RIP Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 2000-2024
I haven't been able to bring myself to write about this devastating tragedy until now.
This is the eighth installment in an ongoing series at God of the Desert Books, Hostage Liberation News, which will focus exclusively on new developments and efforts in the fight to ensure the release of the human beings kidnapped by the Islamist terror group Hamas for use as human shields.
Please see my previous writings on this subject, linked at the bottom of this post. You can also read the 90 installments of the Antisemitism and Culture and Axis of Genocide series here. See also the first installment in the new Academic Inferno series here.
It has been more than a month since the previous entry in this series. And the reason for that is simple: I have not had the emotional wherewithal to write this post. I still don't, really. But this needs to be processed in order for me - and all of us - to move forward.
Back in April, I wrote this article as the 26th installment in the series proceeding this one:
Hamas Releases Video of Hostage Hersh Goldberg-Polin Missing His Left Hand
This is the 26th installment of the “Axis of Genocide” series at this Zionist Substack, the successor to the “Antisemitism and Culture” series which can be read in two 30-essay collections here and here.
I’m not going to reprint the whole thing here—much of it is filled with statistics about Gen-Zers’ beliefs. So just a few key parts…
Today, the second day of our Jewish friends’ holiday of Pesach (to use its Hebrew name), Hamas has engaged in psychological warfare and further crimes against humanity with the release of a hostage video featuring Hersh Goldberg-Polin, a 23-year-old Israeli-American man.
As the Israeli government requests, please do not view or share the video. The only fact to note from the reporting on it is that it shows Goldberg-Polin missing his left hand.
Now, why might Hamas have chosen him for a hostage video?
Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that his mother Rachel has emerged as one of the leading voices advocating for the hostages, named by Time as one of the most influential people of 2023.
Think about this for a moment. Put yourself in Rachel’s shoes. Try and contemplate for a moment what the last six months have been like for her - and now, what today is like. You spend months trying to rally the whole world for the release of your son and the other remaining hostages, and then you get a video showing him mutilated. And forever you will be haunted: if you had just kept quiet and let someone else lead the fight, might your son still have his hand? Might he have experienced less torture? Or would it have made no difference? Allegedly Hamas injured Hersh’s hand on Oct. 7.
Just spend one minute trying to empathize with that level of a mother’s agony. Then spend another minute trying to comprehend the Islamist ideology which leads men to do this. Look at Hersh’s face in these images of him and try to imagine what he’s experiencing right now, at this very moment.
See this world not through your eyes, but through the eyes of the Israeli-American hostage, the eyes of his Islamist captor who has been torturing him, and the eyes of the mother who has been working night and day to free her son from the endless pain, fear, and trauma he experiences all day, every day.
….
Pause and think for a moment again about Hersh, and what his days are like right now. Or if you’ve really got a stomach of steel, then try thinking about what the young women Hamas has captured endure.
And then I can’t help but recall the protesters Hersh’s age at Columbia this last week. At the second tent encampment protest to go up to call for Israel abandoning Hersh and his fellow hostages, apparently a fuckin’ dance party started.
Israelis are being held hostage and tortured. Palestinians are fleeing for their lives. And the most privileged, “elite” young people of today are holding protests against “genocide” which turn into huge parties.
Ever since I wrote that about Hersh, that plea for people to attempt to empathize with the plight of those kidnapped and their devastated family members, that’s been my mentality.
As I sit here in comfort, eating a bowl of rice for breakfast and sipping a favorite coffee, I wonder what those still held hostage are feeling right now in their own stomachs.
What is their daily life compared to yours and mine?
What little scraps of food are they getting now to barely keep them alive?
Have they just grown accustomed to the feeling of starvation?
How long has it been since they’ve seen the sun?
How many injuries have they sustained in the last year that remain untreated?
How often have they gotten to have anything approximating a shower?
How regularly do the beatings and/or sexual assaults come?
Do they know anything about what is going on in the world outside of where they are held prisoner?
Have they lost hope that they will someday be rescued?
What is keeping them alive and going each day?
These questions are too overwhelming for most people to really even try to contemplate for more than a moment. So they don’t.
And it’s hard to blame them, when even I—someone who chooses to write about all this full-time—can’t handle it, either.
“For His anger is but for a moment,
His favor is for life;
Weeping may endure for a night,
But joy comes in the morning.”
Psalm 30:5
I wrote all of the above this morning, finishing about 45 minutes or so before the missiles started falling on Tel Aviv live on CNN, shortly after I had started the day’s journalism. I had planned to wait so
could give it her editing magic.So if I get so emotional thinking too long about news of a half-dozen murdered hostages, imagine my reaction as the flurry of burning lights struck buildings. I went into a meltdown. I couldn't help but fixate on the potential lives lost as more and more explosions rocked the ground. I had to consciously try to slow down my breathing to avoid going into a full-blown panic attack.
For hours, I frenzied for information and collected responses from officials, analysts, and organizations about what had happened, trying not to melt into a puddle on the floor. We all watched for information to come in about the extent of deaths and injuries. Abruptly I realized I'd given myself a stress headache from it all.
And the ultimate results left me dumbfounded, speechless, in profound disbelief:
No Israeli casualties. One Palestinian casualty. And I saw video circulating of the latter, and it is fucking horrifying, like some sort of surreal cartoon.
And with that unbelievable news - no Israelis had been killed! - came a rush of relief, a sense of triumph at this colossal victory achieved through the partnership of the Jewish state with the United States. I literally laughed out loud.
For Iran, this was a failure on an absolutely colossal magnitude. What a shocking humiliation, witnessed by the whole planet! Iran fired 180 missiles at Israel, and the only person it managed to kill was someone who was likely sympathetic to Iran’s own objectives.
And so, what will tomorrow morning bring?
Please: some joy for us all?
See the previous installments in this ongoing series:
Israel Prepares for 'Captive Pregnancies' and Estimates Only 50 Hostages Remain Alive
23 Key Facts To Know About Yahya Sinwar, the Mastermind of October 7
See these writings in the “Axis of Genocide” series for previous Hostage Liberation News:
David, your words mirrored so much that I feel everyday for those still held in hell itself and for the people of Israel. Thank you.