Into the Moral Maze

Many voices are trying to redefine the hostage rescue for their questionable agendas

Some of you may recall Israel’s daring and risky raid to liberate hostages at Entebbe Airport in Uganda in 1976. It was a defining mission in the nation’s history and a clear message to terrorists and enemies the world over: we will leave no one behind, ever. A few hostages lost their lives, one of the Israeli commanders died and that was Yoni Nethanyahu. And yes, not only was he the brother of the current prime minister, it was he who was actually destined to make the career that would lead to the nation’s highest office. So Entebbe shaped history in more ways than one. Anyway, the point here is that it did not take long for the UN under then secretary-general Kurt Waldheim, a man with a nazi background, to condemn Israel. Violation of a sovereign nation’s border, something like that, conveniently ignoring that Uganda under Idi Amin had become an extremely dangerous rogue state. The UN now has many voices that rushed to condemn Israel over the weekend, ignoring it was all about freeing innocent and abused hostages. Its special rapporteur on Palestine, Francesca Albanese was leading the charge here, or this UN rapporteur on human rights who had the temerity to point to Israel as the actual violator of human rights. Inverted morality, moral maze, you give it a name, but it is a truly surreal phenomenon.

So amid the joy and celebration it took little more than 24 hours for the world to start changing the narrative and take Israel to task for the civilian casualties during the hostage liberation in Gaza. Now, this global media outburst was based on Hamas generated numbers so the questions to ask were: where do the numbers come from? Are they correct? And out of that total figure, how many were actually active combatants? Or if they were civilians, a claim widely made on social media, how many were actually culpable and involved and/or aware of the fact that hostages were kept imprisoned against their will in their direct environment? Valid and probing questions no one was asking. Nor was anyone trying to figure out why a journalist and his family, would have a hostage in his house. For eight months.

It takes a few fringe characters and Hamas affiliated media channels to get this ball rolling and before you know it things go mainstream and the rest of the weekend was framed by Israel’s alleged violence. The joy of the successful liberation was turned around into another online hatefest. The Dutch chief of armed forces commented on Israel’s disproportionate response, Kamala Harris jumped in with her concerns and a BBC reporter even asked a former IDF-spokesman, Jonathan Conricus, if the Israelis could not have given advanced warning of the operation in order to minimize casualties. You have got to admire the man for calmly answering this utterly ridiculous question. But many people swallow this garbage and use their newly gained knowledge while they return to their keyboards to condemn Israel.

Interestingly, I talked to an Israeli business acquaintance on Friday and he suggested that Israel would probably, in the end, win this war. But, he added, the larger war of public opinion and the rising tide of anti-Semitism is really so much harder to fight. He pointed to his neighbours having a Ukrainian flag on their front lawn, and said that if he would raise Israel’s blue-and white things would get unpleasant very fast. And that is the territory we are in. Every event, every turn in this conflict is rapidly framed, often with false information and numbers, and accelerated on social media to a point where no turning back is possible. If a few weeks later things are disproved or accurately analyzed based on facts - which always take longer to access and uncover - the world has moved on, to the detriment of Israel and Jews globally.

Worse, there are people who spent an inordinate amount of time digging into October 7th events to twist facts and alter history. Max Blumenthal - son of Clinton operative Sidney Blumenthal - has a huge following on social media and cannot let go of trying to disprove that rape took place on that fateful day. Follow him and the folks he is associated with like Vancouver-based journalist Aaron Maté and you enter the deepest abyss of Israel-hate. Both Blumenthal and Maté are affiliated with Grayzone, an online publication that has allegedly been bankrolled by Russia and Iran. So: it starts with Israel, morphs into a much wider anti-Semitic narrative and then begins chewing away at the foundations of liberal democracies which they all hate. Because Russia and Iran have so much more to offer to us.

But, against all these prognosticators of the dark, there is hope: yesterday 50,000 people rallied in support of Israel in Toronto. No violence, no hate, no craziness, but a show of unity and support. As long as the silent majority can come out and do this not everything will be lost. But please, be aware of what is being fed through all these media channels. It is a well-organized disinformation war that has infected our media, institutions and major political parties. Worse: it has started to blur the concept of moral clarity.

Gantz

On Saturday I alluded to what Benny Gantz might do, well he belatedly did announce his resignation from Israel’s war cabinet yesterday. This has the following implications: firstly, the moderating voice inside the Israel’s cabinet is gone. Gantz brought military experience, political balance and he was the main conduit to Joe Biden and Tony Blinken. That’s gone now. Secondly it gives Nethanyahu and his hard-right coalition partners a free hand as they still have a parliamentary majority and do not need anyone else, elections are not imminent. So that means that a ceasefire is not likely to be consumed anytime soon and it will lead to more division in Israeli society. The only way for this to end positively is if Nethanyahu can deliver more liberated hostages, an end to the war in Gaza without Hamas in charge while re-asserting control in the north by neutering Hezbollah. A really tall order, but that’s where we are as of today.

Photos: a screenshot from a video of the hostage rescue effort on Saturday, and Benny Gantz. And as a bonus: the arrival of military and rescued hostages in Israel after the Entebbe rescue mission on July 4, 1976.