Willigis a veteran member of Arutz Sheva's news staff.