The hostages’ Muslim captors certainly do not love them, and equally certainly seek no love from them. Eid or no Eid, we offer no love to these monsters, and it is just as well they do not seek any from us. Opinion.
Dr Anjuli Pandavar is a British writer and social critic who holds a PhD in political economy. She was born into a Muslim family in apartheid South Africa, where she left Islam in 1979. Anjuli is preparing to convert to Judaism. She is one of the staunchest defenders of Israel and a constructive critic of the Jewish state when she believes it is warranted. She owns and writes on Murtadd to Human, where she may be contacted.
Strung up in lights between the minarets of the Blue Mosque in Istanbul are the words: “Sevelim, Sevilelim”, “Let us love, Let us be loved.” A virtuous encouragement at the conclusion of the Islamic holy, fasting month of Ramadan and the start of Eid al-Fitr, when it is forbidden to fast and the traditional greeting is “Eid Mubarak:, an Arabic phrase that means “blessed feast or festival”.. And after a month of intense spirituality, certainly, they love; and how very touching it is to want to be loved. Is it not a most natural, human need, and the most beautiful one?
Muslims, the people of sacrifice and togetherness; a relentless message pumped into living rooms in minute detail in every Western country. How beautiful; how colourful; how loving; how peaceful. Turn on all the lights. Pull out all the stops. Smile and dole out dates to passers by. If you don’t know how wonderful Muslims are, then there is something wrong with you. You might even be—dare I say it—Islamophobic.
These are not the same people as those who, for this entire month and more than a year prior, starved men, women and children, tortured them, raped them, mutilated them and killed them in Gaza. Killed them? Is that the right word?
Just over a week before the start of the holy, spiritual, fasting month of Ramadan, Hamas put on a very special coffin show for all the hard-working, loyal Muslims of Gaza, something to dance over, to crude, blaring triumphalist music. The coffins, the world was led to believe, contained the bodies of four deceased Jews: Kfir Bibas (10 months old at time of brutal death); his 4-year-old brother, Ariel Bibas (same brutal murder); their mother, Shiri Bibas; and 83-year old Oded Lifshitz.
There was much cruelty in this handover (e.g., the coffins were padlocked and the keys did not fit), many lies (e.g., the coffins bore labels saying “Date of ‘Arrest’”); much torment (e.g., two captives were in a car, made to watch it all); much Hamas-style education (e.g., their children danced on the stage); much humiliation (e.g., Hamas was everywhere in full military fatigues and armed with Israeli weapons); and much deceit (e.g., the adult female corpse was not that of Shiri Bibas, as purported, but of an unknown Gazan woman—apparently, they love death and don’t care whose).
None of this compares to the grotesque barbarism with which the Bibas children met their deaths. Hamas, and all the world that mindlessly parroted everything they claimed, insisted that the 10-month-old and 4-year-old died under the rubble when the Israeli Air Force bombed the building they were in. It turns out, the glorious mujahideen had strangled the two children to death, then pummelled their bodies with rocks so it would appear they had died under rubble!
It is not clear whether they were so ignorant that they didn’t know that any non-Muslim pathologist would immediately recognise the true cause of death, or whether they knew this and did it anyway to show their contempt. I lean towards the latter.
“After the Bibas mother and boys atrocity, who supports Hamas out loud?” asked Steve Apfel. It is a question asked by many, including myself, here, as Muslims prepared to go into their holy, spiritual month of fasting—Hamas plus all the Muslims around the world who had celebrated their “moment of triumph” on October 7. It was time for introspection, time to restore the soul.
Scores of Jews remain in captivity, some dead, others in various stages of alive. Their fast began on October 7, 2023 and will not end with Ramadan’s. Tomorrow they will hear the Eid celebrations overhead or outside somewhere.
Their Muslim captors certainly do not love them, and equally certainly seek no love from them. Eid or no Eid, we offer no love to these monsters, and it is just as well they do not seek any from us.
As for the millions of Westerners who passively took their daily fix of Islamic opium during Ramadan, how many of them still support Hamas out loud? The Muslims have their work cut out for them in Australia, where their obscene chanting on the steps of the Sydney Opera House back on October 7 needs to be expunged from public memory pronto. The police got that process off to a good start by turning, “Kill the Jews!” into “Where’s the Jews?” The media, equally shameless, brought up the rear with an endless Ramadan extravaganza of Muslim minutiae.
What babies? What coffins? Eid Mubarak. “Let us love, Let us be loved.”
