Wednesday, January 22, 2025
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| “The nightmare is over.” |
Disclaimer: the views expressed here are solely those of the author, weekly Judean Rose columnist Varda Meyers Epstein.
Last Sunday, the entire nation of Israel was riveted to
their screens, hoping for a glimpse of Emily, Romi, and Doron. At the same
time, at least where I live, in Efrat, the joy and relief was tempered with the
knowledge that the cost is higher than any of us can stomach: the release of 1700
terrorists. Among those terrorists to be released is Khalil Ali Jabarin who fatally
stabbed and killed Efrat resident Ari Fuld, a husband and father of four, in
2018.
And now, apparently, he will be released from prison, to do
it again. It’s what they do. Kill Jews. It’s a proven fact. The recidivism rate
is high. Terrorists were released in exchange for Gilad Shalit in 2011. By
2014, half of them had committed further acts of terror. So now we have three
amazing women back, but we feel unsafe.
In an address to the nation the night before the hostage
release, Netanyahu assured us that no terrorists would be released to Judea and
Samaria. “We have established that terrorists who have killed will not be
released to Judea and Samaria; they will be expelled to the Gaza Strip or
abroad, and we also decided in the cabinet on a very significant reinforcement
of our forces in Judea and Samaria to protect our citizens,” he said.
Yet we see report after report suggesting that the terrorists
slated to be released in this “deal” will indeed be released to Judea and
Samaria. Efrat, once home to Ari Fuld, is located in Judea. We are in agony at
the injustice of his murderer and so many other murderers of Israelis, going free.
How do we trade this for that? Three young woman, but Ari’s murderer is set
loose to wander free, and perhaps among us. 1,700 terrorists to be released
into the wild.
We are winning. Why should we trade anything at all for a
ceasefire, let alone release 1,700 murderers for 33 hostages? Why did Trump insist
that we accede to Biden’s very bad May ceasefire plan? Does the new president not
know that this means the release of terrorists who murdered American citizens, such
as, for instance, Ari Fuld and Richard Lakin?
But that’s not the entire story either. It’s not the only
reason our feelings are a bewildered mishmash of orphaned puzzle pieces. Israel
has been fully mobilized for more than a year. We are in constant fear for soldier
husbands, sons, daughters, brothers, sisters. They are gone for months. Wives and
mothers are left on their own, some for more than a year. They are terrified.
They must be strong for the kids. And how to soothe children when daddy is away
and there are sirens.
As a mother of soldiers, I can tell you that it is hell to be a mother of
soldiers in wartime. And now our soldier sons wonder why they served. Did they
do their jobs bravely and well only to see the release of these monsters? Here,
too, there is no justice. Especially for families who lost soldier husbands,
sons, brothers, daughters, and sisters.
We are winning the war. Why are we being forced to
capitulate, forced into Biden’s very bad “deal” from May, by Trump’s envoy, Witkoff.
A man in Qatar’s pocket. Word is, Witkoff not only strong-armed Bibi into
agreeing to this terrible deal (at Trump’s behest of course) but forced him to
meet on Shabbos telling him that he knows Bibi isn’t orthodox, that he doesn’t
wear a yarmulke, so he better damned well meet with him on Shabbos. Rumors. But
rumors that rankle.
One woman friend told me that she had never cried so much as
she did on Sunday, the day we waited for the hostages to be released. We didn’t
know what feeling to land on: the fear, the feeling of being betrayed, that it
was all for nothing, yet joy at the prospect of getting those girls, those
three precious souls, out of hell.
Now, the newspapers are focused heavily on the hostages. The
terrorist release is like a mere whisper in the media compared to the huge
story of Emily, Romi, and Doron. They deserve our love and our joy. They deserved
their hell to end. But to release terrorists who are almost certainly bound to
kill again, is a terrible thing. And we can’t stand it.
I keep thinking back to October when JD Vance called on Americans in Israel to vote for Trump (emphasis added):
Vance stressed the importance of every vote in what is expected to be a close race. "This election could be decided by just a few votes. Do you want Kamala Harris, or do you want Donald Trump? If you want Donald Trump, get out there and make it happen."
Aryeh Lightstone, Former senior advisor to Ambassador David Friedman, told The Jerusalem Post, "In an election that may be decided by just thousands of votes, the Trump-Vance campaign is convinced that Americans in Israel know better than anybody else, the value of strong leadership, and they are speaking directly to these voters to make sure to show up through these videos."
"They have promised to continue to stand by Israel, and they are asking Americans in Israel to stand by them," Lightstone said.
We did stand by them. We voted for Trump and Vance, and now they are forcing us to release
terrorists from our prisons who have American blood on their hands. If this is
Trump and Vance standing up for us, no thanks. They could have come up with a
different “plan.” It didn’t have to be this one. The cost is much too high.
There is also the issue of the dearth of information regarding the terrorists to be released. The government is obligated to inform the families of terror victims before the terrorists who killed their loved ones are let loose. But the government has not done so. None of the families have been notified. If I am wrong about this, please do let me know. I would feel better to be proved wrong.
Not too many people know about it, and it is light on information, but there's a list of terrorists slated to be released on Israel’s government website. The names of the innocents they murdered are not listed there, of course, but only those of the murderers. It makes it difficult for the public to get a good picture of what this all means, the gravity, and the enormity of releasing these particular prisoners. For how can we know how bad this is without knowing their names and what they did?
Families of terror victims and the press have been sifting through some the information on this list as best they can (once they know a list exists). That's how Ari Fuld’s murderer was discovered there, as was Balal Abu Gaanam who murdered American citizen Richard Lakin.
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| Balal Abu Gaanam as his entry appears on the list of terrorists slated to be released in exchange for the hostages. |
The mastermind of the murder of Rina Shnerb is
on the list, Khalida Jarrar.
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| Khalida Jarrar |
Slowly, we are finding out who is there on that list. The horrible people who killed our loved ones. Who would not hesitate to kill once more, a dozen times more. With passion.
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| Khalil Yusuf Ali Jabarin, murderer of Ari Fuld. |
I asked Ari Fuld’s younger brother, Hillel, if anyone in the government had contacted the family regarding the impending release of Khalil Ali Jabarin. How did they find out that Jabarin would be released. Do they even know for sure that he will be released?
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| Hillel Fuld |
Hillel Fuld has not heard anything from the government. Perhaps it's because he's a brother, rather than a wife. “The government didn't contact me. I'm not sure if they contacted Miriam, not that I know of, as far as I know they didn't contact us, but again, I can only speak with certainty about myself. I definitely didn't hear anything from anyone other than that list that was published,” said Fuld.
I asked Arnold Roth, father of 15-year-old Malki Roth, murdered in the 2001 Sbarro pizzeria bombing by Hamas, if he’d heard of any families of terror victims being notified by the government that the murderers of their loved ones were about to be freed. “I saw an Israeli news report in the past few days which said the families of terror victims were going to be contacted by appropriate Government of Israel people once a decision had been made to free any of the terrorists convicted in the murder of a family member of theirs. That ought to include people like my wife and me. Our 15-year-old daughter Malki, was murdered in an act of Palestinian Arab terror orchestrated by Hamas in 2001,” said Roth.
“Although an entire gang of killers was caught, convicted,
sentenced and imprisoned, they were all freed in the 2011 Shalit Deal. The
woman who spearheaded the massacre at the Sbarro pizzeria, Ahlam Tamimi, was
one of them - perhaps the most famous of the entire Shalit Deal list of freed
savages. She returned to her native Jordan the day after Israel let her loose
and has gone on to make herself a spectacular career there as a media
personality and commentator on issues that speak to the hearts of people who
support the murder of Jewish children.
“But there's one exception. One of the terrorists who played
a key role in the Sbarro atrocity (and numerous other atrocities) and who did
not walk free in 2011 is Abdullah Barghouti. He's the weapons expert who
fabricated the massively-explosive guitar case that a human bomb carried on his
back and into the pizzeria with the help of the Tamimi woman.
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| Arnold and Frimet Roth gaze at a photo of their daughter Malki, HY"D |
“Barghouti is currently serving a sentence of 67 life terms, the longest ever imposed by an Israeli court and tied to the number of innocent lives wiped out by his bombs.
I don't know if Barghouti has been designated as one of the
beneficiaries of the current hostage-freeing deal. But this report says he's on the
Hamas list of demands. This doesn't mean he will be released but who knows? If
they get their way, meaning if Israel capitulates to the mass-murdering
terrorists as it did in the Shalit Deal, this is horrific and indefensible,”
says Roth.
As it stands, that particular Barghouti is not on the Israeli government list of terrorists slated for release, though a different terrorist Barghouti family member, Ahmed Barghouti is there. But it is all very unclear. Roth tells me that Abdullah Barghouti, a relative of Tamimi, boasted on Sixty Minutes of his “passion to kill again and again.” I took a look at the interview:
The most notorious of all the prisoners held at the Be'er Sheva Prison is Abdullah Barghouti. It's not easy to get to see him because he's being held in indefinite solitary confinement. He's been convicted of being the mastermind behind Hamas' deadliest suicide bombings, responsible for the deaths of 66 people, including five Americans. How does he feel about this death toll?
"I feel bad because the number only 66. This the answer you want to hear it?" Barghouti told Simon.
"I want to hear what you have to say," Simon replied.
"No, this is the answer they want to hear it? Yes, I feel bad, because I want more," Barghouti said.
Barghouti has already killed more Israelis than anyone else. For two years, he sent suicide bombers to places, ordinary places, the names of which no Israeli will ever forget. They include "The Moment Café," the Hebrew University cafeteria [where American citizens Marla Bennet and Ben Blustein were murdered, V.E.] and the Sbarro Pizzeria, where seven children were killed.
Still, Ari Fuld is dead, the hostages are yet alive and suffering immensely, clinging barely to life after more than a year underground. Those who aren't dead, that is. We owe it to those both living and dead to get them out. But in my opinion, not like this.
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| Ari Fuld's funeral |
I asked Hillel Fuld
if he would share his own feelings about the deal. He said, “I feel there are two
parallel lines when it comes to this deal. There's the beautiful line and
there's the terrible line. These two lines can't coexist on one line like what
social media would have you believe, that everything is just black and white.
It’s beautiful and beyond beautiful and emotional that those poor hostages get
to be reunited with their families and we all experienced that emotional moment
a few nights ago.
“It’s also a terrible deal because they're releasing a
thousand monsters to the streets and that could not be more terrible so it's
both beautiful and terrible at the same time.”
Asked what he thinks of the framework for the ceasefire deal as proposed by Biden in May, now being set in motion, and how it went down now, with Witkoff, Hillel chooses to be positive. “I don’t know the details of what went on behind the scenes. I want to believe that there is more than meets the eye that there was some kind of incentive to get Netanyahu to agree to this deal. I don't have any information but that is something that I tell myself to make myself feel better and I hope that it will become clear in the coming months in terms of what was promised to Netanyahu.”
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| Freed hostage Emily Damari with her mother, Mandy. |
What would you like to see happen now, I asked Hillel.
“What would I like to see happen now? I'd like to see our hostages come back so we can return to the war and obliterate Hamas and achieve our war objectives of eliminating Hamas from this world; removing all threats from Israel's borders; and getting our hostages back."
I appreciate Hillel Fuld’s life-affirming positivity. Unfortunately,
I’m more like the people he describes on on social media who can’t see parallel
lines. Like everyone in Israel I love, love, love to see the moving photos,
stories, and videos of the freed hostages. Still, I am
concerned that we are letting down the memories of terror victims, and leaving
our people as unsafe as we were on October 6.
Perhaps that's not even the worst of it. It goes to the core of who the Israeli people are as a society. “No self-respecting government can justify to its citizens the restoration of the freedom of a barbarian like Barghouti,” says Arnold Roth. “Allowing him out of his cell would be a monstrous act of moral bankruptcy.”
And yet here we are, giving many killers of Jews a fresh start so
we can get a very small number of hostages out of hell. I don't think it had to be that way. We are winning, or at least we were winning. Until the point where we were
leaned on by Witkoff to capitulate to the enemy on behalf of President Donald J. Trump.
Now look, I am happy, truly happy, that Trump is doing so many nice things for Israel--I will let others talk about suspending UNRWA and lifting the sanctions imposed on Israeli Americans in Judea and Samaria because of where they live and their religion, and all the other goodies--but this “deal” spits on the memories of American citizens murdered because of their religion.
I ask you, is this right, Mr. Trump? Is it just in your
eyes?
I don’t expect an answer from President Trump, nor, the truth is, from my
own government. The Israeli government is not being forthright with the
families of the victims whose murderers are soon to be, if not already
released.
This has engendered a deep sense of betrayal and despair in many of us Israelis, a feeling of why did we do all this--why did we sacrifice so much? To what purpose? To strengthen the hand of terror? And yet, it fills our hearts to see Emily, Romi, and Doron in the arms of their families once more. Can anyone really put a price on that?
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"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024) PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022) |
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