Today, four hostages taken by Hamas during the Nova music festival were rescued from captivity in Gaza by the Israel Defense Forces. Schlomi Ziv, Andrey Kozlov and Almog Meir were found in one location; Noa Argamani, who became the face of captivity as she was filmed being forced onto a Hamas-driven motorcycle, was found in another.  All were reported to be in good health and are already home with their families.  I woke to this news that crept in my still dark bedroom without warning, covered my mouth in disbelief and immediately texted friends from my Israel mission, and then cried my heart out for some time.  I cried for the four who are finally home.  I cried knowing that Noa’s mother, who has Stage 4 terminal brain cancer, will leave this Earth seeing her daughter alive.  And I cried for the 120 still in captivity.  I cry for them still.

It has been reported that after the successful rescue operation, Israeli officers spoke to their commanders by radio, saying that “the diamonds are in our hands.”  I could not love that sentence more.  The diamonds are in our hands.

So often as I walk around New York City wearing my “Bring Them Home” dog tags, friends, sometimes strangers, will tell me that the hostages are all dead, or that they’ll never be returned.  That my hope is folly.  I tell them the same thing always, that I choose to believe otherwise.  I say that confidently, because I learned from the wisest, understandably broken, most resilient woman in Israel, that “hope is mandatory.”  That woman is Rachel Goldberg Polin whose son Hersh remains in captivity, a diamond yet to be returned, but who WILL be returned.

Please, may the remaining 120 diamonds still held hostage be brought home alive to safety. I say a prayer for them and I mourn for the brave Israeli police officer killed in the rescue, as well as for innocent Palestinians whose lives were lost.  And if the fact that I would say a prayer for Palestinians surprises you, then you don’t understand the value Jewish people place on life, all life. 

That respect for life is the essence of why this conflict is so difficult. Hamas and many Palestinians – though not all – believe in an ideology that values the killing of Jews.  Period.  Full stop.  Children are taught at an early age the best method to slit the throats of Jews.  Early math schoolbooks use severed Jew heads as a means to count.  They are taught to hate Jews, and to not fear death because it is a path to martyrdom, a literal ticket to Paradise.  This is not my interpretation of Islam, this is their interpretation of Islam.  Those lessons have been deviously successful in creating the jihadist barbarians who murdered innocent people sleeping in their beds, who set them on fire, beheaded them, raped them, mutilated them, who burned babies and recorded it all with their own GoPros, while exalting yelling “Allahu Akbar!” on calls home to share their joy with their families.  I saw it all firsthand in the selectively shown Hamas video. [Sidebar: Hey Israel, worst PR job ever by withholding that video.  It should have been shown everywhere to everyone, on October 8.  Just sayin’.]

And as brutal and disturbing as all the violence in the video was, the glee on the murderers’ faces haunts me equally.  They shouted in rapture, not once about land, or about longstanding oppression.  They shouted joyfully because they came to kill Jews, and that is what they did.  And don’t be stupid  -- I’m talking to you, Ivy League jihadists – the Jews are the first target, it’ll be America and Western society next. 

So when you think about what the IDF is fighting for on a day like today when four innocent souls are brought home, remember that this is not an oppressor-oppressed struggle.  This is not a colonist-colonized struggle.  This has nothing to do with apartheid because Israel is not an apartheid state. This is a struggle of good against evil.  And today, good prevailed. 

Am Yisrael Chai.