Israeli hostages display the heroic qualities of true role models

What they’re telling us is breathtaking, but the world doesn’t want to hear it. We — and Gen X parents in particular — need to take a good hard look at our values.

A Hamas propaganda video shows hostage Noa Argamani, 26, who was kidnapped from a music festival in Israel on October 7.

I have a vivid memory of my childhood that involves a sandpit, my best mate Ian, from two doors down, and Lynda Carter, aka Wonder Woman. The 1970s version in all her borderline anorexic glory.

Ian and I went to kindy together and we played in the sandpit together most days, as we used to in our respective backyards, before institutionalised learning got in the way.

Sometimes we played with trucks and cars. Other times, we played a version of Wonder Woman. It was a pretty simple iteration in which I would stand in the centre of the sandpit, swinging my pretend magic lasso above my head (it was a skipping rope) and Ian would have to do my bidding depending on which way the rope was being swung. Bless his heart, he was pretty obliging.

Fear not, this isn’t a step back in time for the sake of it. I got thinking about the kinds of people I used to look up to as role models after reading the testimony of one of the young female hostages who was freed from Hamas. More on that in a second.

Role models. Every kid has one, every teenager too, and most young adults. Whether consciously or otherwise, we all look up to someone we don’t know, from a distance.

As a young journalist, mine was Jana Wendt, though at the time, thanks to TV styling, I had the hair of Ray Martin.

As a little person, I wanted to be Wonder Woman. Strong. Butt-kicking. Crime fighting. With hair that never moved and a banging set of bloomers. After that, it was Princess Leia. The brains and the muscle. Strong female characters who could dress as they please while fighting evil and saving the world.

Today? Where is their equivalent? This was my thought process after reading the testimony of teenager Agam Goldstein-Almog. She was one of the 200 people dragged from their homes and taken into Gaza on October 7 after watching her father and older sister executed at point blank range in front of her. She describes seeing the bullet tearing through her sister’s face and being covered in their blood, then dragged away.

Agam’s testimony from her time in the Hamas tunnels is a horror story. It’s every parent’s, every woman’s, every decent human’s worst nightmare. The women and young girls were subjected to “grotesque sexual abuse, often at gunpoint”. Treated as sex objects. Her testimony has been corroborated by others who were freed.

But it’s what she said towards the end of her testimony that captured me. “The women I met in captivity are strong. They are resilient. And despite everything they’ve been through … they still grasped on to hope.”

They are resilient. They have hope. They are strong women. It takes your breath away if you think about what she’s saying in the context of the situation.

You’ll have to dig to find Agam’s story. It didn’t get a lot of coverage in the mainstream media. To me, the first-hand testimony of a freed hostage would be must-read but, in a world, where feminism is as corrupt as the NGOs grifting off decades of trouble in the Middle East, it’s no huge surprise.

Freed hostage Agam Goldstein Almog speaks at a rally after being released from Hamas captivity.

By way of contrast, Taylor Swift could get a new haircut and it would be news.

When Greta Thunberg speaks, regardless of how much nonsense comes out of her mouth, the world’s media covers it. When you step back and consider the kinds of role models placed on pedestals these days, it explains a lot.

Going back to Thunberg, for example. As a young teenager she sits on the steps of the Swedish parliament and all of a sudden, she’s an expert in a very complex area of science that is highly disputed still. She’s given a world stage on which to speak, erupts in petulant rage, and is somehow authoritative.

In this young woman, and others, we see a symptom of the greater malaise. What does a generation value? Who and what do they look up to?

And here’s an uncomfortable question to my fellow Generation X mums and dads (highly culpable in my humble view). What did we do to steer our charges in the right direction? Towards character over substance, strength over victimhood, intelligence over intemperance.

The world makes heroes of strawmen and we expect societies to thrive.

When 12 young Thai soccer players were rescued from an underwater cave after two weeks, the world was obsessed with that story. As it should have been. I remember tearing up when the news broke of their survival. Brave young boys rescued by even braver men. We celebrated this.

Who is celebrating Agam Goldstein-Almog? Who is in awe of her resilience? The fact she has endured what she did and had the capacity to share her story is the stuff heroes are made of.

But she is Jewish. And what she speaks of is horrific and demands accountability. It makes us uncomfortable. And it’s so easy to turn away because it’s been more than 100 days now, and 132 hostages (25 dead), including 14 women young and old, are still languishing as captives of Hamas and their civilian collaborators in Gaza.

For 14 days we were glued to the TV for news of those 12 young kids in that cave. We couldn’t rest until we knew. For 100 days, women have been systematically raped while held hostage by Hamas. Right under the noses of UNRWA and the Red Cross. And we are not even close to being glued to the TV.

I think Agam Goldstein-Almog is a hero. I think Noa Argamani is a hero. Remember her? She’s still somewhere in Gaza. Alive? Who knows. Freed hostage Aviva Siegel. Her testimony before the Israeli Knesset this week was shattering.

They are heroes in the vein of Malala Yousafzai. Anne Frank. They are women of substance. They have suffered the unthinkable and they are still standing.

I noticed that there was no trace of victimhood in their testimony. Just defiance, strength and a quality I’m still trying to find words to articulate. These are the very kinds of women a generation should be looking up to.