The veneer of respectability given to Hamas is an open wound: ALEX BRUMMER
The tears of relief flowed freely among members of my family, scattered as they are across the globe from Texas to Tel Aviv, Sydney to London, as the 20 Israeli hostages who are still alive were freed yesterday from the hands of evil.
Of course, the agony for those taken prisoner, their families and loved ones has been inconceivable.
But the 738 days they spent in captivity following the atrocities of October 7, when 1,200 Israelis were mercilessly slaughtered while going about their daily lives, have been excruciating and painful for Jewish people all over the world.
Because in a warped inversion of morality, the horrendous fate of those who died, the mutilation and abuse of women during the massacre and the desperate plight of the hostages seem largely to have been forgotten over the past two years.
Instead we have seen an orgy of anti-Semitism on the streets of Britain, in capitals and on university campuses everywhere.
A synagogue has been set on fire and destroyed in Melbourne. In cities throughout the West, children have been told by their families not to reveal they are Jewish. As recently as a fortnight ago, innocent Jews were killed in Manchester.
And yet, the anti-Zionist demonstrations – protests where support for the proscribed terrorist group Hamas have been overwhelmingly evident – have been unending. Whatever happened to compassion? Did the demonstrators proclaiming their support for the perpetrators of the evils of October 7 never spare a thought for those slaughtered and raped by Hamas, those shackled in tunnels or for their families and dearest friends?
It sometimes seemed that the only people expressing concern for the victims of this atrocity were my people, the Jewish people.
Supporters react with joy as they watch a live stream of the captives being released at Hostages Square in Tel Aviv
Every day in Jewish communities across the world, prayers have quietly been recited in synagogue for the captives, hoping they would be returned safely.
In private devotions, my own thoughts were with Alon Ohel, 24, the talented classical pianist who, during his chained captivity in the Gazan tunnels, learned fluent Arabic by listening to his captors.
Earlier this year I had visited Ohel’s family at their elegant home in the Galil hills in northern Israel overlooking Lake Tiberias, otherwise known as the Sea of Galilee.
I learned about his life as a prisoner – the information had been gleaned from other hostages who had been returned. I was told how this brilliant concert performer, seized at the Nova festival, had been blinded by a shrapnel wound in one eye.
The family home was a shrine to his life and recordings of his refined playing echoed across those sacred hills.
Yesterday, on his release at last, he played the piano for the first time in two years in his hospital room in Tel Aviv.
But even as the last living hostages were reunited with their families amid scenes of unvarnished joy, it was impossible to forget the anguish of those whose loved ones will never return alive. For Jewish people, the purity of the remains of the dead is paramount. Returning the bodies of the deceased hostages for internment in blessed soil is a hallowed and moral responsibility.
Just as it was a moral duty among countless numbers of the Jewish community to pray for an end to the cruel fate suffered during the war by Palestinian residents of Gaza. Who could not be disturbed to by the assault on humanity by the Israel Defence Forces campaign? The loss of life and limb, the suffering of little children and the fight for survival against a background of food, medicine, water and power shortages was heart-wrenching.
But what was also disturbing was the lack of any attempt by Israel’s critics to put this into context. Israel was fighting a war in which the enemy, Hamas, had embedded itself in 350 to 450 miles of tunnels beneath Gaza, beneath all the major hospitals and many schools. It was a strategic challenge beyond anything in modern combat.
If anything it was Hamas, paid for and armed by the ayatollahs of Iran, which had placed ordinary Palestinians in danger.
But Israel was blamed more often than not. The speed at which the narrative of the worst atrocity for the Jewish people since the Holocaust was usurped by the hate-marchers, by a broadcast media which should have known better and by the UN and politicians such as Labour’s then Foreign Secretary David Lammy – who declared Israel’s actions in Gaza ‘intolerable’ – was a disgrace.
These critics appeared to embrace Hamas data, putting out Hamas statements, video clips and information as if it was all the gospel truth, rather than propaganda amid the fog of war.
Some suggest that Israel, by declaring all-out war on Hamas and other radical Iranian-backed terrorists across the Middle East, fell into the trap set by the terrorists. I just ask what the reaction of Western democracies, the US, Britain, France and others, would have been had 1,200 of their citizens been massacred and 251 hostages taken. Would they have stood by? Would they have acceded to the demands of the hate-marchers and Israel’s critics and allowed the proscribed terrorist organisation Hamas to continue to flourish? To wipe their own country from the map?
Of course, the Jewish community was not without its supporters. It was a great comfort to me, when it seemed the feelings of hostages and Jews were being erased, to see every day in the Daily Mail office a notice board behind the Editor’s desk with a simple message concerning the hostages: ‘Bring Them Home’.
But the last two years have been a deeply upsetting experience. So many people – encouraged by the broadcast media – managed to convince themselves that events following October 7 were about the fate of Gazan citizens alone rather than the elimination of terrorism.
So much festering anti-Semitism has come to light because of Israel’s legitimate attempt to defeat a ruthless, bloody, murderous group of hostage-takers with ideas that are anathema to normal, Western, moral sensitivities.
As details of Donald Trump’s peace initiative became clear at the end of last week, I switched on Sky News. Without any preambles or caveats, the programme’s interviewer questioned a senior Hamas official about the peace deal, the future of Palestine and what was next for his organisation.
The answers were unequivocal: the cause was not dead and disarming his paratroopers a pipe dream.
It was thoroughly disconcerting. A representative of a proscribed terrorist organisation, committed to the elimination of Israel, was being treated as a reliable interlocutor whose words could be trusted and treated with the same seriousness as long-standing analysts of the Middle East.
The hostages may be home but the veneer of respectability accorded to the fanatics of October 7 and their unbowed successors remains a festering, open wound.
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