RUTHFULLY YOURS

At 6 A.M. on October 7, Moran Stella Yanai saw rockets rain down from the sky into southern Israel, where she was attending the now-infamous Nova music festival. Like other Nova attendees, when Yanai realized that terrorists had invaded Israel, she ran and tried to escape via car. When she contacted Israeli police, they told her to get off the road, where Hamas terrorists were slaughtering anyone who dared to flee.

Yanai ran into a field where she was eventually captured by terrorists who filmed her kidnapping. Yanai’s parents discovered that their daughter had been taken hostage by that video. Thirteen Hamas members then dragged Yanai into a car and drove her across the Gazan border, where she remained for 54 days until she was freed in November’s hostage deal.

She promised other hostages in captivity that she would do “everything” within her power to bring them home. One of the ways she’s done so has been by sharing her story here in the United States with skeptics, government officials, and friends of Israel. At 40, Yanai is a poised, powerful, well-spoken individual who, months ago, sat down to debate Aidan Doyle, one of the University of California-Los Angeles students responsible for leading the university’s anti-Israel encampment, on the merits of Israel’s war in Gaza. The second part of the debate was released this week and has since gone viral — mainly because, even when speaking with the former hostage, Doyle refused to shed his pro-terrorist outlook.

Doyle is not a foreign policy expert, nor has he ever been to Israel or Gaza, but he is a mustached young progressive whose social-media feed went viral when the UCLA anti-Israel encampment sprung up, which has made him somewhat of an online hero among radicals. The philosophy student posted a series of videos after police arrested multiple encampment-occupiers for trespassing and vandalism, bemoaning the police’s cruel use of force.

When Iranian proxy group Hezbollah’s leader Hassan Nasrallah was killed in an Israel Defense Forces (IDF) strike on September 28, Doyle said on Instagram that “Hassan Nasrallah was not killed because of anything bad he’s done. He was killed for the best thing he’d done: standing against a genocide.” Nasrallah led Hezbollah for over three decades. During his reign of terror, he helped terrorists murder thousands of Americans, Syrians, and Israelis. Doyle also took to Instagram a few months back to analyze IDF operations, saying, “Why are schools [in Gaza] being targeted? Hospitals? It’s not about Hamas. It’s about elimination the people of Gaza. Honestly even if Hamas is using these places for military operations I don’t care. The idf targeted Al Shifa hospital while it was being rebuilt. Is there any word for this other than evil?” Hundreds of Hamas terrorists have hidden themselves inside al-Shifa Hospital throughout the course of the war, using patients and civilians as human shields. Hamas took Israeli hostages into al-Shifa hospital, as well, according to IDF footage.

Commenting on the brutal attack against Israeli soccer fans in Amsterdam last week, Doyle posted, “step one: get completely smashed in a game of soccer step two: incite violence, scream death to Arabs, be violent step three: people fight back step four: scream about antisemitism.” Directly after Yahya Sinwar’s death, Doyle retweeted a post saying, “The most astonishing fact is that we now know he moved amongst his people for over a year and every reward was offered to millions of starving people to give him up, but they never did.” Doyle called Sinwar, a murderous mastermind, “brave.” In a post unrelated to the war in Gaza, Doyle said, ironically and somewhat counterintuitively, that “if someone is trying to murder you, you can kill them.”

In his most recent post, Doyle reposted a video of his debate with Yanai, and mockingly commented, “they brought a hostage to a debate.”

A special sort of shamelessness fuels this young activist. After October 7, many people have questioned if the West’s anti-Israel movement stands with Hamas out of cruelty or ignorance. We all wanted, I think, to believe it was the latter — it’s helpful to read and hear Doyle’s own words if only to realize how wrong we were to be so optimistic. Yanai wanted to speak with Doyle to see eye-to-eye, she said. She respects the young man, she added, which is why she wanted to hear his perspective. Yanai’s courage, bravery, and love of life represent the best of the Israeli spirit — how she carried herself with such grace when pitted against a terrorist sympathizer is astonishing. Watch the interaction here.