Moshe Raab, Ph.D. - is a Microsoft Certified Professional, Microsoft Certified Technology Specialist - Microsoft Dynamics CRM, and Power Platform Solution Architect Expert. I was hijacked by the PFLP in September 1970 (Black September). I was a hostage for only one week but there are many parallels to today's situation. While this whole time, I have been reliving those times, these past weeks, in particular have been difficult. Here is the story: When I was fourteen years old, on September 6, 1970, my mother, my three brothers and my sister and I, along with one hundred and twenty passengers, were hijacked by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) to the Jordanian desert. When I heard the news on Friday that Hamas had agreed to release one live hostage and four bodies, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry. I laughed when I saw how the press in Israel and around the world, and some politicians in Israel and around the world, were duped into believing them. Hamas played a Purim joke, and many fell for it! I cried because I relived my personal experience that Arab terrorists, no matter what organization they belong to, are cruel, despicable, and disgusting creatures. They have no intention of voluntarily releasing all the hostages, deal or no deal. Their intention is to torture not only the innocent hostages they are holding, but also all of us in Israel, and even in America. I remembered the events described in the Book of Esther that we read on Purim and the book of Samuel that we read in the haftara in Parashat Zachor last week. The prophet Samuel said to King Saul: “Now go and smite Amalek, and you shall destroy all that belongs to him, and you shall have no mercy on him, and you shall put him to death, from man to woman, from child to suckling, from ox to lamb, from camel to donkey”. We read that despite God's commands not to show mercy, Saul had mercy on Agag, king of Amalek, and did not kill him. As a result, our Sages said that Haman, the enemy of all the Jews, was his descendant, and therefore he was called the Agagite. We all know that the evil Haman “planned to exterminate, kill, and annihilate all the Jews, from young to old, children and women, in one day”. Is it a coincidence that our torturer in Tehran is called Haman-ai? We said in the piyyut, liturgical poem, after reading the Megillah that “the wicked Haman did not remember Saul's mercy, for in his compassion for Agag, an enemy was born” We are merciful, sons of merciful. But there is a limit! He who has mercy on the cruel is cruel to the merciful. As is well known, God tore the kingdom from Saul as a result. -How come, today, the Gazans eat better than the hostages? -How do they still have water? Electricity? Fuel? (Yes, we are partially stopping that and the world is going crazy as a result) -How do we not only allow their sick to go out for medical treatment, but we also facilitate it? -How come Hamas was awarded a three-week ceasefire for their holiday, not only giving nothing in return, but they are regrouping and making more serious efforts to harm us? Need I remind you that they attacked us on our holiday? President Trump said he was "shocked" to hear Israeli hostages released from Hamas say that no one in Gaza showed them kindness while they were in captivity. Even the Germans had some people who took pity on Jews during the Holocaust. The Gazans are cruel, sons of the cruel. In the end we were freed when King Hussein declared war on the PLO and demanded the complete and unconditional surrender of the terrorists and the release of all the hostages - unharmed. He did not negotiate and did not provide humanitarian aid, no electricity, no food, no water, no medicines, or vaccines. Nothing. After only nine days, the terrorists surrendered, released all the hostages, and fled to Lebanon Therefore, we must learn from both the prophet Samuel and King Hussein not to be merciful, but to exert maximum pressure to release all the abductees in one go! Misplaced compassion leads to generation after generation of cruelty toward us. While I was kidnapped in 1970, on October 8th, 2025, my daughter and her five children fled under fire, rockets, and shooting from the Gaza envelope. They drove past all the bombed out, shot up cars on the roads, fleeing for their lives, while her husband was already called up for active reserve duty in the early hours of October 7. We must not allow our descendants to continue living like this. We as a nation need unity. They attack us when they feel that “there is one people scattering and separated…”. We must learn from Queen Esther when she said to Mordechai, "Gather all the Jews." Salvation comes when the people of Israel are united and decide to stop having mercy on their enemies. For the Jews there was light, gladness, joy, and honor. So may it be for us.
