Part 1 - Rachel, Your Children Have Returned
The First Hostage Release
There is a muted joy coupled with deep sadness. A feeling of achievement along with abject failure. Eyes bear witness, while the heart warns against the coming gloom. Most of all hope is fought with fear and despair.
Never mind there was a last-minute snafu, to which no real explanation was given. Finally, the hour of 4 PM was set as a deadline on Friday, November 24, 2023.
The hours ticked by. Every television station in Israel carried a banner on the bottom of the screen, “Five hours until the hostage release,” then “Four hours until the hostage release,” and so on. We knew that Yahya Sinwar, the shot-caller for Hamas, lived for one thing. To get his terrorists back. We also knew we were being psychologically manipulated.
The price was 3 to 1. Three terrorists for everyone hostage. Terrorists who had planned, hurt, and maimed Israelis inside Israel. So far none had actually killed another person. But these terrorists were allowed to return to their homes inside Israel. One such terrorist literally lives next door to the woman he knifed in the back in front of her five children. Today, that woman and her family are in fear for their lives inside the country that swore to protect them. Inside the country that did everything to protect the hostages.
No matter. Thirteen are home, along with all the Thailand workers who were kidnapped as well. Thirteen women and children. Let me say that again for the dumbasses who did not believe this happened.
Thirteen women and children! Their pictures are above and below, and those pictures are not AI-generated.
And tonight we will go through the same drama. And tomorrow night. And the night after.
Night after night, for four nights we will be subject to this drama. And every one of those nights, we will want to know, has any of the hostages been hurt? Did any of them suffer?
It is too early for such news to trickle out. Physically on television, they looked as if they had been through a great ordeal, but all could walk on their own. The psychological scars are much harder to reveal. Some are returning to news that their loved ones were murdered on October 7. Some are returning to broken families. Some had to leave family members behind in captivity.
Ruth Munder was released along with her daughter, Karen, and grandson, Ohad. But her husband who is 78 remained behind. “You to the right, you to the left.” Selection, the feared Nazi “selektzia.” Do we have a say? No. Can we protest? No.
The Munder Family
54-year-old Keren Munder and her 9-year-old son Ohad were visiting her parents, Ruth, 78, and Abraham, in Kibbutz Nir Oz when Ruth, Abraham, Keren, and Ohad were kidnapped by Hamas terrorists. Keren's brother, Roey, was murdered in his home.
Let us move on to the next family, the Aloni Family.
44-year-old Daniel Aloni and her 5-year-old daughter Emilia were kidnapped from Kibbutz Nir Oz on October 7. They had been visiting Daniel's sister, Sharon Aloni Konio, to celebrate the Simchat Torah holiday. Daniel and her daughter were kidnapped to Gaza along with Sharon, Sharon's husband David Konio, and the couple's 3-year-old twin daughters Yuly and Ema.
Let us move on to the next family, the Katz-Asher family.
34-year-old Doron Katz-Asher and her two daughters, 4-year-old Raz and 2-year-old Aviv, were kidnapped while visiting Kibbutz Nir Oz near the border with Gaza. Katz-Asher's mother, Efrat Katz, was murdered on October 7. Efrat's partner, Gadi Mozes, was kidnapped to Gaza along with his ex-wife, Margalit Mozes.
The Israeli government and the military leaders, politicians, and military, will answer for all of this. That you can be sure of. Hamas will pay for this. That you can be sure of. Too much has gone wrong, too much has changed without an accounting to take place.
The Israeli journalists also have their part to play in all this. Some are idiots. Some are drama queens. Some push their own agenda.
But for now, and just for now, we are going to leave the blame game behind us. There will come a time and place for it. Of that, you can be sure.
And of course, there were others. The elderly, the infirm, the sick.
Yet there were so many left behind. So many! And now for the next three days, we wait on each day, as the drama plays out. When will the delays begin? And they will. Who will be released and who will be left behind? Who will suffer and who will die?
And as we wait, our soldiers are in danger every second. Hamas rearms and plans. Terrorists are let back into our streets to wreak havoc and death.
Who will answer for any deaths that occur now? Who will take responsibility? Who will console the grieving families of soldiers killed, while we wait for this drama to play out? Who will stand up and finally say, in the famous words of Harry Truman, “The Buck Stops Here”?
And so we are trapped in this ongoing drama. Part one is over. And we wait for the next parts. In all honesty, we wait for the shoe to fall from the heavens above.
Many do not like any inference to the Bible in such a Newsletter. “Leave religion out of it,” they rant. In a war all about religion and not nationality.
It is well-nigh impossible not to think of the biblical statement made in Jeremiah, these days. If only because it keeps that small flame of hope of going. If only because it allows us to wake up with a bit of hope in our hearts.
Thus says God: A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation, and bitter weeping, Rachel weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are not.
Thus says God: Refrain your voice from weeping, and your eyes from tears; for your work shall be rewarded, says God; and they shall come back from the land of the enemy.
And there is hope for your future, says God; and your children shall return to their own border.
Jeremiah 31:14-16
Your children are returning again, Rachel. They are returning.
But God, at what price? What price will you finally demand from us? What test awaits us?
Sometimes God, too much is too much. I cannot stop weeping, my eyes from tears. This was supposed to end with the Holocaust. And yet again, you bring to our door, an enemy worse than anything Satan has dreamed of before.
As Hamlet told Horatio:
"There are more things in Heaven and Earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy."
Or as you warned in the Old Testament in Isaiah 55:8:
"For My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways My ways, says the Lord.”