Courtesy of JNS. Photo credit: JNS
Shiri Bibas and her sons Ariel, 4, and baby Kfir, were abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz in southern Israel by Hamas terrorists on Oct. 7, 2023
(JNS) — A Palestinian man’s life was turned upside down when he denounced Hamas’s Oct. 7 terrorist attacks and expressed sympathy for those he cared about in Israel.
On Thursday, The Free Press published an 85-minute audio interview with the employee in Israel’s tech sector whose identity it concealed to protect his life.
He had written on social media on Oct. 7, “What sad and horrible news to wake up to and out of words and unable to digest what’s going on right now. I’m Palestinian and firmly stand against this terror. I pray for the safety of my friends, colleagues, their loved ones and everyone else affected.”
The consequences of this statement included the loss of 500 followers on social media, his being blocked by many on WhatsApp, people in real life ceasing to speak with him and ultimately accusations of being a traitor.
The latter, he told Bari Weiss, founder and editor of The Free Press, “means they are going to kill you.”
Telling Weiss that speaking out “has put me in a very dangerous position,” the unnamed Palestinian said that “doing this interview, to be honest, I’m afraid. But I know that I had to do it. I think everyone should speak up. Without speaking up, nobody can make a difference or create change.”
In the interview, the man names Austrian neurologist, psychologist, philosopher and Holocaust survivor Victor Frankl’s autobiographical “Man’s Search for Meaning” as having “changed my whole perspective, my whole idea about how I see the Jewish people.”
The Palestinian man said that he feared continuing to live in Judea and Samaria.
“I don’t feel safe here anymore. I cannot be here anymore. I want to be in a place where I can speak up without fearing for my life,” he said. “We need to put our differences aside and make it work. It will take so much time. But I believe we still have hope, and time will prove it.”
