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Source: https://www.spiked-online.com/2025/08/04/the-west-is-complicit-in-hamass-torture-of-the-hostages/
The West Is Complicit in Hamas's Torture of Israeli Hostages
Brendan O'Neill (Spiked-UK) - We know why Hamas would drag two Jews underground and starve them: because it is an army of anti-Semites founded with the express intention of persecuting Jews. It revels in the psychological torment of what it views as a "lesser people." How do we explain Hamas's lack of shame over what it inflicted on the two skeletal men seen in videos: Evyatar David, 24, and Rom Bravslavski, 21? What lies behind the pride with which it paraded its crimes before the world media? It's because it feels emboldened. It senses that it enjoys a kind of moral impunity among the opinion-shaping classes of the West. The grim clips of the two emaciated Jews was a boastful display by Hamas of the cultural power it enjoys over many in the West, of its virtual untouchability in a world driven half-mad by hatred for Israel. Hamas knows it is treated as a blameless entity by many in the West. It knows the Gaza calamity is widely - and falsely - viewed as an evil of Israel's making. Hamas's release of those images of two Jews it abducted and starved for the titillation of the world's anti-Semites was an assertion of the mad power it enjoys over the Gaza narrative. Worse, Hamas senses that its crimes are not only forgiven but rewarded, too. It released the clips after the leaders of the UK, France, and Canada said they would recognize the State of Palestine. Hamas has clearly got the message that persecuting Jews has benefits. That carrying out a pogrom can be fruitful. That killing more Jews in one day than anyone else has since the Nazis has its rewards. To confer statehood on a territory that is still part-ruled by these barbarous militants who take pleasure in the persecution and murder of Jews is a grotesque betrayal not only of Israel but of basic decency. It feels like Hamas is holding not just 50 Israelis hostage but the West itself. Its atrocities are overlooked, even forgiven, in the maniacal rush to damn Israel as the world's wickedest state. Now we know: our cultural elites didn't only take the wrong side in this war started by Hamas - they emboldened that side, too.