Families of Israeli hostages kidnapped by Hamas spoke out against the anti-Zionist movement in the United States that has swept college campuses.
This week, many relatives of the 59 dead and living hostages still held by Hamas arrived in Washington, D.C., to petition the Trump administration to free their family members.
In interviews with the Washington Examiner, the families of Guy Dalal and Evyatar David, who are believed to be still alive, and Guy Iluz, who died in captivity, expressed confidence that President Donald Trump is “the one” who can force Hamas to release the remaining hostages. The families also responded to the rise of anti-Zionist sentiment in the U.S., arguing that pro-Palestinian demonstrators have crafted an antisemitic narrative that belies the facts.
“We are only 16 million Jewish people. They don’t care about the truth anymore,” Mishel Iluz, Guy Iluz’s father, said of the rise of anti-Zionists. “They care … about the political situation. I always say, like before, this is not a question of political issues. It is about values — about what is wrong and what is right,” he said.
He sounded emotional as he continued to react to opponents of Zionism.
“I cannot understand it how we became to be that everyone hate us,” he said. “I don’t understand. How can people support the Hamas?” he questioned. “Why should I explain to you our position? How come people don’t understand that they raped our children, they come, they burn our children?”
University systems have festered the movement, Mishel said, because of “propaganda” taught about Hamas and the Middle East.
Evyatar’s mother, Galia David, and his cousin, Tamar Eshet, similarly blamed “trends” and ignorance for the anti-Zionist movement.
“They don’t care about what’s true. They listen to the TikTokers saying whatever they want,” Eshet said. “[Hamas] came to Israel because they want us destroyed and to kill us, and this is their values. And the protesters should think, that’s their values, killing people in their beds, babies, families, we have nothing to say to them.”
Anti-Zionist groups have gained momentum in New York City, as demonstrated by the rise of Within Our Lifetime, which has been described as the leader of the pro-Palestinian protests that have embroiled the Big Apple.
The group’s website instructs demonstrators to lead chants including “smash the settler Zionist state,” “We don’t want Zionists here,” and “Zionism has got to go.”
The sentiment has spread across the country, with demonstrations in California schools, such as the University of Berkeley protesters comparing Zionism to Nazism and equating the Star of David with the swastika.
Ilan Dalal, the father of Guy Dalal, pushed back against characterizations that Zionists bear similarities to Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Party. “They don’t really understand what it is,” he said of protesters demonstrating against Zionism.
“The Nazism, they were part of Germany, the state which had this agenda of Aryan people that they are superior to all other people, and they thought that the Jewish people should be eliminated just because they are successful because they say that they [the Jews] want to rule the world, although [the Nazis] are the ones that wanted to rule the world,” he said. “The Zionists didn’t want to rule anybody. They just want to make a home to the Jewish people, and that’s why they established Israel.”
Last month, it was revealed that Barnard University, which is affiliated with New York’s Columbia University, had expelled two students for interrupting a class session on the modern history of Israel. The masked protesters distributed signs reading “Crush Zionism” and “Burn Zionism to the ground.” Campus demonstrations later broke out in support of the expelled students, with police arresting four people in late February after protests became unruly.
When pressed on claims that pro-Palestinians often present that anti-Zionism is not antisemitism, Eshet said that ”especially in the U.S., they can’t claim it” because of how anti-Israel protesters treat their peers at universities.
“They don’t let them study, they don’t let them have social life. They ban them, and Zionism and the war is just the excuse. We all know. Antisemitism has risen in the U.S. and in Europe before the war, and it’s just an excuse for their actions,” she said.
Many pro-Palestinian protesters argue that Zionists are colonizers oppressing indigenous people and that Israel is committing genocide in its campaign against Hamas in Gaza. Ilan Dalal said there is a fundamental misconception of what Zionism is and criticized claims that anti-Zionism is not antisemitic.
“Antisemitism is anti-Zionist because Zionism is a movement that actually built the State of Israel,” he said on Monday. Zionists created Israel in 1948, Ilan said, because they wanted Jews “to have a place where they can be safe.”
Galia David likewise said Zionism was the belief that Jewish people need their own “safe place.”
“I think the Jewish people are hunted everywhere, throughout history, and we know that there is no safe place, and people just prove it more and more right now,” she said. “To be safe in some way, to live as Jewish people, we need, we need our own place. We will be treated as equal.”
The families are optimistic that the Trump administration will at last bring their sons home.
“I feel the hope of the United States government. I feel the impact [and] empathy that they gave us,” Mishel told the Washington Examiner. “I wish that all the world could be like the American people.”
Mishel’s son did not survive his time in captivity, although his body is still being held by Hamas.
When he sees other hostages finally released from captivity and going home to their families, Mishel is “a little bit jealous,” he said. “Each time that my door opens in my house, I always expect my son to get in.”
COLUMBIA STUDENT ON GREEN CARD ARRESTED BY ICE OVER ANTI-ISRAEL PROTEST INVOLVEMENT
Galia David’s son is still believed to be alive after over 16 months of being held by Hamas.
“I can’t eat, OK, and I barely can breathe,” Galia said. “And I feel that I must keep on for my son, and I also say that I’m not relevant. My son is underground. He is the one who suffer … I have no privilege to give up.”
