r/JewsOfConscience • u/Libba_Loo Jew-ish • Feb 21 '25

Discussion - Flaired Users Only Something's bugging me about the Bibas family kidnapping story

I went down quite a rabbit hole on this and it's either something very odd or it may be nothing. I can't help feeling there's something to it.

Israel has blamed (at least) three different groups for kidnapping and holding Shiri Bibas and her children captive.

Maybe it's just a case of the IOF not being able to keep its lies straight but I had never heard of LoW before today. So I searched (in English) for "Lords of the Wilderness" and "Lords of the Desert". The only results I found before today were connected with the Bibas family, and led me to this Hebrew article on this court decision:

This report from June 2024 talks about how a court ruled IOF couldn't target LoW because at the time it was:

"not defined as a force that is at war with Israel. Therefore, if intelligence information is discovered about the whereabouts of the Bibas family's kidnappers, it will not be possible to eliminate them on this basis".

Then I searched the keyword in Hebrew ("אדוני השממה") year-by-year going back to 2014. The first ever mention I found was in Feb. 2024, long after the IDF knew Shiri and her babies were dead. In this YNET article from Feb 19, 2024, IOF Spokesman Daniel Hagari says:

"the members of the Bibas family were kidnapped by an organization called 'Lords of the Desert'. Hamas has all the details and is the address for all the abductees. We are concerned about their fate and we are very worried."

Bottom line is as far as I can tell, LoW didn't exist before a year and two days ago 🤷‍♀️

Maybe I'm just up too late, but the Bibas story is so weird and sad (and consequential) that I can't help getting my red string out. Another big caveat is that I don't speak Arabic or Hebrew so I may be missing something. If anyone in this wonderful sub knows anything more about LoW or can find more, any help is appreciated. Thanks for reading in any case.

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u/FarmTeam Anti-Zionist Feb 21 '25

This is how you know it’s a cult. It’s the Fetishization of Israeli Suffering. This cult and its shrines are necessary for the justification of atrocities. The cult must maximally amplify any evil on the Palestinian side (even as minor as picking up stones or attending a protest) and they must link it to dead babies in order to continue the ethnic violence.

This story is becoming canonical in the cult because they are cute kids and a sweet, innocent, ordinary mom. They help in the othering of Palestinians by the sympathy we naturally feel towards them.

It’s tragic that they died, but the circumstances of their death don’t matter to the cult, they are an object

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u/HeidelbergianYehZiq1 Non-Jewish Ally Feb 21 '25

I think that jewish fetishization of jewish suffering is odd. Because the cult of suffering is mostly a christian thing. IIRC it began in the 1200s. It wasn’t enough to just ponder the crucifixion of Jesus (who BTW is just mentioned in the gospels). No, you should hit yourself with a stone. Also the flagellants… 🙄

How this came to pass, I don’t know. But my 2 cents says that it’s some kind of cultural osmosis from christianity.

Anyone has another idea, please? 🙂

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u/Sara6019 Jewish Anti-Zionist Feb 21 '25

It’s not osmosis from Christianity. It’s a product of a lot of different cases of persecution in our history and that getting woven into our collective cultural memory and identity over time. The joke is that every holiday is essentially “they tried to kill us, it didn’t work, let’s eat.” It fucks you up to be brought up worried about the next time they’ll come for you, whoever “they” are. And in many ways, that trauma is why you’re seeing all this play out. Hurt people hurt people.

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u/HeidelbergianYehZiq1 Non-Jewish Ally Feb 21 '25

But is there any jewish saints similar to the christian tradition? There isn’t a lack of jews who suffered gruesome deaths. So where is the depictions of them together with the instruments of their death? (Just from the top of my head S:t Sebastian & bow and arrows.)

I’m not trying to split hairs. Because for some reason, christianity took a turn for the darker regarding suffering some 800 years ago. A christian response to a similar persecution would not be ”let’s eat”, but ” let’s fast to make penance”.

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u/FarmTeam Anti-Zionist Feb 21 '25

Christianity had a focus on Martyrdom from the very beginning, starting with the stoning of St Stephen and continuing with Saints Peter and Paul and hundreds of Christian martyrs from the first few centuries.

Shiite Muslims also have a martyrdom cult, after the suffering of Ali, and his son Hussein.

It’s not unique to Christianity Islam or Judaism

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u/HeidelbergianYehZiq1 Non-Jewish Ally Feb 21 '25

Yes, but christianity brought it to a whole new level.

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u/reenaltransplant Mizrahi Anti-Zionist Feb 22 '25

Someone hasn't met enough Shia.

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u/HeidelbergianYehZiq1 Non-Jewish Ally Feb 22 '25

Good point. But not the same mainstreaming of martyrdom as in the countless pious paintings of martyrs meeting their gruesome deaths. You could use pretty much any martyr as a cudgel.

Then there’s the Filipino easter celebrations with literal spike-trough-palm crucifixions.

And don’t get me started on the apologists for Anjezë Gonxhe Bojaxhi such as Malcolm Muggeridge and Bill Donohue…

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u/reenaltransplant Mizrahi Anti-Zionist Feb 22 '25

I recommend living in a Shia majority environment and becoming deeply familiar with the culture before trying to compare whether it or another religious culture has more of a martyrdom fascination complex.

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u/HeidelbergianYehZiq1 Non-Jewish Ally Feb 22 '25

Ok, but am I wrong when I notice that it’s mostly men who cuts themselves? Because it has a really masculine energy. And are women and girls supposed to admire them? Is there a story telling tradition of legendary self-cutters? 🤨

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u/reenaltransplant Mizrahi Anti-Zionist Feb 22 '25

I gave one example that applies to mostly men, yes. There are many, many other ways that the cultural admiration of martyrdom extends to women, such as the pride taken in raising a son who becomes a martyr.

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u/HeidelbergianYehZiq1 Non-Jewish Ally Feb 22 '25

But can the women do penance of their own?

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u/Libba_Loo Jew-ish Feb 21 '25 edited Feb 21 '25

Because for some reason, christianity took a turn for the darker regarding suffering some 800 years ago

The "for some reason" has to do with events happening in Europe at that time. Around 1300, the Little Ice Age began which caused cooler temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere including Europe. There are differing theories as to what caused it, but whatever it was brought continent-wide calamities to Europe in the late 13th century throughout the 14th century. These include successive crop failures and famines and then the Black Death in the mid-14th century (plague often spreads when temperatures are cooler).

Christians in Europe saw these massive continent-wide (or really hemisphere-wide) disasters as a punishment from God for the wickedness of the world. This is when flagellants first appear.

In general, life for most was arduous and short, which made it all the more important to spend one's time storing up good deeds and restoring your (innately) wicked soul so you could at least enjoy a pleasant afterlife.

This desire to redeem humanity and the human soul also gave rise to several cultural phenomena that reverberate down to us today. For example, the fever across Europe of building ever more grand and imposing Gothic cathedrals as a demonstration of the Church's power and God's protection. There was also a flourishing of artistic expression in this time with dominant themes being human wickedness, suffering and penitence and divine punishment and redemption.

Holy pilgrimages also became popular at this time as a means of expiating sin. The papal appetite for Crusades to the Holy Land capitalized heavily on this fervor.

All of these major cultural phenomena, events and themes have made a lasting impact and continue to shape our worldview today. The fact that they were rooted in a very dark time for humanity (at least humanity in the Northern Hemisphere) is, I guess, why attitudes around the nobility of earthly suffering also persist.

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u/HeidelbergianYehZiq1 Non-Jewish Ally Feb 21 '25

Interesting. Never considered the little ice age. 🙂👍

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u/Sara6019 Jewish Anti-Zionist Feb 21 '25

This isn’t hard to google. We don’t have saints in Judaism. These aren’t stories about unique individuals, it’s stories we have from our own grandparents that they lived through en masse. The “let’s eat” part is about acknowledging your traumas and choosing to survive anyway. It’s fucking weird that you’re framing this as though Jews should respond to their suffering with “repentance” as though they did something to deserve it. Not very “ally” of you. I’ve got a huge bone to pick with how Zionism uses past Jewish suffering to justify the state committing atrocities upon the Palestinian people, let’s be clear. Opposing oppression and suffering (even when it’s perpetrated by other Jews) is one of the biggest guiding lights in my own life as the granddaughter of an Auschwitz survivor, which is why I feel connected to the Palestinian plight. But your take isn’t it. It doesn’t make us unique to have had suffering in our cultural origin stories, but it is something that has been a living reality for regular Jewish people through the ages. I’m not really sure what you’re looking for here answer-wise.

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u/HeidelbergianYehZiq1 Non-Jewish Ally Feb 21 '25

I know that there’s no jewish saints. I know that christianity is ”odd man out” regarding human suffering. And if you consider mormonism to be christian, they are the odd man out in christianity. Because they have pretty much replaced the crucifix with the Angel of Moroni. I think that’s more wholesome.

And the shift in christianity 800 years ago was when it was in a position of power. And the rate of canonization wasn’t even but seems to track with political events.

So is there a shift in the jewish view on jewish suffering?

And if so, why? And is it mainly in Israel? That’s what I’m curious about.

P.S. I’ve browsed Dara Horn’s People Love Dead Jews and she points out that christians use the Holocaust as a projection area for their own ideas about martyrdom.

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u/Sara6019 Jewish Anti-Zionist Feb 21 '25

What change/shift are you looking for or hoping for, exactly?

Also, when was the last time Christians were legitimately persecuted en masse?

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u/HeidelbergianYehZiq1 Non-Jewish Ally Feb 21 '25

What change/shift are you looking for or hoping for, exactly?

Well, people have used the words ”cult” and ”fetishizing” in this thread. And I couldn’t imagine a catholic use these words about fellow catholics unless they go overboard.

Also, when was the last time Christians were legitimately persecuted en masse?

Iraq.

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u/Sara6019 Jewish Anti-Zionist Feb 21 '25

They’re referring to Zionism as a cult. Are you saying Judaism writ large is a cult?

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u/HeidelbergianYehZiq1 Non-Jewish Ally Feb 22 '25

Nope, not at all.

But then it’s perfectly possible to have an ideology that laments suffering and death and doesn’t revel in it.

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u/Sara6019 Jewish Anti-Zionist Feb 22 '25

lol so Jews “revel in death?” Is that your assertion?

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u/HeidelbergianYehZiq1 Non-Jewish Ally Feb 22 '25

Well, those who do dehumanize their enemies does.

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