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Many of Us Know the Cruelty and Evil of the Enemy

(eJewishPhilanthropy) Sherri Mandell - Six Israeli hostages were killed in cold blood last week. They survived captivity for over 300 days, yet when the IDF was close by, Hamas terrorists slaughtered them. The whole Jewish world is broken-hearted. I am also brokenhearted. But I am not surprised. When I heard the news of the death of the hostages and found out they were shot, I thought: Thank God they weren't beheaded like Daniel Pearl. Thank God they weren't stoned to death with rocks like my son Koby and his friend Yosef, murdered in 2001 when they were 13 years old. This cruelty is not new. For many who grew up in a post-Holocaust America when antisemitism was on the wane - when Jews were not just accepted, but celebrated - Jew-hatred comes as a shock. For many of us, though, we know the cruelty and evil of the enemy. They are sworn to our destruction. They do not want any Jew to live in this land. They would exterminate us all if they could. Children were murdered in their beds during the Intifada. To retreat from Rafah before Hamas is eradicated and to release Palestinian prisoners puts our future in danger. At the Koby Mandell Foundation, we have worked with too many families of terror victims who were killed by released Palestinian terrorists. The price of releasing terrorists only for them to murder again is too high. We allowed Yahya Sinwar, the mastermind of Oct. 7, his freedom in a prisoner exchange for Gilad Shalit. We don't want to have to pay that price again. If I were the mother of a hostage, I would fight with every breath to bring them home; and if I were the mother of a fallen soldier who gave his life so that terrorists in Gaza would not be able to strike again, I would probably be against any prisoner release and retreat from Gaza. We need to destroy the evil of the Hamas regime so that they lose their power - so they are crushed and unable to attack us ever again. The writer is co-founder of the Koby Mandell Foundation, which runs programs for children and families whose loved ones have been murdered by terrorists.
2024-09-08 00:00:00
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