I was a captive of Hamas. After I was freed, I was imprisoned by online trolls.

 Agam Goldstein-Almog  I was among the Oct. 7 hostages. I dreamed of freedom, and hoped the world would embrace us.  Via American Jewish Committee

But then these people happened: I have watched as the movement in the West for a Gaza cease-fire sometimes devolves into full-throated support for Hamas and the hounding of Jews in public spaces. I’m sure my kidnappers still hate me, but when American students call for “intifada” or chant in praise of Hamas terrorists “Al-Qassam, you make us proud,” I’m reminded that many other people do, too.

"Growing up in Kibbutz Kfar Aza next to Israel’s border with the Gaza Strip meant a childhood that could be interrupted at any moment by sirens warning of a Hamas rocket attack. Sibling fights or quiet nights were instantly turned into a scramble for the nearest safe room. Hamas took control of Gaza a few months before I was born in 2007, so living in its shadow is all I have ever known.

"Having 15 seconds to run to safety might not be a common theme in childhood nostalgia, but

I convinced myself that it had made me stronger than kids from the comfortable Tel Aviv bubble."

Agam Goldstein-Almog

"Then came Oct. 7. Hamas terrorists charged into our home, shooting my father, Nadav, and sister, Yam, in a furious ecstasy of hate. I was dragged out of the house together with my mother and two younger brothers and forced into a car to Gaza. I see my father’s fading eyes when I close mine at night.

"Arriving in Gaza, the car was surrounded by a mob, mostly people who appeared to be about my own age, 17, or younger. They smiled and laughed as I wept.In Judaism, there is a tradition that baseless hatred — hatred divorced from all reason — is what led to the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem in A.D. 70. I now know what it means to be hated baselessly — for all that I am and all I am not.

"My Hamas guards hated me for being Jewish, so I was coerced into reciting Islamic prayers and made to wear a hijab. I was forbidden from mourning my father and sister, and often ordered to look down at the ground. Six female hostages I met in a tunnel told me about men with guns who came into their shower rooms and touched their bodies." . . .

"Now a dangerous escalation in the war that began on Oct. 7 may loom, involving an Iranian regime that has long promised to wipe Israel off the map. Theirs is the same hatred that killed my father and sister. The same hatred that poisons too many campuses and too much of social media."

Emphasis mine. TD. See also: Hamas and their useful idiots in the streets and on the stage in Chicago