Hostage Emily Hand Was Neither Lost, Nor Found
As for the Irish PM, he's hopelessly lost
What on earth possessed him to say it?
Was he quoting from a parable of Jesus? Was it just a turn of phrase? Or was it something more sinister?
Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar took to Twitter to celebrate the release of 9-year-old Irish-Israeli hostage Emily Hand after she escaped the evil clutches of Hamas terrorists at the weekend.
He wrote:
“This is a day of enormous joy and relief for Emily Hand and her family.”
So far, so good.
But then the Irish PM wrote this …
“An innocent child who was lost has now been found and returned, and we breathe a massive sigh of relief. Our prayers have been answered.”
Wait. What?
She was lost? Where? Down the back of the couch?
Emily was not misplaced.
Emily wasn’t accidentally left somewhere.
Emily didn’t go for a walk, and end up in a tunnel underneath Gaza by mistake.
The child was kidnapped by Islamic terrorists for the crime of being a Jew.
The child was held at gunpoint in dark tunnels beneath the surface of the earth, used first as a human shield, and then as currency by people worse than Nazis.
She was certainly not “lost”.
The Israeli government was furious with the Irish PM’s blasé description of Emily’s horrific ordeal.
Satirists posted a photo of the Irish Prime Minister wearing a Hamas headband, retrieving Emily from a lost and found bin …
The backlash was so strong that Prime Minister Leo Varadkar was shamed into tweeting an entire page in a bid to ‘contextualise’ his 40-word tweet.
But it didn’t work.
The entire page made no mention of Hamas. Nor did it contain any condemnation of Hamas. Emily’s kidnappers weren’t even described as 'terrorists.'
The full statement was just as cowardly as the tweet summary that Emily had been “lost and found”.
Which begs the question, how to explain such measly words from the leader of a nation at a time of existential crisis?
Some suggested that he had borrowed the line from a parable Jesus told about a prodigal son. The son, who returned home after squandering his father’s fortune, was said to have been “lost and found”.
It’s a beautiful story, but it’s hardly comparable.
The prodigal came to his senses after self-inflicted wounds. Emily was a little girl stolen from her bed by bearded men who used her as a pawn.
And here’s another ting. Why would you quote from the New Testament when trying to offer words of comfort to Jews who don’t rate it? If you’re going to quote Scripture at such a time, there are plenty of appropriate phrases in the Torah.
But I don’t think the Irish PM was quoting Bible.
Nor do I think he was merely careless. The words were deliberate, even crafted.
I think Prime Minister Leo Varadkar is - sadly - a typical Western politician more concerned with pragmatic management than with moral leadership.
To say that Emily was lost and found is to promote passivity.
She was lost, but it’s okay because now she’s found.
No reason to be angry.
Nothing to get fired up about.
And besides, it all kind of worked out in the end.
Our political class dread the thought of us getting angry. The last thing they want is a population expressing emotion since who knows where that might lead.
Incidentally, that’s why the the left are so desperate for marijuana to be legalised. If you can keep the populace stoned, you’ll never have any dramas ruling over them.
But God forbid that the citizenry start to join dots and realise what is being done to them.
The last thing career politicians like the Irish PM want is a population asking existential questions about good and evil. Who knows where such thoughts might lead. And who can be sure what other things people might start to question.
If people think too hard about men yelling “Allah Akbar” as they snatch defenceless kids from their parents, people might demand something be done.
They might even demand something be done at home about, oh I don’t know, immigration.
The public might even turn on the government when they realise how they have been put at risk by lazy politicians championing slogans - ‘diversity is our strength’ - instead of protecting the country as is their job.
I sometimes think the only people with moral clarity right now are the Israelis, which is kind of ironic since the rest of the world is accusing them of genocide. Then again, the rest of the world wants to pretend that a child kidnapped by blood thirsty terrorists was “lost”.
“And here’s another ting”.
Most people would think it’s a typo but I see it as a brilliant line when said with an Irish accent.
I needed to see something lighthearted in the article which highlights another so called leader tiptoeing around a subject which needs to be broached bluntly and truthfully.
Having been a fan of Irish crime fiction at one time, I had to stop reading it because if ever there was a people group that is lost, it is the Irish and their benighted leaders. Their anti semitism is appalling and their leaders seemingly have no conscience. But then that is reflected in the west generally. The Irish highlight it.
To be unable to be truthful about barbarians who kidnap little children for their political purposes and then have no western leader, let alone the Irish call this out for what it is venal and heinous barbarism makes me beyond angry.
I am praying for a miracle - that the remaining hostages will be found or escape and show the world the truth.