The Official Israel-Gaza Thread
Hello, Louis Har, rescued hostage. This is Nir Gontarz. I write for Haaretz. How are you doing?
"Fine."
I'm asking to interview you now for my regular column in Haaretz. Is that OK with you?
"If it's not going to take too long – yes."
Thank you. How many days did you spend in captivity?
"One hundred and twenty-nine days."
And you were rescued by the military.
"Yes."
The circumstances are difficult, so my questions may be emotionally challenging. Is that all right?
"It's all right."
Can you help me visualize what Chaim Peri, Yoram Metzger and Amiram Cooper, who were abducted alive and were even filmed by Hamas, and whose deaths were announced this week by the military, went through?
"No. Everybody goes through it differently. I can tell you that being there – it's hell. The lack of freedom, the inability to make your own decisions. The very fact of being in captivity. Experiencing those moments – it's very hard. Everybody reacts according to their individual nature. So, I can't answer for someone else, only say what I felt."
Louis Har, left, after his rescue in February. Credit: IDF Spokesman's Unit
Besides losing control of your life, did you feel mortal fear?
"I was at peace with the fact that I might not come out of there alive. But it wasn't fear. I reacted rationally and did my own soul-searching there. I even decided that if my time had come, my work was done. I have a legacy of wonderful children and grandchildren. So I made my peace with the fact that if that's what had to happen – that's OK. So be it. I made my peace with the fact that I might not get out of there. That made it easier for me."
I see. And did you hear the military around you?
"All the time."
And did this give you hope or shake your confidence?
"Our greatest fear was the IDF's planes and the concern that they would bomb the building we were in. I was a soldier myself once. But the feeling that it could be our own bombs, our own planes – that this is what would kill us – that's very scary and very anxiety-inducing."
So, you made your peace with the fact that you may not come out alive, and death did not scare you, but your greater fear was from IDF activity. Correct?
"From the IDF. We decided for ourselves, the whole gang of us together, that we wouldn't resist [the hostage-takers] and wouldn't cause conflicts. We respected each other, and we were calm. We weren't worried that they'd do something to us all of a sudden. We didn't object to anything. So I wasn't afraid they'd kill me.
"But I knew that if they got the order to kill us, they'd do it instantly. Wouldn't think twice. Still, I knew it wasn't like in other cases, where they just killed for no reason. The people who kept watch over us were really just keeping watch and wanted to make the exchange with their own people, and they made sure we were OK. And so did we."
Smoke rises following an Israeli airstrike in Rafah last month.Credit: Abdel Kareem Hana/AP Photo
But then your concern grew when the IDF operated near you.
"Yes."
What a nightmare. Now the IDF is operating in Rafah, while also saying that according to assessments, most of hostages are held there. What needs to be done, in your opinion?
"What needs to be done is getting all the hostages back at any price and under any condition. That is what's most important now. Human life is above everything. I won't tell the IDF or the government what to do. They're grown up enough to know what they need to do. I'm just waiting for them to really bring everybody back. That's my only hope. And I haven't lost hope."
Were you filmed in captivity?
"Yes, yes. And we weren't very willing. We had to say what they told us to. How good they were, and how unlike ISIS, and they hugged us and had their picture taken with us. Inside, we felt awful, but there was nothing to be done. We did whatever they wanted."
After being filmed, in your heart of hearts, did you wish for the Israeli public to see it or not?
"We thought it was giving a sign of life, and that we'd be seen – that's so important for the families. Not the content, because that's obviously made under their influence and it's not true statements. but to give a sign of life to the families."
Demonstrators wave signs during a protest calling for the release of the hostages from Hamas captivity in Tel Aviv, last week.Credit: Ariel Schalit/AP Photo
When Hamas releases such a video, should the Israeli media show it, or not?"
"Just so people are aware that the people being shown are alive. It's a sign of life – that's what matters. Not the content."
How are you these days? Is it even possible to go back to something like normal?
"First of all, we haven't returned home [to southern Israel] yet, and living like this – that's not normal life. Obviously, we are different from before. So is reality. We must go on and get over it slowly. It won't go away in a day."
Yes.
"But you've got to go on living. There's nothing else to be done."
You're a special person, Louis.
"What matters most is getting all of the hostages home. I'm willing to contribute to that, day and night. All of my time and all of my thoughts are only about this."
Louis, thank you.
"All the best. Goodbye."
King Kreole
natural blondie like goku
Just because I'm Chinese doesn't mean that I can't opine on politics. My people have gone through oppression at the hands of the white man as well.
The only change you've created is breaking down a Jackson for your customer at the Quiznos till.
Respectfully, you can suck my egg roll.
King Kreole
natural blondie like goku
Outlaw
New Hope For the HaveNotz
A poster using aliases to dap and quote himself is nasty work
King Kreole
natural blondie like goku
God you really are just committed to being the most wretched little slimy worm in the garden aren't you? Doing the Zionist "just asking questions" routine on one of the most egregious Israeli massacres of this whole conflict. Genuinely disgusting. You claim I'm not black, I HOPE you're not black.
Mister Terrific
It’s in the name
“American imperial project”
What an infantile understanding of the world hidden behind meaningless verbosity. Does China not do billions of dollars of business with Israel? Has China sent anyone to the region to assist with humanitarian efforts. Does China not have an entire ethnic minority of Muslims locked under 24 hour surveillance and concentration camps? Are we supposed to ignore the sinicization of Xinjiang and Inner Mongolia and Tibet?
Also invoking racial struggle when Israel is majority ethnically Arab is quite a take. You realize that the majority of Israelis are Arabs who were ethnically cleansed out of North Africa, Iran and the Levant. And genetically they are nearly identical to other levant peoples? This isn’t a racial struggle, this is generational hatred.
Explain to us Vladimir Len Chan how removing Joe Biden from the equation fundamentally changes the trajectory of that region of the world? How suddenly the Israelis will lay down their arms, accept Muslim rule and Hamas will govern a peaceful democracy of the proletariat?
Voice of Reason
Veteran
You are not Black you are a dikk sucking Zionist.
How could you not be disgusted by the human rights abuses of the IDF?
You are an agent and fakkit.
88m3
Fast Money & Foreign Objects
not surprised, how many more aliases does this cac have
King Kreole
natural blondie like goku
You are right, I regret expressing unwavering support for the regime of my home country China and all of their actions.
"We should there (Palestine) form a portion of a rampart of Europe against Asia, an outpost of civilization as opposed to barbarism." - Theodore Herzl
I don't even know what you mean when you try to condense this whole conflict to"generational hatred", but to be willfully blind to the structural role that race plays in the formation and continued practice of Zionism means you will never understand what is truly going on. Israel's early political and social elite were all non-Mizrahi, and the country was founded with explicitly racialized colonial language and ideology. Modern Zionism has completely grafted on the racist anti-Arab War on Terror ideology which is why it has found such comfortable bedfellows with right-wing fascists in the West. Race and Zionism are inextricably linked.
You should change your username if you're going to be posting like this.Explain to us Vladimir Len Chan how removing Joe Biden from the equation fundamentally changes the trajectory of that region of the world? How suddenly the Israelis will lay down their arms, accept Muslim rule and Hamas will govern a peaceful democracy of the proletariat?
@3Rivers
God you really are just committed to being the most wretched little slimy worm in the garden aren't you? Doing the Zionist "just asking questions" routine on one of the most egregious Israeli massacres of this whole conflict. Genuinely disgusting. You claim I'm not black, I HOPE you're not black.
Can we get a Matthew Miller smiley
This is it right here. The Warlord would be a better President on all other issues, but I just can’t give him my vote. I can’t with a clear conscience cast my vote for someone who continues to commit crimes against humanity with apparent relish. It’s not a political question, it’s a moral one.
Mister Terrific
It’s in the name
Reading comprehension 0 but since we are on the subject maybe you would be better served protesting outside a Uighur concentration camp or instead of repping Trump to spite Biden on a majority Black forum you should convince your country men to not vote for Xi because of his policies towards Chinese minorities…
Ahistorical infantile conspiracism. One colonial empire Britain was victorious over another colonial empire Turkey who had conquered the region from another colonial empire the Mamluk Sultanate that conquered it from the Ayyubids who came from Arabia. The Arabs fought with the British to defeat the Ottomans.
Condensing the conflict as some “scramble for Africa” 19 th century pseudonym just makes you look stupid and why the powers at be will never take any anti-Israel movement seriously.
And yes generational hatred
I Survived a Pogrom in Iraq 82 Years Ago. I Know Where Hamas’ Extremism Will Lead
Joseph SamuelsWhen I saw the photos and videos posted by Hamas murdering entire Israeli families, raping women and killing young people at a music festival on Oct. 7 — I was horrified and shocked. These images ignited the flames of a dormant trauma I suffered 82 years ago in Baghdad, Iraq, when I was just 10 years old.
On June 1 and 2, 1941, two months after a pro-Nazi coup that plagued Baghdad, mobs — aided by the police and soldiers — broke into Jewish homes, raping women and girls and murdering Jews mercilessly in a rampage that came to be known as the “Farhud” — an Arabic term for pogrom. Jews could not fight back, and there was nowhere to run and no country to seek refuge. This horrendous massacre occurred during the festival of Shavuot, a holiday celebrating the giving of the Ten Commandments.
My older brother, Eliyahu, unknowingly rode his bicycle to visit our cousins in the Old Jewish Quarter on the first day of the Farhud. The doors of my two uncles’ homes were broken in and the interiors were looted. Cycling back home through the main thoroughfare, Al Rashid Street, he witnessed a group of men stop a minibus, drag out the Jewish passengers, then rob and slaughter them. It still sends chills down my spine thinking of what he saw.
Thank God, my family was spared. The mob, who could be heard just blocks away, didn’t manage to reach us before the British forces entered Baghdad on the afternoon of June 2. After the events, none of the perpetrators was accused or convicted.
I also heard stories of courageous Muslim men who stood in front of Jewish homes with knives, daggers and guns, risking their lives and preventing the mob from breaking into homes. Some took Jews into their own homes to protect them and took the injured to doctors. Some Muslim leaders condemned these brutal acts as heresy to Islam.
I was conflicted and confused. My father, a textile importer, always praised his Muslim customers as honorable, and my older brothers had very close Muslim friends. When I asked my father about this dissonance, he told me, “Son, you must judge people by their individual actions, and not as a group.” That was a lesson I carried throughout my life.
When I saw the pro-Hamas demonstrations that erupted after the Oct. 7 massacre, it brought memories of the events after the United Nations approved the partition of Palestine into two states, one Arab and one Jewish, on Nov. 29, 1947. The Jews of Iraq and other Arab countries prayed that the Palestinian leaders would agree to start a new country, the 23rd Arab country, and live alongside the newly created Israel. The Arab League, however, unanimously rejected the partition and declared a war to eliminate the Jewish state.
Frequent demonstrations took place in the streets of Baghdad, with screams of “death to Zionists” and calls to free Palestine. We feared another Farhud. We got lucky — there were only a few skirmishes — but the Jews of Aleppo, Syria, were raided by mobs, encouraged by the Syrian government, that looted and set ablaze homes, synagogues, schools and an orphanage in December 1947. An estimated 75 Jews were killed, and hundreds were injured.
We Iraqi Jews faced a dilemma. If the Arab armies won and eliminated the new Jewish state, there would be a second Holocaust. But if they lost, would the Iraqi leaders turn against us, their Jewish citizens that had inhabited the area for over 25 centuries?
On May 15, 1948, five Arab armies, including Iraq, attacked Israel. Against enormous odds, Israel survived. The shame of failure caused Arab countries to, indeed, turn against their Jewish citizens. In Iraq, Zionism was declared a capital offense. Jews were fired from government jobs, and accusations, arrests, tortures and imprisonments culminated in the public execution of a prominent Jewish merchant, Shafiq Addas, on Sept. 23, 1948. This brought fear to every Jewish heart.
I was accepted at three universities in America, but Iraq refused to grant me an exit visa. In December 1949, I got to Iran with the help of two Muslim smugglers. And two months after that, I arrived in Israel. I became a homeless, penniless refugee. I stood in line with a tin plate to get a free meal and slept in a tent anchored in the sand. However, I felt liberated for the first time in my life. The sense of freedom overshadowed the feeling of victimhood.
The continuous harassment, persecution, torture and execution in Iraq and other Arab countries forced 850,000 Jews to flee from their homelands. Jews lived in Iraq for more than 1,000 years before Islam conquered the region and for 1,300 years after. Presently, only about 6,000 Jews remain in Arab lands. They left their homes, businesses, synagogues, properties, everything. Like myself, they became refugees. But we all moved on. We had to learn a second language and were grateful to become equal citizens of the countries that accepted us.
This is not to say that the situation of the Mizrahi Jews who were made refugees after the creation of Israel and that of the Palestinians in Gaza are completely analogous. But it suggests that experiences of oppression and exile do not have to lead inevitably to the horrific events that played out on Oct. 7.
Hamas’ first order of business — like ISIS, Assad’s Syria and other totalitarian regimes — is to eliminate the opposition. Hamas mercilessly crushed the Fatah movement who were giving them a fight for the 2006 election. Today, they continue to discriminate against minorities, women and homosexuals.
As a Jew who survived the Farhud and who grew up with, and has, many faithful Muslim friends — and who knows the hardship of being a refugee — I cried for the massacre of Jews by Hamas. I also cried for the innocent Palestinians who were killed by Hamas for refusing to follow orders and join their movement. I pray that the Palestinian people will find the courage to stand up to Hamas and make it a priority to establish a democratic and prosperous Palestinian state.
Joseph Samuels is a board member of JIMENA, an organization dedicated to the preservation of Mizrahi and Sephardi culture and history of Jews from the Middle East and North Africa. He lives in Santa Monica, California.
You think Joe Biden or some Europeanizes America educated Jew is teaching Israelis how to hate Arabs? That these feelings just. Some about because the British wanted a small colonial outpost in the middle of nowhere?
The vast majority of Arab states are more or less fundamentally aligned with US and by extension Israeli state policy. Can you describe in detail what you mean by this? Or are you once again being purposely pointlessly verbose?
LOST IN THE SAUCE
The Sauce Apostle
This ancient hatred, that definitely wasn't a consequence of Zionism and the oppression of Palestinians, as proven by this article where it is described as a response to Zionism and the demand for Palestine to be free.
Ahistorical, he says.
This guy @Toussaint always popping up in here with a wordy post full of bullshyt. He'll argue anything. He'll say whatever if it makes him feel like he's winning. If you tell him Palestinians say the sky is blue he'll send you an article from the 1970s where an Israeli described the sky as azure, then smile smugly to himself.