My Word: Stand up and be counted

I have lost count of so many different things since October 7. For a start, it’s hard to keep track of the days. Also, the number of those murdered, missing, and abducted in the Hamas mega-atrocity keeps changing. The list of fallen soldiers, tragically, also gets longer.

Then there is the number of fronts Israel is fighting on. This has spilled over from Gaza in the South to Lebanon and Syria in the North; terrorism in the West Bank (Judea and Samaria); Houthi rockets from Yemen; drones in the skies; and a cyberwar – all of which are linked to Iran. 

And there are the media wars and public diplomacy campaigns fought in the conventional press and on social media. At the same time, hovering in the background, is a satanic form of psychological warfare being employed by Hamas and Islamic Jihad, particularly concerning the fate of those abducted from Israel who are being held captive in Gaza.

It all adds up to an ugly situation.

The official estimate of dead dropped last week from 1,400 to 1,200, but this was not good news. In many cases, bodies were so burned or mutilated that it was hard to identify them. When no traces of the bodies of the missing had been found, even after sifting through piles of ashes and charred bones, some of those who had been presumed dead were determined to have been abducted. Some bodies at first thought to be victims, were later determined to belong to hordes of terrorist invaders.

As for the list of captives, even though there are ongoing negotiations for a large prisoner release as I write these lines, the exact names and number of the abductees are still unknown. They are estimated to be around 240, although it is unclear how many are still alive. That’s where the psychological war comes in.

As for the international media, Israel is dealing with a very dirty war. On Wednesday, the BBC had to issue an apology after it initially reported that Israeli forces operating inside Shifa Hospital in Gaza had targeted Arabic speakers and medical teams. “This was incorrect and misquoted a Reuters report,” a broadcaster later announced. “What we should have said is that IDF forces included medical staff and Arabic speakers for this operation.”

How did the BBC get the report so wrong? It implies that this is what the broadcasting company believed or wanted to believe. Nobody thought to question it. There are those who want to think that Israel, not Hamas, is guilty of the ongoing atrocities.

The Israeli satire show Eretz Nehederet lampooned the BBC (again) on Tuesday night, with a fake interview with Hamas leader Yihiye Sinwar complaining that all the civilian population had run away, leaving Hamas without its human shields and that the hospitals were running out of rockets. Sometimes you just have to laugh and cry at the same time.

There was nothing funny about the HonestReporting findings published last week which revealed that several major news outlets, including the Associated Press and Reuters, had Palestinian photojournalists on the ground in Israel during the early hours of the October 7 Hamas invasion. Some of these freelancers also worked for CNN and The New York Times.

The photojournalists could not have been in the right place at the right time to record the massacre by chance. And if they knew of the planned atrocities ahead of time, did they inform the outlets they worked for? Did some media companies wait for the gory footage instead of trying to prevent it?

These so-called journalists did not simply document the barbaric events, they colluded with them. They were mobilized by Hamas to use their cameras as weapons. They shot to kill: to glorify the terrorists and spread fear among their enemies. They are part of the Hamas=ISIS phenomenon.

No wonder Israelis don’t trust the objectivity of foreign media. They wield a great deal of influence over how Israel is portrayed – which in turn can be used to fuel more terrorism.

This also raises questions about how past events were reported: How were the riots on the border between Gaza and Israel covered, for example? 

Israel has been repeatedly, unfairly, censured for “targeting journalists.” But some journalists have been targeting Israel.

This week IDF Spokesperson R.-Adm. Daniel Hagari reported from the underground bunkers at Gaza’s Rantisi Hospital, showing, among other things, a cache of arms and signs that at least some of the kidnapped had been held there. Some foreign media expressed skepticism at the report. They cannot admit that Hamas uses hospitals, schools, and mosques to shield its terrorist command centers.

Psychological warfare aimed at our raw nerve

THE PSYCHOLOGICAL warfare is aimed at Israel’s raw nerve, the collective worry over the fate of those snatched from the country that terrible Saturday. They range in age from Kfir, less than a year old, to octogenarians, in desperate need of medications. The situation of the woman who reportedly gave birth in captivity is particularly poignant. How is the newborn baby? And I can’t stop thinking about the children and toddlers in captivity without their parents.

Four hostages have been released – two US citizens and two elderly Israeli women – and one soldier, Ori Megidish, was liberated by Israeli security forces. The fate of the rest is literally the stuff of nightmares. We’ve already seen what monstrosities Hamas and its partners in war crimes are capable of.

A couple of weeks ago, Hamas released a video of three women, and this week, Islamic Jihad released a video of 13-year-old Yagel Yaakov and Hanna Katsir, 77, claiming they would be released on humanitarian grounds.

But you don’t rape, brutalize, and kidnap people in the first place if you’re interested in human rights. The case of Yagel, whose young face had clearly aged in the weeks of captivity, shows the absurdity: He reportedly suffers from a peanut allergy, but do the terrorists really want us to believe he is at risk of accidentally being fed Bamba peanut puffs? And releasing him, but not his brother, is not humane. It’s satanic.

Even more evil was the case of 19-year-old soldier Noa Marciano. Initially, it was announced that she had been seen in a Hamas propaganda video. The next day, the IDF declared it had clear evidence she was no longer alive. I can’t imagine the pain of her family having to decide whether to watch the video knowing how it ends. The psychological warfare arsenal contains cruel weapons.

On Tuesday, some of the friends, families, and supporters of the hostages began a march from Tel Aviv to the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem. While it’s clear that the terrorist atrocity took place on the watch of Benjamin Netanyahu, I’m concerned that politicizing the plight of the victims will be detrimental. Hamas is obviously also interested in widening the rifts within Israeli society. It would be better to focus on the offices of the United Nations or the International Committee of the Red Cross. 

Talk of a “prisoner exchange” demonstrates another dilemma. The people being held by the terrorist organizations cannot be compared to security prisoners who belong to the terrorist organization. The Israeli children snatched from their homes to Gaza are not comparable to Palestinian teenagers jailed in Israel for acts of terrorism. And releasing innocent children for terrorist teens can easily lead to a situation in which adult hostages are released for adult terrorists – although Israel should have learned its lesson from the Gilad Schalit exchange. Many of the released, including Sinwar, returned to terrorism. 

National Security Adviser Tzachi Hanegbi once told me how when he was serving in the First Lebanon War, his mother Geula Cohen – a right-wing parliamentary hard-liner – was asked what she would do if her son were taken prisoner. Her reply was: “As a mother, I would be outside the Prime Minister’s Office with a megaphone 24 hours a day calling on the government to do anything it took to attain his release. As a Knesset member, I would sit inside the Prime Minister’s Office and tell him not to listen to the people outside.”

Publicity, in the case of Hamas captives, presents Israel with an excruciating quandary. The louder the shouts to release them “Now!”, the higher the price that Hamas can demand in return. On the other hand, the plight of the hostages cannot be allowed to fade from public awareness. They’re counting on us. 

liat@jpost.com