The Stories—and Stakes—of War in Israel

Oct 18, 2023

Deborah Mintz, an Israeli who faced the horrors of the Hamas attack while visiting her daughter, shares her gripping firsthand accounts. She reveals the intense chaos and fear of survival during the ambush, shedding light on the deep emotional toll such violence takes. Mintz also discusses the desperate search for her loved ones amidst rising tensions, illuminating the heartbreaking realities of families impacted by this conflict. Her insights highlight not just the tragedy of violence, but also a call for empathy and understanding in this challenging time.

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ANECDOTE

University Reactions

University students and professors worldwide reacted to the attacks with pro-Hamas rallies and statements.
Some professors excused or justified the violence, while university administrations remained largely silent.

ANECDOTE

Professor's Celebration

Cornell professor Joseph Massad called the Hamas attacks "exhilarating and energizing."
He celebrated the attacks as a challenge to Israel's "monopoly of violence."

ANECDOTE

Administrative Silence

University presidents largely avoided condemning Hamas, citing institutional neutrality.
Bari Weiss criticized this silence, contrasting it with their outspokenness on other political issues.

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If you’ve been following our coverage at The Free Press, you’ve noticed that we’ve been covering the war in Israel nonstop since it began. We’ve never produced this much content in this short of a time about a single subject. Some of you might be thinking, why?

On October 7, we saw the single biggest massacre of the Jewish people since the Holocaust. But unlike the Holocaust, in which Germans tried to hide their war crimes, here we have the terrorists streaming it in real time on every social media platform across the internet. When the reports, and the videos, started circulating, we thought: surely this amount of blood and horror will be enough to shake the world awake.

And yet it wasn’t. Internationally, some of the most educated people—including students, professors, and administrators at the most elite universities in the world—have either equivocated or remained silent in the face of mass atrocities. Others, by the tens of thousands, have taken to the streets to rejoice in the terrorist attack, screaming “resistance is justified” and “glory to the martyrs.”

That is why this story matters. Because this is not just a war in a faraway land. It’s a battle for civilization. As my friend Sam Harris recently said, “There are not many bright lines that divide good and evil in our world, but this is one of them.”

This war should matter to everyone—not just Jews—who care about the future of civilization. Because if there is one lesson from history, it’s that what starts with the Jews never ends with the Jews. And societies in which the Jewish people are persecuted are societies in which no one is safe.

And that is why we will continue to report on this war with such urgency.

On today’s episode, we feature some of that reporting. You’ll hear just some of the stories of the more than three dozen Israelis we have spoken to. We talk to a woman, Shaked, who tells us that eleven of her family members—including her three- and eight-year-old niece and nephew—were taken hostage by Hamas. We talk to survivors of the Nova music festival, like Amit and Chen, who miraculously escaped—some by hiding in bushes for hours—as they watched their friends get killed, “like sheep to be slaughtered,” just next to them. We talk to a father whose son was kidnapped from the music festival, and to a mother whose daughter was killed there. We talk to a grandmother who hid in the safe room of her home for hours with her 10-day-old grandson as terrorists shot at the door.

These stories are difficult to hear. But we will keep reporting them.

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