Ariel Bibas is a 4-year-old with bright red hair who is described as an energetic boy, who loves anything with wheels and a motor. The beauty of his innocent face is palpable, but I think the depth of my own feelings is that he closely resembles my 4-year-old best friend, my grandson, whose own bright red hair matches perfectly with his energic personality.
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Both of these little boys were born and are being raised in Israel, but there is a stark difference between them; Ariel is a hostage in Gaza, my grandson is free.
The events of October 7 have been described in a myriad of ways, but sadly, the conclusion is that it was the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust.
Since October 7, attempts have been made to contextualize this as an ongoing battle against the purported occupation of Gaza (although Israel withdrew in 2005 and no Jew or Israeli has lived there since then). Claims that Israel is the aggressor, that it violates international law, and that its response to the massacre is disproportionate are now pervasive.
These characterizations sound as lofty as the principles of international law are meant to be, but truly they amount to nothing more than a perversion of international law and its institutions.
Within days of the October 7 attack, the United Nations started making statements that both sides to the conflict needed to respect international humanitarian law. The absurdity of these words is incredulous, one party commits the gravest crimes against humanity and indiscriminately shoots rockets and missiles across Israel, and the other party painstakingly adheres to the law. Then, UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres preaches to the world that the Hamas massacre "did not happen in a vacuum".
The floodgates of Jew-hatred have now opened, courtesy of the United Nations, the same body created in the wake of the Holocaust, which has still been unable to condemn Hamas even once. This perversion of international law has now become official policy of the UN.
What soon followed, when Israelis were burying their dead, the twisted minds of the UN Human Rights Commissions released an update to their Commission of Inquiry led by renowned anti-Israel figure, Navi Pillay. Israel, its allies, the Western and civilized world remained in shock at the gravity of the disaster of October 7, but the UN unashamedly released a report that mentions Israel 269 times and Hamas only 4 times, twisting every norm of international law to excuse Palestinian terror.
Taking hostages, seeking to wipe Jews off the map, eradicating the only Jewish state in the world, murder, rape, savagery, using their own civilians as shields, using mosques, schools, hospitals, and residential buildings as bases for attacks and munition storage, violating every single norm of IHL, are but a few of the crimes committed by Hamas against Israel and against its own citizens in Gaza. But has the UN made a single proclamation calling out Hamas as terrorists? Sadly, they have not.
Hamas and its depraved allies (Iran, Hezbollah, and others) pervert the concepts of international law, they speak the language and make declarations as though they adhere to the principles of law. They twist the words, their logic is inverted, they commit every crime imaginable, and they are not held accountable. Yet, those voices are being heard and worse, their utterances are used as ammunition against the State of Israel.
85 years ago, the world witnessed a sickening pogrom in Nazi Germany. Kristallnacht, the night of broken glass. Jews were demonized, and the world was indifferent. What followed was a war that saw millions of deaths and the near decimation of European Jews.
International Law grew from the depths of the horrors of WWII, but today, the weaponization of these laws has real-life consequences and manifests into violence against Jews and their institutions. Streets around the world are witnessing a surge in antisemitic attacks and reports are showing a surge in antisemitic incidents in the US.
If logic would prevail then the twisted manipulation of international law and the perversion of legal concepts would be eradicated from this conflict. When clear minds are willing to accept the evil that is Hamas and not allow the UN to succeed in enabling terrorist organizations and allied state actors to create a bully platform on the world stage, then perhaps we could free little Ariel Bibas and the hundreds of other hostages from the clutches of a vile terrorist group.
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