by Brendan O’Neill, spiked
Why so many in the West turned their backs on the Jews seized by Hamas.
They’re home. After 738 days in hellish captivity, the last living Israeli hostages are free. After more than two years in the cruel bondage of that army of anti-Semites, they have tasted liberty again. Twenty souls returned to their families, and to a nation that prayed for their release. When they are ready they will tell of the horrors they endured in Hamas’s tunnels, those dank lairs of Jew hatred. But for now, in Israel and those parts of the civilised world not yet lost to Israelophobia, the emotion people will be feeling is joy.
[…] That these men and the others have staggered back into the sunlight of liberty ought to be a cause of global celebration. There will be injuries and ailments and trauma, but it is a wonderful day for Israel and for humanity that 20 men have been liberated from the ruthless grip of a neo-fascist militia. The joy is flecked with sorrow, of course. Alongside these men, we expect to see the release of the remains of 28 hostages who did not survive the ordeal of savagery inflicted on them by Hamas. Their families have secured a freedom they would rather not have: the freedom to grieve.
And yet even as we give thanks for this emancipation of the Jews, we need to reflect on the entire hostage crisis. And in particular on what it says about us. For where the Jewish nation stood by the hostages, we in the West did not. On the contrary, these men, women and children – children – rarely troubled the consciences of those who pose as progressive. They did not trend. No footballers took the knee for them. No Instagram squares were painted yellow for them. There was no viral cry of ‘Bring back the Israelis’, like the cry of ‘Bring back our girls’ following the abduction of 276 schoolgirls by Boko Haram in Nigeria in 2014.
For me, the ‘progressive’ silence on the stolen Israelis was one of the most sobering and illuminating moments of the 21st century so far.