I rejoiced together with the two abductees who were released from the clutches of the Hamas arch-murderers. It happened with the pressure of the United States and the person who heads it, President Joe Biden.
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One presumes, too, that there was pressure on Hamas to release them and pressure on Israel to agree to humanitarian gestures for the Gaza population by letting food enter, more so via the Rafah crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt.
Video: President Joe Bide speaks with Natalie and Judith Ra'anan / Credit: Twitter/@POTUS
The American president really pulled out all the stops to get these American citizens out. After they were liberated, President Biden called them, congratulated them upon their release, and said, "We're going to get them all out, God willing." In his conversation with them, he expressed the hope that soon, too, they would come home to the United States.
They were able to get out only because they were American citizens, born there, lived there – 100% made in the USA. It turns out that even after the ghastly massacre we went through, American citizens take precedence over those of Israel. We'll give you weapons and send aircraft carriers, but where the abductees are concerned – ours are worth more. They come before yours.
Thinking about the nine-month-old baby, the three-year-old girl, the 85-year-old Holocaust survivor who hadn't the good fortune of being born in the US and of living there, sucked the air out of my body. How can it be that the American president, who has lots of levers to pull against Egypt, Qatar, and, by their means, Hamas, did not demand the release of the babies first of all? Those who couldn't help themselves? Those stalked by terror and fear day and night? Those who have no one to keep them fed, brush their hair, and hug them before they fall asleep for another night of nightmares?
How can it be that the entire world isn't standing up as one and demanding the release of the children and the elderly? Where are all the world's leaders? Where is the leadership of our own country, which isn't putting the children's lives first?
Everyone has children and everyone understands the meaning of what they are going through there, in captivity of the monsters of Hamas. Without belittling the suffering that the older people are going through, most of them are better able to cope than a three-year-old child. So they come first, irrespective of their citizenship.
But why should I fault the world when one gets the sense that our government isn't functioning? Would it help if we complain about the forsaking of the inhabitants of the Israeli periphery? About how the prime minister still hasn't stood up, taken responsibility, and apologized to the families of those killed and missing? About how he convened the expanded security cabinet, together with the IDF chief of staff, the head of the Shin Bet security service, the police inspector general, and the chief of the Mossad for seven hours until 3:00 a.m. instead of heading into the field, all of them, and preparing the troops for war? They sit there and hear Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich prattling and would probably tear out their hair if they could. Again and again, it seems like cover-your-ass conduct ahead of the investigative committee that will surely come into being.
In the meantime, our soldiers – our children and grandchildren – respond to their reserve call-up orders with limitless devotion and are training for the war that's supposed to ensure the country's safety and security. As I repeatedly quote Major-General (Res.) Yossi Ben-Hanan: It's our soldiers who'll save us from our enemies and our leaders.
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