In the Media

The Advertiser – 3 September 2024

Last week, Qaid Farhan al-Qadi, an Israeli Bedouin hostage was saved by IDF Special Forces, because Israel values every life. But a few days later, six hostages were murdered by Hamas, because Israel’s enemies embrace murder, death and destruction.

For almost 11 months, 52-year-old Qaid Farhan al-Qadi survived cruelty and barbarity that should only happen in our worst nightmares. He had been held in a Gaza terror tunnel by Hamas terrorists since October 7 after being kidnapped while working as a security guard in Kibbutz Magen, about five kilometres from the Gaza border.

It made no difference to his Hamas tormentors that he was a Bedouin Muslim and not a Jew. It made no difference that he was a father of 11, with a family who desperately missed him. It made no difference that he spoke the same language as his captors.

It only mattered that he was a citizen of the Jewish State.

There are no words that will ever encapsulate the joy his family are feeling right now or the warm collective embrace that the people of Israel have thrown around him. Yet as heart-warming and inspirational as his story is, it was followed by the devastating discovery of the bodies of six hostages, including American-Israeli Hersh Goldberg-Polin, in one of Rafah’s tunnels.

The six had been shot in the head shortly before their discovery by Israeli forces.

For almost 11 months the world has failed to understand that the alliance Israel faces in Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and ultimately Iran itself – is not an enemy with grievances that can be negotiated. This is not an enemy with arguments that can be discussed, or objectives that leave room for compromise.

It is an enemy with a singular uncompromising purpose and goal – to eliminate the Jewish State of Israel and wipe it off the face of the earth. This enemy is not concerned about creating another Arab state for the Palestinians – it is focused solely on trying to destroy the world’s only Jewish state.

It is an outrage that much of the world refuses to listen to the words of Israel’s enemies, choosing to ignore their openly declared goals backed up by clear actions, instead reframing the conflict as some kind of land grievance.

It is also outrageous that there are those in the world, including representatives of the United Nations, the self-appointed moral barometer of the world, who slander Israel with accusations of genocide, when the ratio of civilians to terrorists killed by Israel is likely the lowest in any similar urban warfare conflict in history. This is despite Hamas callously embedding itself into the very fabric of Gazan civilian society – a situation no other army has faced on this scale.

It is outrageous that Israel is accused of “apartheid” when 21% of Israel’s population are Arabs, many of whom serve in every part of Israeli society including the security forces, the medical professions and the judiciary. An Arab judge even sentenced an Israeli President to prison.

In what possible interpretation of an apartheid society could that happen?

Israel is also accused of illegal occupation, yet once again, Israel’s critics appear to have amnesia. Israel offered Palestinians an independent state in 2000, 2001, and 2008, and left Gaza completely in 2005, only for it to be taken over by Hamas which threw out the Palestinian Authority in a violent coup in 2007. Since then, Hamas has been the only power occupying Gaza and is responsible and accountable for every aspect of life there – including using the generously donated funds of a naïve world to build a metropolis of underground terror tunnels and cannibalise almost every mosque, school, clinic or hospital into its terrorist infrastructure.

The world failed to heed Hamas’s own charter which calls for the murder of all Jews and Israel’s elimination. The October 7 terror attacks were not an accidental detour in Hamas’ genocidal quest for this, but an intrinsic part of achieving that objective.

When countries try to pressure only Israel into a ceasefire while ignoring the true nature of Israel’s enemy, they betray every Western democratic moral value they claim to cherish, while demanding Israel stop fighting an enemy that is sworn to its genocidal and total destruction.

In the past week, Israelis have cried tears of joy and tears of pain, illustrating what the State of Israel is all about – a country that values its citizens whatever their background, and will always fight for them.

It may not be perfect, but it is a country that sends both Jewish and Muslim soldiers to rescue both Jewish and Muslim citizens kidnapped by Islamist terrorists using Palestinian civilians as human shields.

These are the values that Israel ultimately represents – values that all the world should be fighting for.

 Justin Amler is a Policy Analyst at the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC).