Justifying Kidnapping Babies & Nurses’ Murder Fantasies: The Growing Global Moral Rot

On October 7, 2023, I, along with almost all Israelis and most of the Jewish world outside of Israel, watched with a special horror the kidnapping by Hamas-led Gazan civilians of the Bibas family, and in particular the look of sheer terror on the face of 32 year-old Shiri Bibas as she and her children, Ariel (age 4) and nine-month-old Kfir, were being forced at gunpoint into a car – as Hamas cameras proudly documented this heinous crime.

The look on Shiri’s face and the beautiful innocent faces of the Bibas babies will forever be etched in my mind and in the mind of every Israeli. As we were wrestling with the grief and anger we felt over the “Go-Pro” documented and live-streamed brutality and massacres on October 7th, and as we were still learning about friends and family immediately impacted by Hamas’s invasion, our hearts especially broke for Shiri and her babies.

After all, who wouldn’t be moved by a mother’s plainly unadulterated fear over her and her children being kidnapped at gunpoint by an openly genocidal terrorist group?

Who could look at the faces of a 4-year-old and a nine-month-old with the knowledge that they were kidnapped by a terrorist group and not feel sympathy for the babies and revulsion for their kidnappers?

Turns out, a lot of people. The day after October 7th we saw people all over the world, including in many of the largest cities in the free world, celebrating Hamas’s invasion and cold-blooded murder, mass-rapes and mass-kidnappings. In the weeks and months following October 7th our social media feeds and electronic in-boxes were inundated with videos of people in cities like NY, Toronto, London, Miami, etc. tearing down the hostage posters of the Bibas babies and decrying the posters as “Zionist propaganda.” In the weeks and months following October 7th our social media feeds and electronic in-boxes were filled with videos of people rationalizing the murder and kidnapping of babies or even denying it ever happened.

Even now, after Hamas has just purported to return, in a macabre ceremony, the bodies of 4 murdered hostages, including the Bibas babies, we see people throughout the western world – and not “only” those living under Arab dictatorships – justifying, rationalizing, or excusing the kidnapping and murder of BABIES.

We even see people in the West celebrating the reported murder of the Bibas babies and their mom, like in the case of this apparent property manager from Vancouver:

We hear the rationalizations. The “context” of “occupation” is invoked to excuse an Islamist Supremacist terrorist army’s mass-murder, mass-rape, and mass-kidnapping—including of babies. This, despite Gaza not being “occupied” since 2005, and Islamist Supremacists, like Hamas, having massacred Jews for centuries, including in both Ottoman and British controlled Palestine.

Anywhere else, kidnapping babies and massacring families would be universally condemned—except when the victims are Jewish Israelis. Then, excuses and rationalizations abound.

This same double standard emerged in Australia after a viral video featured two Muslim nurses telling an Israeli they wouldn’t treat Israelis, that they would kill Israelis if they came to their hospital, and had already “sent to Jahannam” (Hell) Israeli patients. One would expect universal outrage over healthcare workers threatening to murder patients based on nationality. If nurses in the West refused to treat Chinese nationals over the Chinese government’s actions, would anyone defend them?

Of course not. But when Israeli Jews are the targets, justifications and excuses follow. Within a week, 50 prominent Muslim groups in Australia defended the nurses, portraying them as victims.

Just like with Hamas’s kidnappings, these groups claimed “context” justified nurses bragging about murdering and wanting to murder Israelis. These groups dismissed concerns from Australian politicians as “hyperbolic.”

The moral rot behind those justifying baby kidnappings and nurses’ murder fantasies all come from the same source, the world’s oldest bigotry—antisemitism.

It’s the antisemitism that singularly demonizes the Jewish state while ignoring murderous tyrannies all over the world that are responsible for millions of deaths. It’s the antisemitism that dehumanizes Jewish Israelis and paints those who murder or fantasize about murdering them as the victims.

In the 1930s, this moral rot led to catastrophe for the nations that embraced it.

This moral rot also led to incredible disaster for the entire world in the last century. In this century, we better learn from our past quick, and have zero tolerance for the antisemitism that leads to people justifying kidnapping babies or Israeli murder-fantasies by healthcare workers … lest our past become our future.

Micha Danzig served in the Israeli Army and is a former police officer with the NYPD. He is currently an attorney and is very active with numerous Jewish and pro-Israel organizations, including Stand With Us and the FIDF, and is a national board member of Herut North America.