Anyone who refuses to condemn the evil acts of Hamas abandons their basic human values and morals. The staged hostage releases have been cynical, humiliating and depraved, produced for live broadcast by Hamas and spread to the world. The campaign to dehumanize Jews recently included returning the wrong body of slain hostage Shiri Bibas after her children, who were kidnapped in their pajamas from their home on Kibbutz Nir Oz, were returned in coffins.
Hamas and its supporters are driving a propaganda campaign in a deliberate attempt to equate the actions of Palestinian terrorists with the Israeli defense of innocent lives. This moral equivalence—a false comparison—has become a dangerous tool in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict to undermine the principles of free, democratic societies. The campaign is a calculated strategy to normalize the unthinkable and justify the indefensible.
Hate and horror: Hamas evil on full display
Video of the abduction to Gaza of Shiri Bibas, 32, and her two red-headed children—Ariel, 4, and Kfir, just 9 months old—provoked a rallying cry for Jews and our supporters around the world. Many Jews felt deep agony when fear of their brutal murders was recently confirmed, even more so when a different dead woman was handed over to Israel instead of Shiri. The rest of the world, however, could not have imagined the depravity of Hamas terrorists in their physical and psychological war against Israel and the Jewish people:
- Coffins with the pictures and names of Shiri, Kfir and Ariel included the caption, “prisoners,” as if these young children and their mother were jailed for committing a crime.
- Palestinian children danced and sang on stage, congratulated the terrorists and chased after the Red Cross vehicles with the coffins inside.
- When searched by the Israeli army for bombs, the coffins were found to be filled with terrorist propaganda.
- In a master stroke of evil, instead of releasing the body of Shiri Bibas as promised, Hamas placed the body of an unknown Gaza woman, tormenting the Bibas family even further, especially Yarden Bibas, Shiri’s husband and the boys’ father, who was also kidnapped but recently released in Phase 1 of the ceasefire.
- Israeli forensic doctors revealed that terrorists murdered Kfir and Ariel with their bare hands. The bodies were then mutilated to make it look like they were killed in an airstrike to fit the perverse Hamas narrative.
- When Shiri’s body was finally released after 24 more hours of agony, doctors confirmed that she also was murdered the same way as her children.
The abhorrent propaganda spectacle was finally condemned by the United Nations, as well as several Islamic and Arab leaders:
- Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia Abdul Aziz Al-Sheikh: “What we saw today in Gaza is a disgrace to Islam, an act of blasphemy against Allah and a sin that does not represent the followers of the Prophet.”
- Grand Mufti of the United Arab Emirates Ahmed al-Haddad: “Hamas has brought shame to Islam on a level never seen before.”
- Israeli Arab group condemns Hamas and urges the Arab community to join the Bibas funeral: “We will declare in one united voice: No to terror, no to murder, yes to life and humanity.”
The goals are clear: Kill, dehumanize and torment Jews
Hamas terrorists continued their abhorrent behavior two days later during the release of six living Israeli hostages. The Jewish hostages were paraded onto propaganda stages where they were so weak that they needed to be held up by the terrorists. One hostage was forced to repeatedly kiss the head of a Hamas terrorist as a cruel sign of “gratitude” for their “hospitality.”
In another sickening display, Hamas filmed two Israeli hostages who remain in captivity being forced to watch the release of three Israeli hostages from a van near the stage—only a few feet from Red Cross vans—while begging Israel to negotiate for their release. The father of Guy Gilboa-Dalal: “This is the best sign of life I could ask for, but on the other hand, there’s nothing more cruel. It’s not surprising because it’s Hamas, but it’s a new level of torture.”
Hamas also released two Israelis held hostage by the terror group for 10 years: Ethiopian Israeli Avera Mengistu and Bedouin Arab Hisham Al-Sayed. Both suffered from mental illness prior to their captivity and endured a decade of “unimaginable suffering.”
The families reported that their returned loved ones were barely able to communicate. Avera was forced to appear on stage, pushed on by Hamas, with another Israeli hostage in his release ceremony.
Hisham received very different treatment. Hamas terrorists announced that they “decided to release Hisham without any ceremony out of respect for the Palestinians of the occupied interior,” a reference to Arabs living in Israel, which they claim to be occupied territory to be liberated from the Jews.
The Palestinian Authority’s official TV channel recently repeated: Israeli Jews should go back to Poland to solve the “Jewish problem.”
Hisham’s family: “We thank all the people of Israel who stood with and beside us throughout the years.”
Hamas is supposed to release four more deceased hostages on Feb. 27 and still holds dozens more hostages, both living and dead.
Compounding Israel’s trauma, three city buses exploded in flames near Tel Aviv on the same day the deceased hostages were returned to Israel. Iran-funded Hamas terrorists in the West Bank claimed responsibility for the failed bombings. Terrorists mistakenly set the bomb timers to explode at night instead of during morning rush hour. This critical error saved hundreds of lives.
Two more unexploded bombs were found on other buses. Bus bombings were common during Palestinian terrorist attacks from 2001 through 2004. The first bombing was in 1994 and the most recent attack was in 2016.
Body of peace activist traded for cold-blooded killers
Many of the Israeli kibbutz residents who were brutally butchered on Oct. 7, 2023, advocated for peace between Palestinians and Israelis, employed Palestinians living in Gaza and volunteered to drive sick Palestinians to Israeli hospitals for treatment. Oded Lifshitz, 83, and his wife, Yocheved, 85, embodied these principles.
Oded’s body was returned at the same time as the Bibas family. The retired journalist defended Palestinian rights, spoke Arabic and transported Palestinians to Israeli hospitals. Oded was held by Iran-backed Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists and was killed in captivity. His widow shared: “He fought for the Palestinians his whole life. They betrayed him and took him to hell.”
Ariel Bibas, 4, loved Batman. His lifeless body was exchanged for Palestinian prisoners. There is no comparison. Israel has released more than 1,000 Palestinians from its prisons, including dozens sentenced for butchering Israelis.
Anti-Israel activists honor killers of Americans
Dozens of American anti-Israel activists recently held a vigil in New York City for Iran-backed Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah. The terror group has killed hundreds of Americans since the 1980s, and in solidarity with Hamas in the south has relentlessly targeted Israel’s north with thousands of rockets after Oct. 7.
Many protesters covered their faces as they held posters supporting terrorists and waved Palestinian, Syrian and Lebanese flags. In sharp contrast, dozens of Israel supporters held a counter-demonstration, waving American and Israeli flags.
A Bronx Anti-War Coalition activist ironically posted on social media an inverted red triangle above one of the World Trade Center towers. The symbol first appeared in Hamas propaganda videos and is used to glorify Hamas terror. Nasrallah led Hezbollah from 1992 until Sept. 27, 2024, when the Israeli Air Force struck Hezbollah’s headquarters, killing him. The vigil was held on the same day he was buried in Lebanon.
Hezbollah’s history of murdering Americans includes:
- 17 Americans in the 1983 U.S. Embassy Beirut bombing;
- 241 American servicemen in the 1983 U.S. Marine barracks bombing;
- 2 Americans in the 1984 U.S. Embassy Beirut annex bombing;
- 19 U.S. airmen in the 1996 Saudi Arabia Khobar Towers attack.
Two Hezbollah terrorists also hijacked TWA flight 847 in 1985. They demanded that America release 17 terrorists involved in the 1983 bombings of the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait, an attack Hezbollah helped plan. The hijackers beat and then shot U.S. Navy diver Robert Stethem in the head and dumped his body on the tarmac. The terrorists also segregated the passengers with Jewish-sounding names.
Points to consider:
- Hamas terrorists and their supporters are a threat to everyone, including Americans.
Terrorism against Israel is not just a Jewish, Israeli or Zionist problem; it is a threat to Americans and all humanity. The depraved acts of Hamas—proudly flaunted for the world to see—must be unconditionally condemned. There is no moral reasoning to justify the brutal slaughter of young babies. Any group that backs Hamas forfeits support or sympathy. Recently, ISIS terrorists forced 70 Christians in Africa out of their homes and beheaded them with machetes, and thousands more Christians have been killed in Nigeria. A Syrian refugee stabbed a Spanish tourist at Berlin’s Holocaust Memorial because he wanted to “kill Jews.” These acts prove that “what begins with the Jews doesn’t end with the Jews.”
- Hamas thinks its propaganda campaign is working.
Hamas believes its stage-managed release of hostages and fabricated narratives of Israeli actions effectively manipulate global opinion. They exploit social media and international journalists to spread these falsehoods, attempting to create a false moral equivalence between terrorism and Israel’s defense. Distorted casualty figures and anti-Israel rhetoric by international organizations reinforce the Hamas belief that its propaganda is swaying public sentiment and pressuring Israel. The goal: Delegitimize Israel’s right to exist and garner support for continued acts of terror.
- Murdered Jewish children are not the same as child murderers.
On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas terrorists killed children in front of their families, but this was nothing new:
- 2004: Palestinian terrorists shot and killed Tali Hatuel, 33, who was eight months pregnant, and her four daughters—Merav, 2; Roni, 7; Hadar, 9; and Hila, 11—as Tali was driving home.
- 2011: Palestinian terrorists shot, stabbed and killed Hadas, 3 months old; Elad, 4; Yoav, 11; Ruth, 36; and Udi, 37, as they slept in their beds.
Many anti-Israel activists, human-rights organizations and international journalists are equating the release of Israeli hostages (alive and dead) with imprisoned Palestinians, dozens serving life sentences for brutal acts of murder. The false comparison between Palestinian terrorists who murder children and the Jewish children, adults and families they murdered is abhorrent. Children like those killed on Oct. 7, and the Hatuel and Fogel families, were victims of unprovoked, brutal terror. There is no moral parity.
- Jews are not OK. Around the world but especially in Israel, they are suffering from a traumatic event.
The Oct. 7 atrocities and hostage crisis inflict ongoing mental and emotional fatigue, stress and trauma—sometimes extending to physical manifestations—for Jews in America, everyone in Israel and supporters around the world. The massacres and their aftermath echo generational traumas like the Holocaust and Israel’s existential crises in its War of Independence in 1948 and the Six-Day War in 1967. Those tragedies affected generations of Jews. We watched the horrific Hamas attack videos, the horror of the hostage releases and the indifference of human-rights organizations, and realized that “Never Again” were hollow words.