In the latest tragic news from Israel, we learned that the Israeli Defense Forces was in the process of a rescue mission, having intelligence that indicated where six of the remaining living hostages were, in a tunnel in Gaza.

Hamas murdered all six of them before the Israelis could get to them.

There are a number of reasons why Hamas might have done so – obviously, none of them honorable. 

They might have wanted to deny the Israelis a success.  They might have hoped to frame the IDF – to make it look like the IDF did it, to make the IDF look bad.  Or they might have wanted to keep the hostages from talking, because they knew what these six hostages would reveal, once free.

We can speculate about Hamas’ reasons, but that won’t be the headline – because amazingly, the headlines over the weekend were not “Hamas murders 6 hostages just before IDF could rescue them,” as any sensible, objective news source would have written it.

Instead, the news of the weekend – the spin of choice – was that thousands of Israeli protesters took to the streets – not to demand an all-out offensive, but to demand a ceasefire.

The AP headline was typical: “Israelis Erupt in Protest to Demand Ceasefire After 6 More Hostages Die in Gaza.”

The verb choice is the first thing that catches our eye.  “Hostages Die.”  As if it were by accident.  As if it were a tragic car crash. As if they just passed away from old age.  As if we didn’t know that all six of these innocents were killed, on purpose, by their captors.

As if the only right word wasn’t “murdered.”

Six innocent hostages, whom Hamas ripped from their families and friends almost a year ago and imprisoned in miserable conditions in concrete tunnels all this time, were murdered moments before IDF forces could restore their freedom.

But the mainstream media spin is always to create a false equivalence between Israel and Hamas, even, if possible somehow, to make it look like Israel is the guiltier of the two.

Beyond this, however, the news of the day is the shock, because it’s not just the press that bears responsibility for the spin.  There’s a segment of the Israeli public that’s equally responsible.

Thousands of Israelis are protesting, demanding that their government capitulate to Hamas, specifically as a result of their horror at this news.   To an objective observer, this would be unbelievable (though of course on this issue, there are no objective observers).

The Israeli public is split today:

On one side are those who believe that Israel has given Hamas far too many second chances, and third chances, and hundredth chances and thousandth chances, over the years, and Oct. 7, 2023 was the last straw.  Prime Minister Netanyahu’s unity government is right to set the goal of wiping out Hamas once and for all, especially now that success is in view.  The Israeli people do not deserve to forever endure the threat of Hamas terrorism.

On the other side are those who believe the lies of the terrorists, and the sweet promises of the appeasers. We can see their thought processes:  “If we agree to their terms, there will be a ceasefire.”  “If we release lots of their homicidal terrorists, they’ll release the few dozen innocent hostages still in their clutches,” as if that were in any way equivalent.  “If we accept the theory that we are just squatters, and welcome the Gazans into our electorate and give them the right to vote, then we’ll have peace for more than a few weeks.” 

They may as well be wearing a top hat and carrying an umbrella as they proudly wave their piece of paper in the air.

It is understandable that they have forgotten that Hamas staged the October 7 attacks during a ceasefire.  It’s been a year now.

It is not so understandable that they have forgotten that virtually all of Hamas’ attacks, since they were formed, decades ago, were committed during ceasefires.  If history is our guide – and what else can be? – then there is nothing surer in life than this: Hamas will commit terrorist attacks during ceasefires.  As many as possible, as often as possible. 

It’s what they do. It’s who they are.

And yet … these thousands of Israelis march against their government.  They march in favor of the enemy’s line, parroting the enemy’s talking points. 

This is the Israeli Left we’re talking about; the peaceful, tolerant folks, the kind who attend globalist music festivals and preach inclusion and live in kibbutzes.  The very kind of people who were attacked first, last Oct. 7.

These are the people who thought that the members of Hamas are just misunderstood. That we could all get along fine, if only our side would try even harder.

These are the kind of people who were the victims – so many of them – beaten and raped, shot and slashed, mutilated and paraded around, killed or kidnapped.  Almost a year ago now.

Many remember. Many learned the right lesson from it, and are rightly demanding that the Israeli government follow through, and prosecute this effort to the end.

But many did not learn, even from as overwhelming a lesson as Oct. 7.  These self-destructive peaceniks are calling for a general strike this week, so enveloped by the intoxicating aroma of Stockholm Syndrome have they become.

Israel is fortunate, in that they have a strong, decisive government today; if anyone can get Israel through this, it is Binyamin Netanyahu and his current unity-focused war cabinet. 

But their situation is a lesson for us too, this election season, here in the United States – so far away, on this side of the Atlantic.

The United States are also in a war, of sorts. Our government has been infested and even managed by hostile forces, forces that have crippled our manufacturing sector, our energy sector, our schools, our churches, our hospitals.  The statists – call them the Deep State, call them the Left, call them the Progressives, it doesn’t matter what the term, they are the statists – are waging war against our middle class, our military, our retail sector, our supply chain, our Constitution.

We have a majority – once known as the Silent Majority, though it is silent no longer – aware of the real battle lines, but the gameboard is stacked against the forces of right.

Here, much like in Israel, many of the victims of these attacks suffer from Stockholm Syndrome.

They are public school students who were denied a useful education by a corrupted education system. Members of churches and synagogues who saw their places of worship illegally shut down by their own mayors and governors.  Workers who have lost their jobs because of DEI practices; athletes who have lost their scholarships because of the Biden-Harris attacks on Title IX.

And yet, despite being the very victims of the policies of the Left, they double down and support the Left even more. It is the wrongly imprisoned cheering their warden; it is the slaves supporting their slavemasters.   But it is so hard to make them see the light.

The world is always being described as being split between two sides – those who can do math and those who can’t, those who study history and those who don’t, those who the white collar and those who wear the blue.

But today we see that the most dangerous of such divisions is the one we suffer today: the split between those who see the world as it is, and recognize the culprits responsible for all our nation’s problems – and the world’s - versus those who happily wear their rose-colored glasses, and refuse to see reality, and happily vote, again and again, for more of the same.

John F. Di Leo is a Chicagoland-based international transportation manager, trade compliance trainer, and speaker.  Read his book on the surprisingly numerous varieties of vote fraud (The Tales of Little Pavel), his political satires on the Biden-Harris years (Evening Soup with Basement Joe, Volumes I, II, and III), and his brand-new nonfiction book on the 2024 election, Current Events and the Issues of Our Age, all available in eBook or paperback, only on Amazon.

Image: Screen shot from Channel 4 video, via YouTube