PrintDecember 28, 2024
Israel, 14 months later
Four months after Hamas's hideous attack on unsuspecting Israeli festival-goers, troops, and people in their homes, I traveled to Israel for two weeks.
There, I picked oranges, refurbished trucks, wrapped packages, painted Kibbutz buildings, planted trees in the names of the murdered, and completed odd jobs on military bases, in hopes of contributing one small bit to Israel’s war effort.
Ten months later, fourteen months after the initial attack, I returned to Israel for a niece’s Bat Mitzvah.
As soon as we departed the El Al aircraft and exited the grand hall walkway towards the luggage area, once again we saw individual posters of hostages, with their names and ages -- some as old as 80, others as tender as one year.
More than 100 human beings are still being held captive by Hamas, now for well over 400 days!
During that time, Israel has fought back against anyone involved in the initial attack, or in a mistaken bid for glory, joined the Hamas-initiated attacks later.
Essentially, Israel has successfully endured a scorched earth policy. Hamas, Hezbollah their leadership and adherents are basically dust.
But like the cockroaches that they are, evil minions continue to rise.
Yes, Syria has experienced a coup d'etat.
Yes, Lebanese fighters had their naughty bits blasted.
Yes, Egypt was caught facilitating the operation of Hamas tunnels.
Yes, Iran, for the moment, is mute.
But the Houthis from Yemen are still lobbing missiles at Israel -- serious and deadly enough that we were forced to run to hotel safe rooms three nights of a six night stay.
And Hamas is refusing to engage in serious hostage negotiation talks or to even name the remaining hostages, dead or alive.
Our Federal Code 18 US Code 1201, known as the Federal Kidnapping Act states:
…whoever unlawfully seizes, confines, decoys, kidnaps, abducts or carries away and holds for ransom or reward any person, or when the person is unwillingly transported in interstate or foreign bound commerce across a state and is guilty of kidnapping and shall be punished by imprisonment for any term of years and, if death results by death or life imprisonment.
- 100, yes, 100 Israelis, including seven Americans, are still hostages under complete control of Hamas. What the ... ?
- Biden, as is finally evident for all to see, is not competent to threaten anyone, but his handlers and wife surely were.
- President Trump has stated that if the hostages aren’t returned by January 20 - his inauguration day - “there will be hell to pay.”
Why the hell wasn’t the hell to pay, paid a long time ago?
I absolutely trust that President Trump will keep his word.
But what of the radical Islamists? As death cults go, they have proved their bona fides repeatedly. They extol the dead Jewish blood on their hands; the burnt-alive babies, the gang rapes of young Jewish women.
While U.S. federal law provides a penal guideline and international law died as well, death or life imprisonment is not justice in this case.
Justice demands that Hamas, and all the “innocent” Gazans who spat on dead and naked womens’ bodies, who helped keep Israelis captive in horrific conditions, who tortured their living relatives with hints and omissions of their captives' conditions must leave Gaza. Every single one of them.
Gazans have proven they have repeatedly and cravenly acted outside the limits of civilization.
They do not deserve a state of their own. Yet even now, the majority want Hamas to remain in governing leadership.
Every single Gazan should be sent into exile and dispersed.
Israel should be granted complete ownership and control of Gaza, and the country should be renamed. That is justice.
Image: Pixabay / Pixabay License
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