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ABE WON'T BE SILENT - It started with a post my friend Audrey sent me on Instagram — from actress Joely Richardson, daughter of Vanessa Redgrave, a longtime pro-Palestinian advocate and, frankly, an unrepentant antisemite.
It was a picture of an 11-year-old child: Yaqeen Hammad. Palestinian. Killed in a gunfire exchange involving the IDF.
Joely’s post mourned her death, as it should — another number added to the 16,000 children Hamas claims have been killed since October 7, 2023.
Yaqeen wanted peace.
Her home, like so many in Gaza, had been used by Hamas as a shield in this unholy war.
The consequences were catastrophic.
I felt that loss, immediately.
The picture of sweet-faced Yaqeen, her hands forming a heart — was deeply moving.
Yet, after a few moments, I felt something else.
Something colder.
A wave of truth washed over me, and I suddenly realized:
So many fucking celebrities are quick to hold up pictures of Palestinian children.
Yet not one of them so much as acknowledged — in photos or text — the orange-haired Bibas babies.
Knowing that they were strangled with the bare hands of Hamas terrorists, followed by having their skulls crushed with rocks?
I felt a pit in my stomach, which quickly began bubbling up with rage.
Where were these mourners when it came to the Jewish babies?
Where were the filtered Instagram tributes, the captions begging for peace, the poetic quotes over black-and-white portraits when Ariel, age 4, and Kfir, just 10 months, were kidnapped into Gaza?
[SIDEBAR] As I’m writing this, a news flash on one of WhatsApp feeds announced that the evil terrorist — Mahmoud whatever the fuck his name is — who was responsible for kidnapping and overseeing the brutal murder of the Bibas family was finally hunted down and killed by the IDF like the rabid animal he was.
Where was Joely Richardson then?
Or just about every fucking celebrity, for that matter?
Did this not affect anyone outside the Jewish world?
No one posted their pictures.
No one held up their names.
Only us — Jews.
[SIDEBAR] During World War II, when Americans knew Jews — including infants — were being starved, shot, and gassed in Nazi concentration camps, what were celebrities saying?
What did the Hollywood elite, Broadway stars, bestselling authors do in the face of genocide? I shudder to think.
The answer, for the most part, is: nothing.
They didn’t hold up signs. They didn’t post photos (if they could have). They didn’t speak the names.That silence echoes now.
You see now, how easy it is to spot the enemy.
Silence is the enemy.
Silence is a choice.
You can actually see silence now.
It’s a disease of the mind — and sadly, it’s contagious.
You can track it across Instagram stories, Facebook feeds, WhatsApp chats.
You can watch, in real time, as the world decides whose lives are worth mourning.
Yet — our babies don’t matter?
Ours aren’t even worth checking the analytics for?
Not worth ten bucks a day to boost?
That’s not just silence.
That’s intended erasure.
The kind of deafening silence that’s harder to stomach than the throngs of screaming keffiyeh-covered antisemites stinking up the digital landscape of America.
What that says, loud and clear, is this:
Jewish grief — keep scrolling.
Meanwhile, some are hopping on the latest TikTok dance trend when another Jew is stabbed or burned by a Molotov cocktail.
It’s not like Jews and Israelis aren’t mourning the death of Yaqeen.
We all must, when the lives of children are brutally taken.
But when mourning becomes selective — when outrage is reserved for only one side — it stops being about compassion.
It exposes propaganda.
I see it for what it is.
Performative. Shallow. Pretension crap.
So I beg your pardon:
“Can you remove your label so I can see right through you?”
Let’s face it: this Gaza war is now starring more vomitous celebrities than Night of 100 Stars, that tacky variety show from the ’70s.
They’re standing in “solidarity” with Hamas sympathizers, marching beside people chanting “Intifada!” and “From the river to the sea!” — not slogans for peace, but calls for Jewish erasure through violent rhetoric.
Whereas I’d like to think we can all agree this war must end, I seriously question the motives of the idiots on college campuses who’ve not only lost the plot — they’ve sucked down the Kool-Aid.
These self-righteous screamers would sooner keep the war going just to keep up their performative bullshit.
It gives them meaning.
It’s created a makeshift identity — a “movement” — for people who had none.
COVID robbed them of community, of purpose.
Before this war, their primary vocations were basket weaving, TikTok scrolling — and masturbating over false righteousness.
Now they’ve got keffiyehs, hashtags, and protest selfies.
They’ve got a cause. A tribe. A villain.
Guess who’re the villains. The Jews. Again. It’s getting old.
Look, we all want this war to end.
Unless you’re one of those far-left or far-right lunatics who somehow finds satisfaction in the endless suffering of a particular group of innocents.
We’ve seen those people, haven’t we?
In Boulder.
In D.C., where a Jewish couple was stabbed simply for being Jewish.
In Charlottesville.
So if you're going to post pictures of innocent children — post them all.
Don’t make your compassion contingent on whether the victim fits your politics.
That narrative is so vile, because it says humanity has limits and boundaries.
Which is psychotic.
Until the world acknowledges Jewish pain as equal, this conflict will never end —
not with ceasefires, not with UN resolutions.
Hamas will still be funded by Qatar.
Professors will still radicalize students.
TikTok will still churn out antisemitic bile dressed up as activism.
And Jews — again — will be left screaming into the wind.
My sister always said, “We’re on our own.”
She’s always right.
Until we see a shift — until those kaffiyeh-cloaked keyboard warriors and wannabe peaceniks step back and shut their pie holes long enough to actually listen —
we will do what we must to stay safe.
Our peoplehood matters.
And we will remember who mourned with us.
And who turned away.
Because for far too many of them, this war isn’t about peace.
It’s about performance.
About trending.
And wishing for Jewish grief?
Until then, I will keep saying the names of the children no one else will.
Ariel Bibas. Kfir Bibas.
Four years old. Ten months old.
Only the Jews cried for them.
And maybe — just maybe —
the healing begins by demanding the world witness our pain, too.
(ABE GURKO is the executive producer of a documentary “LOUDER: The Soundtrack of Change,” about the extraordinary Women of Protest Music streaming on MAX. He's an Opinionator who hosts a podcast, "Won't Be Silent," engaging in conversations from the edge of democracy. Abe is a contributor to CityWatchLA.com. [email protected].)
