Editors at National Review Online state what should be an obvious truth about recent developments in Israel.
The video of music-festival attendee Noa Argamani screaming for help as she was being dragged away on a motorbike to captivity in Gaza was one of the enduring images of October 7. It epitomized both the horrific nature of the assault and the vulnerability of the victims. Her rescue in a daring raid by Israeli special forces over the weekend that also saved three other hostages provided a much-needed morale boost for Israelis, who for eight months have been fighting a costly war against Hamas with most of the world against them.
In a morally sane world, the rescue of civilian hostages should have been widely celebrated as a heroic operation. Sadly, when it comes to the world’s attitude toward Jews, we are not living in such a world.
The media were quick to run with Hamas figures claiming hundreds of deaths in a “massacre” of civilians, and all the usual suspects jumped in to turn Israel, once again, into the bad party.
“More than 200 Palestinians killed in Israeli hostage raid in Gaza,” screamed the headline that led the Washington Post homepage. United Nations emergency-relief coordinator Martin Griffiths said the operation was indicative of “the seismic trauma that civilians in Gaza continue to suffer.”
“How many innocent Palestinians killed is acceptable to rescue Israeli hostages?” fumed MSNBC host Ayman Mohyeldin.
Others argued that Israel could have peacefully had all the hostages freed months ago had they only accepted a cease-fire proposal.
To point out the fact that Hamas has for months rejected proposals to free all of the hostages gives this argument too much credit. Because debating the particulars of given proposals distracts from the fact that there would be no need for a hostage rescue mission or for cease-fire negotiations over hostages had Hamas not invaded Israel while a cease-fire was in effect and taken hundreds of hostages.
As for the idea of “innocent” Palestinians being “massacred” in Israel’s operation — that, too, is another distortion of the reality of what took place.
