Holding My Breath

Holding my breath. 

Hoping the war is truly over. Two long years of death and destruction are finally coming to an end. A ceasefire has been signed and all of the hostages are coming home. Hoping this is really true and true peace is finally here.

I am not ready to celebrate. Not until the hostages are free, not until Hamas is completely disarmed and gone, and not until every child in Israel and in Gaza can sleep peacefully without hearing bombs and rockets going off through the night. Hoping that every child in the region can feel safe now and the healing can begin.

All of the hostages are coming home, including ones already murdered. After two long torturous and brutalizing years. There has been too much loss. Too much trauma.

I am bracing myself in case there are more ghoulish ceremonies where masked Hamas militia men carry small black coffins past a cheering crowd. Small black coffins holding the small bodies of Ariel and Kfir Bibas, kidnapped from their beds with their mother and murdered up close and personal, strangled to death, simply because they were Jewish. 

I can’t bear the sight of another pale and emaciated hostage being forced onto a stage to wave to onlookers. Flashbacks of concentration camp victims during World War 2 assault our consciousness, in 2025. If you ever wondered what you would have done during WW2, now is your time. For anyone who has been an activist of any kind during your life, during the last two years, if you have sat this one out, your silence has been deafening.

Unlike the Nazis who tried to cover up their crimes against humanity over eighty years ago, Hamas live streamed themselves slaughtering civilians, broadcasting the horrific massacre and abductions without shame or remorse.

Hamas gleefully showed themselves shooting family dogs, torching homes, firing rockets into moving cars full of young people. Defenceless women and children were shown no mercy. Grandmothers who survived the Holocaust were hunted. Music festival goers were filmed being dragged off and kidnapped, shot at point blank, bloodied bodies dragged out of cars, and all the while, the frenzied gleeful chants of the terrorists constantly rang out as they continued filming their heinous acts. 

On October 7, 2023, thousands of Gazan civilians joined Hamas fighters and committed atrocities. One terrorist filmed himself calling his parents to boast that he had just ‘killed ten Jews.’ His parents answered him proudly.

Freeing Palestine from Hamas and radical Islamist indoctrination is the first step towards a truly free Palestine. After twenty years, please let it be so that Hamas is gone and radical ideology is never allowed to gain power again. 

For 20 years Hamas received billions of dollars in foreign aid via the UN and instead of building up Gaza to be a jewel of the Mediterranean, they built an underground city of terror with dark tunnels connecting a network of over 350 miles. Bigger than the London Underground. Their war strategy consisted of bearded men hiding in tunnels while children remained above ground in harm’s way. When you are part of a death cult, more death is the ultimate goal.

I will never forget the image of Shani Louk’s body being driven into Gaza on the back of a truck while her murderers acted like psychotic trophy hunters proud of what they had just done to her while a frenzied crowd cheered ecstatically. I will never forget the silence of so many feminists worldwide, who instead of condemning mass rape, adorned themselves with keffiyehs and started chanting ‘Intifada Revolution.’

Hitler had his Final Solution, Hamas lovers chant Intifada Revolution and at its core the hideous truth festers, in its essence is the plague of virulent Jew hatred. I have heard some American Jews proudly proclaim that they are anti-Zionist Jews like it’s some kind of virtue signalling kryptonite against losing social media followers. You can be against Netanyahu just like you can be against Trump, but politicians come and go and Jew hatred is the oldest hatred of them all. 

Either you stand up with moral clarity or you watch the radicals on the left join the radicals on the right and neighbours turn against neighbours like in Frankfurt during the 1940’s. 

German Jews were marched off to the gas chambers because they thought of themselves as German first, until it was too late. Either your heroes are the ones who put children in harm’s way and mass raped women at a music festival or your heroes are the female soldiers of the Caracal battalion who defended Kibbutz Sufa. It’s not complicated.

Several hostages kept sabbath and recited prayers quietly, not only as a form of maintaining sanity and hope but also remaining grounded to the land where for thousands of years the same prayers have been recited, an ancient people with a history and culture that is inextricably linked to this land. Israel has been invaded and conquered many times for thousands of years. Emperor Hadrian renamed Judea ‘Syria Palestina’ to punish the ethnic clans of Israelites who revolted against his colonizing forces during the Bar Kokhba war.

For thousands of years many have tried to annihilate the Jews. My Italian Jewish relatives are descended from Israeli slaves abducted and brought to Rome during the ancient Emperors’ reign. My German Jewish relatives barely survived a genocide, relying on the kindness of strangers and food scraps while hiding in the countryside from fascists and zealots, 

Any Democrat or Liberal in the United States, Canada, and the UK who thinks that your values are aligned with homicidal maniacs, pursue at your own peril. You will wake up and find that your town may become like Hamtramck Michigan where a City Hall has banned the Pride flag after joining forces with other conservative groups. Freedom for some is not freedom for all. Tolerance is not learned if it’s not taught. In free and open societies there is no room for fundamentalist ideology and that includes Israel where a modern Parliamentary democracy rules. Arabs and Muslims freely serve in the Israeli Knesset while the only Jew you will find in Gaza right now is either a soldier or a hostage.

Thousands of children are now trying to return home in the Gaza Strip, entire cities decimated because Hamas started a war they knew they could never truly win militarily. The propaganda machine kicked in on October 8th 2025 as Hamas’ NYC minions activated and hit the streets with their chants. Israel hadn’t even initiated a response yet but thousands hit the streets celebrating as forensic teams in Israel were trying to identify bodies by their dental records. 

Where are all the people who screamed for a ceasefire now?

In Israel, Hamas wanted to pierce the soul of a broken hearted people. The Israeli spirit will never be vanquished. Hamas wanted to inspire acts of terror throughout the world and in that they did succeed. In Gaza they wanted their own people to starve while they hid like rats underneath them. They looted trucks of food and shot and tortured anyone who tried to feed their family. This has never been about land. This has never been about a Palestinian State. Intifada is about the annihilation of Israel and murdering Jews and their allies and selling Jew hatred to the world cloaked in freedom fighter cos play. 

Now we wait. Holding my breath.

Jackie Bruckman

October 12, 2025