A Letter to the Silent Majority…

21st February 2025

Yeah, I’m writing to you. It’s time.

I get the desire to stay out of this, I really do. It feels like it’s too complicated and horrible, and you’ve no skin in the game, so better to remain silent than to do the wrong thing. 

But at a certain point, you have to say something. Let this cruel, cynical world know that you are going to take a stand.

Yesterday we endured the unfathomably devastating image of the coffins of two tiny children being displayed to the world, along with the coffins of two adults. The ghouls of Hamas put them up on a stage while locals gathered to enjoy the spectacle, some of them bringing their kids along to pay tribute to the bravery of their glorious leaders.

The childrens’ coffins belonged to Ariel and Kfir Bibas (aged 4 and 9 months respectively when stolen from their homes in Israel). One of the other coffins belonged to murdered octogenarian peace activist Oded Lifshitz. In a devastating gut punch following yesterday’s events, tests in Israel indicate that the body in the fourth coffin was not that of the boys’ mother, Shiri Bibas, as Hamas had claimed.

Hamas have learned over the past 15 months that there is nothing that they can do, no matter how depraved, debased, evil, that will not be defended as an act of resistance by many in the west who laughably consider themselves “progressive”.

This could have played out differently. On October 8th 2023, the entire world should have cried out in horror. Immediately on the news of Jew-hating fascism unleashed once more, the outcry should have been unstoppable. If nothing else, on learning that they had stolen tiny innocents, babies, unbearable pressure should have applied to Hamas, through the US allies in Qatar, through the media, through the keyboard of every goddamn online warrior, to return those little ones to safety.

Anybody who purported to care about the Palestinians, to care about peace, to care about the safety of innocents, should have been out demonstrating, beseeching Hamas to release those hostages, lay down their arms and prevent the otherwise inevitable consequences.

 But no.

Demonstrations were organised. Against the victims. Left wing academics around the world hailed the revolution. Posters of those poor hostages were ripped down as a display of fealty to the cause. Allies of the Islamo-fascists root-caused the hell out of October 7th as all being Israel’s fault. It always is.

And sure enough, horror and destruction in Gaza followed, as the cowards of Hamas hid in the tunnels under their civilian population while promising to unleash many more October 7ths for as long as they were allowed to. Every innocent death a horrible, devastating tragedy.

There are reasonable arguments about whether Israel could have conducted this war differently, on whether this could have ended sooner. And you sure as hell don’t have to put any store by the abject Israeli leadership that allowed this to happen on their watch, and scandalously remains in power despite everything. But be clear about how this started, and about who is ultimately responsible for what has followed.

Israel and most of the Jewish world remains in collective trauma. Yesterday’s sight of those coffins triggered an outpouring of grief and anger. Collectively, our social media feeds were swamped with orange hearts, photos of the Bibas children with their mum. Mainly Jews talking to Jews. The silent majority remained silent. The clue is in the name.

But we could really do with hearing from you right now. There are a couple of reasons for that.

 Firstly… well these are dark times in many ways. Dystopian. In the days following October 7th, we’ve tried to reassure ourselves that beyond the noisy extremists who seek to pin every terrible outcome on the Jewish state and on Jews generally, that you are out there. That if it really came down to it, you would be there for us.

When we Jews receive those distraught messages from other Jews, we’re effectively talking to ourselves. It’s an internal monologue. But when we hear from someone outside our collective brain, that counts for so much more. Every like earns 10 times the points. A thoughtful comment? Jeez, we cherish it, discuss it, rejoice that someone out there really gets it. A bit needy? For sure. But that support is also so important in our understanding that we are not alone in this.

But there’s another reason, a bigger one. You do have skin in this game. We all do. That macabre display put on yesterday by the ghouls of Gaza is a microcosm of the dark forces that would kill every Jewish child if it had the chance. And that would not stop there. There is a battle that is going to have to be fought and won, the defence of liberal and genuinely progressive values against this new kind of fascism, aided and abetted by the part of the west that has completely lost its way. If we’re going to win, we are going to need to hear your voice pretty damn soon.