Sophie's choice

First thing’s first: Every day since October 7th has been October 7th. For anyone sane that is the case. For anyone connected to reality, that is the norm. If you saw one image, it was enough. One video. One atrocity. It should have been enough. But instead we had to show an embarrassment of brutalities and yet it doesn’t seem to matter to those who already voted for the guys that did it all.

But let’s be clear for the millionth time: Hamas don't want peace. Maybe, just maybe, (but unlikely), the people who claim to just want peace actually want peace, albeit naively, but Hamas don't. That's why their disingenuous calls for peace are cowardly and harmful. Hamas just want death. Death is the ultimate goal. They fantasize about dying as martyrs from a very young age. You can't make peace with that.

It took Hamas 14 minutes after the agreed cessation of fighting to break the ceasefire that came into effect earlier today. Not a single member of the “ceasefire now” brigade has been upset about this. So we now know what their calls for ceasefire were really about, in case anyone had a doubt. (We didn’t have a single doubt). This silence is wholly consistent with their outrage that we would defend ourselves from terrorists. It tallies with their sweeping conclusions that: Israel bad. From the river to the sea, throw the Jew down the well. Etc.

Yesterday was a holiday, apparently. A day to give thanks. And I’m sure you also felt this: that there is such dissonance in a world that professes to care SO MUCH about something it knows nothing about, then takes a day off to enjoy things as per usual. Why? BECAUSE IT DOES NOT AFFECT THEM. Meanwhile none of us had a day off or experienced much other than fear and disgust.

Indeed in LA on Thanksgiving morning, Brentwood woke up to this. Is this illegal or…? This is the home of the national president of one of America’s Jewish organizations. Isn’t this a terrorist hate crime? They threw smoke bombs and covered the sidewalks outside in fake blood. How long do we have before the ovens?

Across the country in New York City, the annual Macy’s Day Parade was bombarded with pro Hamasniks. After they physically glued themselves to 5th Ave, and cried while being forcibly removed by police (shucks for gluing your hands to the concrete), they then proceeded to desecrate the New York Public Library. Specifically targeting the Stephen Schwarzman building. Hmm I wonder why.

Yesterday, during this day of togetherness and thanks, I felt not just isolated, but invisible. We have gone through the looking glass. Nothing is the same now. Even if we were the ones screaming it for years (myself included) it’s still surreal to watch it all unfold. People still have choices, and I still choose to never make myself deferential to antisemites again. I will not be around them. You see, it's nearly impossible for non-Jews to fully understand how we feel at the moment in terms of the hostages deal, specifically. Israel is returning 150 terrorists in exchange for babies and mothers and grandmas and granddads. We are now vulnerable to contending with conflicting priorities: saving hostages lives versus saving the state of Israel, and ultimaely therefore the safety of Jewish people everywhere. All dependent on what Hamas does and when Hamas chooses to do it. We can't trust Hamas. But now we have to. The way we had to trust them before October 7th.

This isn't easy for most non-Jews to understand. That’s what I’ve concluded because my phone is turned up to such an extremely tone deaf dial, it’s hard to square. They don’t understand what we are all living through, ie, one of the biggest humanitarian crimes in history. People abudected across a border in their pyjamas and the world immediately blaming their country of origin, and we still don’t have them back. The anguish is unthinkable. How can they not understand? It’s like waiting for a death sentence for two months. Is it coming? When’s it coming? Can we stop it? The constant living on the edge of uncertainty. What happens to our hostages? What happens to our state? How do we live with the hatred all around us 24/7? It's overwhelming. We're burned out. We're isolated. They don’t know it. How could they.

The elite dinner party congregation can all pontificate about solutions and ceasefires and deals, but for us this is extremely desperate. There are lives to be saved, and there's a country to protect and 15 million of us to guarantee, and Hamas are now pitting those two things against one another like a round of sudden death. It's an impossible conundrum.

And then to add to the pain: the details came out yesterday of how the IDF would have to handle the hostages. You can’t read these notes with a dry eye. For instance, there’s a detail about how one IDF soldier is to be assigned per released child hostage. And if the child asks where their mother or father is, the soldiers have been told to say, “I’m sorry, I don’t know. My job is to bring you to Israel to a safe place where people you know can answer all your questions.” Some of the children are orphaned. They still don’t know this. So yeah, what do you give thanks to this thanksgiving?!

And ON TOP OF THAT, the complicity continues, by the whole world. The latest inevitable betrayal came - surprise surprise - from the BBC today, who have warned its Jewish journalists that if they attend the solidarity march for Israel in London this coming Sunday their jobs are at stake. It’s “controversial”. But the marches for Hamas are fine. Not controversial. Because those marches tow the BBC’s line.

So yes others may be getting into the holiday spirit, but we’re not. I will not be “forgiving” anyone this season, just because Jesus Christ and Rudolph the rednose reindeer. No. Bah Hamas-bug. No tidings from me.

This morning as we waited with baited breath to find out who would be released, only four children came home. The youngest baby, Kfir, has still not been let go. Where is Kfir? None of the released hostages were American or British. There was one specific deal to release all the Thai hostages. And the remaining Israelis were all from the Kibbutz Nir Oz, including Yaffa Adar, who is 85 and already survived the Holocaust, and Hanna Katzir, who Hamas reported dead only days ago, such is the way of their sick psychological mindgames.

And that is what all of this is. Mental torture and abuse. Coercive control on steroids. DARVO maxed out. Every single Jew (including the antizionists) is being abused in broad daylight at the moment on an international scale. It’s hard not to feel it, not to be pulled down under the abyss of hopelessness, not to succumb to a pressure in the head constantly of fear and trepidation, not to have endless questions about why we’re even here and what this is all about, not to wonder if our eyes are the same eyes as the eyes of our neighbors. Do we all see the same things? How can’t they see?

And the latest this evening is that Hamas just executed two Palestinians in the city of Tulkarem in the West Bank. Their crime (unproven) is that they collaborated with Israel. The Palestinians hung their own on an electricity pole. And crowds of “innocent Palestinians” gathered to take selfies. A reminder: Hamas kills thousands of its own people. And the Palestinians rejoice.

What is peace here?

Brief break to go over to Ireland – one of the most antisemitic countries in Europe – where in Dublin there’s mutiny because an Algerian migrant allegedly stabbed five children. The Irish decided to literally set the whole city on fire. So while the Irish have absolutely no problem with Jihadists killing Jews in Israel (Free Palestine, etc), when it happens on Irish turf, it is not so grand.

Finally, here is Kay Burley of Sky News versus our knight in shining armor Eylon Levy. Klu Klux Kay (named by Lee Kern) impressively manages to make Israel the evil actor for exchanging triple the amount of criminals for one-third of the innocents. Watch and weep:

Here’s what I have to say. We are over it. Hamas are going to be wiped from the face of the earth. All of them. Never has there been a more successfully aggrieved group of people, so aggrieved that it’s now retroactively somehow justified that their brothers in ISIS blew up the Twin Towers. If you’re not with Israel, let’s remind you that you’re with terror. It is a shame that we have to keep reminding you what is right and what is wrong. But here we are. It’s still October 7th.