How Does One Mourn?

How Does One Mourn?

By Sarah N. Stern

How does one adequately mourn a baby of barely 9 months, who was just beginning to crawl and eat solid food? How does one mourn a 4-year-old who loved Batman and had sparkling eyes that carried with them an intense thirst for knowledge? Or a terrified mother who would do anything to shield and protect her children?

Why has the world forgotten about the babies burned in ovens in front of their parents on October 7^th, who were tied to chairs? Or about parents brutally executed in front of their children?

What does this say about our world that their posters are not ubiquitous? What does this tell us about our civilization when the sympathizers of Hamas talk about “settler-colonialism”, “open-air prison,” “occupation” and “resistance”?

We know these are all words to conceal a Nazi-like hatred that indoctrinates young children to grow up to want to strangle our children with their bare hands.

We well remember the “Disengagement Plan” of 2005, when many Jewish organizations had convinced themselves that Gaza was going to become “the Singapore of the Middle East”. We also remember the elections on February 20, 2006, which resulted in the now-deceased Hamas leader Ismael Haniya, and the 2007 coup in Gaza, where non-Hamas members were thrown off of rooftops.

We also remember the Grand Delusion that had led up to it, with the Oslo Accords, when much of the world, including naïve Jews, felt that whitewashing and venerating a master terrorist like Yassir Arafat would somehow lead to peace.

We saw the hubris that the Israeli army and intelligence services had prior to October 7^th, when they dismissed the reports of the military drills in Gaza. Mostly from defenseless female spotters. Most of whom were brutally murdered on October 7^th.

How does one countenance the years since the “Pay for Slay” budget was unveiled that pays out approximately $300 million annually to the families of “martyrs” and “prisoners” who have murdered Jews? How does the world countenance the sleight-of-hand that the Palestinian Authority has just established, where they purport to have eliminated this fund, but have simply transferred these payments under another name, “The Palestinian National Foundation for Economic Empowerment”?

How has the world allowed Hamas fighters to hide behind their own innocent civilians in hospitals, mosques, and UNRWA schools? Why has the international community countenanced, for decades now, that so many UNRWA employees are simultaneously affiliated with Hamas?

Why have we been speaking about the hate education that Palestinian children have been receiving from UNRWA schools and textbooks for 32 years, and have been summarily dismissed?  Why has the P.A. been showing the toxic messaging from Palestinian Sesame Street where these young children have been indoctrinated for over a generation that Jews are evil?

Why, when these terrorists, convicted of multiple life sentences are released from prison, are they now leaving prisons as millionaires?

Why are the people of Gaza, and Judea and Samaria, erupting in gleeful celebrations when murderers such as Ahmed Barghouti, operational commander for the Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, have been serving 13 life sentences in Israel for multiple involvement in terror attacks in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem; Kahlil Jabarin, who fatally stabbed Ari Fuld, a young father of four at the Gush Etzion junction in 2018; Zakaria Zubeidi,  former commander of the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade, Iryad Jaradat and Ahmad Dahari of Palestinian Islamic Jihad who have planned and executed multiple terrorist attacks?

Why are young children dressed up in the fatigues of Hamas, and taught to emulate and honor these mass murderers as exalted heroes?

Why have we allowed this to fester for 32 years, since the signing of the Oslo Accords?

It has been difficult for all of us to witness the disproportionate formulation of this deal, but we know we have had no choice but to try to get every single hostage out of the nightmarish hell of the subterranean tunnels lying beneath the dirt of Gaza.

We send our young men and women into battle with the knowledge that no one will be left behind.

A healthy society embraces and loves life. A sick society embraces and worships death.

Today, every single Jew around the world will go to sleep with the images of those two beautiful redheaded children, Kfir and Ariel Bibas and their mother, Shiri, in the forefront of our minds.

Let them never be forgotten.

Sarah N. Stern is Founder and President of the Endowment for Middle East Truth, a foreign policy think-tank and policy institute the focuses on the Middle East.