By Dorothea Shefer-Vanson
MEVASSERET ZION, Israel — It was only when I saw the TV interview with the mother of one of the hostages still held in Gaza and heard her heartfelt cry: “My son is being tortured in the tunnels! Starving! In chains!” that the words of the poet John Milton in his epic poem ‘Samson Agonistes,’ which I studied in my dim and distant schooldays (A level English) came back to me.
The poem describes the Biblical saga of Samson’s downfall at the hands of the seductive Delilah, who facilitates his capture and blinding by the Gazans, who even then constituted a hostile entity on the southern border of the Land of Israel.
The words Milton puts into Samson’s mouth in his agony of despair are: “Eyeless in Gaza. At the mill. With slaves.” For an apathetic schoolgirl, to whom the text was simply another routine task to be dealt with and set aside, the words were little more than meaningless phrases. Perhaps the fault lies with our teacher of the time, who failed to enable us to see that the words were a deeply-felt cry of despair, for that is what I felt when I heard the mother on TV, as her words rose to a crescendo of scarcely controlled weeping. As I watched I could barely restrain my own tears.
For almost a year and a half, dozens of Israelis have been held hostage by Hamas in Gaza, and only recently (inspired by the threats of U.S. President Trump) has a serious effort been made to obtain their release by means of an agreement with the terrorist organization. The demonstrations held constantly by the families of the hostages as well as ordinary Israelis all over the country have obtained little by way of response from the government, which is being held to ransom by extremist and messianic elements within the coalition.
Those hostages who have been released are living proof of the diabolical treatment to which they have been subjected by their captors. We still don’t know how many and which of them are dead, and how and in what manner they met their deaths. We wait in trepidation for further information and continue to demonstrate as we plead with our government to show some sense of humanity to obtain the release of those hostages still alive. Because it is obvious to everyone that they are living on borrowed time.
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Dorothea Shefer-Vanson is an author and freelance writer based in the Jerusalem suburb of Mevasseret Zion, Israel.