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'They're So Cruel': How Oct. 7 Destroyed an Israeli Peace Activist's Faith in the Palestinians
Washington Free Beacon ^ | December 14, 2023 | Andrew Tobin

Posted on 12/15/2023 2:52:12 PM PST by Twotone

EILAT, Israel—Irit Lahav, 57, was a peace activist who believed in the decency of the Palestinian people. Then, on Oct. 7, ordinary Gazans joined in a terrorist attack that left more than one in four of her neighbors in Kibbutz Nir Oz dead or abducted.

For many members of Nir Oz and other Israelis, the atrocities of Oct. 7—and particularly the broad participation of the Gazan public in the day—destroyed their faith in coexistence with the Palestinians.

Lahav, a manager at a travel company, long participated in peace demonstrations. In recent years, she volunteered for an Israeli charity called Road to Recovery, driving Palestinian children from the border of the Gaza Strip, less than two miles from her home, to Israeli hospitals for life-saving medical care.

"We thought that Palestinians are good people. All they want is peace and prosperity," Lahav told the Washington Free Beacon in an interview from a hotel in this Red Sea resort city where she and most of her community were temporarily relocated. "It's just that Hamas is forcing them to be in this aggressive situation."

When terrorists first shook the door of her safe room on Oct. 7, Lahav was sure that she and her 22-year-old daughter were about to be killed. But a makeshift lock she had fashioned out of an oar and a vacuum cleaner thwarted three separate break-in attempts. The women lay in the darkened room for about 10 hours listening to sounds of automatic gunfire and grenade explosions. At one point, they heard a group of teenagers robbing their house.

Later, Lahav learned from other Nir Oz survivors that Gazan women and children as young as 10 years old had followed Hamas terrorists into the kibbutz, looting, helping the armed terrorists, and apparently enjoying themselves.

"Basically it was sort of an invasion of a community," Lahav said. "That's why for me, I cannot say this was a Hamas action. No, for me, this was a Palestinian action. A whole community had come to our kibbutz, took our things, stole stuff, killed people, and kidnapped others."

"Am I thinking about myself being foolish until now?" Lahav added. "Maybe. But more is that I'm disappointed in them, that they're so cruel, have no values, really lost their human values."

During Israel's ongoing war to destroy Hamas, 40 of the hostages taken from Nir Oz have been released, while 30 remain in Gaza. Several other hostages have been declared dead in recent weeks, bringing the total number of people killed from Nir Oz to 46.


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Hamas; Israel; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: hamas; oct7
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1 posted on 12/15/2023 2:52:12 PM PST by Twotone
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To: Twotone

“We thought that Palestinians are good people. All they want is peace and prosperity,”

What they want, dear lady, is to murder you. No more, no less.


2 posted on 12/15/2023 2:54:32 PM PST by Uncle Miltie (islam is a totalitarian death cult founded by a child rapist.)
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To: Twotone

Hey, there’s plenty of folks right here that believe the same about the democommies.


3 posted on 12/15/2023 2:56:43 PM PST by rktman (Destroy America from within? Check! WTH? Enlisted USN 1967 to end up with this💩? 🚫💉! 🇮🇱👍!)
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To: Twotone

“that they’re so cruel, have no values, really lost their human values.”

Palestinians have perfected islamic values. They are the embodiment of mad mo’s whole world view. Muslims only vary slightly in how thoroughly they practice murder, rape, theft, and dissimulation.


4 posted on 12/15/2023 2:58:04 PM PST by Uncle Miltie (islam is a totalitarian death cult founded by a child rapist.)
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To: Twotone

Reality is a harsh mistress.


5 posted on 12/15/2023 2:59:42 PM PST by TheDon (Resist the usurpers! Remember the J6 political prisoners!)
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To: Twotone

Lahav was proven an Idiot and Jihad Denier.


6 posted on 12/15/2023 3:00:35 PM PST by Paladin2
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To: Twotone

most Americans and Christian and Jewish folks are at least quite decent human beings who have never experienced nor even imagined such Satanic evil cruelty and blood-thirstiness can even exist... as it unfortunately does with the Fakestinian Arab terrorists (whether they call themselves Hamas, Hezballah, Fatah, PLO/PA/Abbas/ Muslim Brotherhood, Al Qaida or any number of other front groups, names)

the assumption is that the other people on earth are reasonable, or can be made reasonable if talked with reasonably. that may work for most of humanity but it is dead wrong (pun intended, alas) with these Satanic Arabs.
dead wrong.
these devilish types need to be terminated with prejudice (preferably) or really honestly isolated from society, any society, permanently (but that costs a lot of money and nobody is building a big enough prison colony in Antartica to accomplish this).
Hoping that the IDF can send the rest of them, all of them, directly to Jahannan (Moslem Hell) ASAP!


7 posted on 12/15/2023 3:01:12 PM PST by faithhopecharity (“Politicians are not born. They're excreted.” Marcus Tillius Cicero (106 to 43 BCE))
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To: Uncle Miltie

“...they’re so cruel, have no values, really lost their human values....”

Proving that Islam has no human values. They didn’t lose them, they were never there.


8 posted on 12/15/2023 3:02:18 PM PST by Paladin2
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To: Twotone

I never had faith in these Aholes.


9 posted on 12/15/2023 3:06:25 PM PST by HighSierra5 (The only way you know a commie is lying is when they open their pieholes.)
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To: Twotone

“”We thought that Palestinians are good people. All they want is peace and prosperity,” Lahav told the Washington Free Beacon.”

Idiot.

L


10 posted on 12/15/2023 3:09:40 PM PST by Lurker ( Peaceful coexistence with the Left is not possible. Stop pretending that it is. )
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To: Twotone
To quote the late great Barry Farber, a conservative is a liberal who's been mugged. This peace puke should be thanking G-D ALMIGHTY he had the sense to realize what HamASS is all about while his head is still attached to his body


11 posted on 12/15/2023 3:13:14 PM PST by Impala64ssa (EVERY TIME A HEMI STARTS, AN EV DIES!)
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To: Paladin2

Notice she did have a “safe” room in her house. You don’t have a “safe” room unless you suspect that there is a good reason to have one.


12 posted on 12/15/2023 3:20:45 PM PST by cabbagesNkings
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To: Twotone

It’s always a good thing when “peace activists” find out the hard way.


13 posted on 12/15/2023 3:21:14 PM PST by Bonemaker (invictus maneo)
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To: Twotone

Coming soon to the US! 10,000+ invading every day!


14 posted on 12/15/2023 3:30:45 PM PST by US_MilitaryRules (#PureBloodlaw enforcement. )
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To: Uncle Miltie
My comment on October 7th, 2023.

https://freerepublic.com/focus/news/4187758/posts?page=135#135

15 posted on 12/15/2023 3:56:10 PM PST by kiryandil (The Biden: "Zelensky, we need to sit down and have a talk.")
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To: Twotone

The problem is that delusional fools like Lahav are a danger to society. She has no understanding of human nature. America is filled with fools like her who can only hold these beliefs because someone else protects her.


16 posted on 12/15/2023 4:09:32 PM PST by DeplorablePaul
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To: Twotone
"It's just that Hamas is forcing them to be in this aggressive situation."

Forced them? Those Gaza devils have been terrorizing Israelis for decades before Hamas appeared on the scene. What a deluded "peace" activist. More like "please hurt me" activist.

17 posted on 12/15/2023 4:13:32 PM PST by roadcat
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To: Twotone
But more is that I'm disappointed in them, that they're so cruel, have no values, really lost their human values."

This is the essential failure of liberalism to understand reality. What she witnessed were primordial human values.

Scientists call them animal instincts.

Christians call it original sin.

You do not have to teach children to steal, cheat, and lie. It comes naturally.

Each child is a wild animal which has to be taught to respect others and to value civilization.

18 posted on 12/15/2023 4:19:12 PM PST by marktwain
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To: cabbagesNkings
You don’t have a “safe” room unless you suspect that there is a good reason to have one.

The safe room was for protection against the missile attacks.

19 posted on 12/15/2023 4:20:38 PM PST by marktwain
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To: Twotone; All

Comments BUMP!


20 posted on 12/15/2023 4:26:33 PM PST by PGalt (Past Peak Civilization?)
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