Since her release, Argamani has captured the public’s attention – not necessarily in a positive way – from the moment she accompanied Benjamin Netanyahu to his speech in Congress until last weekend when we were exposed to her documentation in the media and social networks, dancing and celebrating her release from captivity. Along with encouraging reactions from those who were happy to see Noa free and happy, there were also those who claimed that while many abductees remain in the captivity of Hamas, including her partner, Avinatan Or, it is inappropriate for Argmani to celebrate at such an event. “It doesn’t work out so well for me either? Her mother passed away not long ago and her partner is still in captivity so it’s like I don’t know,” wrote one of the followers. “Everything that happens in the video here looks ridiculous in my opinion,” added another.
A few hours later, Noa wrote on her Instagram page: “Although it is not the most ideal to have the party when there is another war in the background, when there are more of our soldiers on the battlefield and 109 kidnapped, but at the same time, I am happy to celebrate life itself with all of you. We should appreciate every day in this life.”
Why did Argamani become a target for criticism and judgement? “Noa is not a politician or a famous singer who became a symbol because of something she did, but a young girl who became such because of the fact that she was kidnapped,” explains Dr. Eidit Gutman, a clinical psychologist from Tel Aviv University. “Suddenly the ‘symbol’ stands up, speaks, celebrates, and people react to that It’s as if it’s a cartoon character that suddenly came to life, and they find it very difficult to contain this complexity, and they even get angry about it.”
According to her, during the eight months during which Argamani was in captivity, many imagined or fantasized who she was, what kind of person she was and how she behaved. “It got to the point that after her rescue, conspiracies were spread on social media that this was not really Noa. People claimed that her voice did not sound like it really did, that her appearance did not look as it should have, as if it were a double. Everyone felt that they knew her, without her at all was present, and they threw their fantasies at her.”
Dr. Gutman adds that it is difficult for people to deal with complexity, and with the fact that experiences, even if they are horrific like the ones Noa went through, are a matter of the domain of time, but do not predict everything. sides. We also see this among widows and bereaved parents – there is some kind of social expectation from those who have experienced a loss not to go to the hairdresser or take a Pilates class, a kind of feeling as if they are not allowed to be happy anymore.” According to her, the complexity intensifies even more during a time of war. ‘, and it is hard for them to accept that a person can be both post-traumatic and dance at a party. In extreme situations, such as near death, everything becomes binary – black or white, alive-dead, happy-sad. But in psychological reality, there is no one emotion, one identity or one role. One experience does not define the whole person. Noa is also a ‘daughter of’, a ‘friend of’, a young student.”
The doctor also points out that, mistakenly, there are those who feel that actually the act of returning the abductees creates a sort of obligation to them, and in fact the public has ownership of them. “Some people feel that the abductees owe them something, but the truth is that they don’t. They are innocent citizens who got into this situation by mistake, they are not child stars who chose publicity, those who appear on stages, and we pay money to see them and then maybe we can feel that it is our right to expect them not to drink alcohol, smoke drugs or swear, because they have to maintain a specific professional image . This is not the case of the abductees.”
Some of the comments that came out against the fact that Argmani was celebrating were, of course, also about the fact that she danced in a bikini. “There is something in the narrative built around Noa – a kidnapped princess, who should be confused and imprisoned in a tower, who is waiting for us to release her, then she will cook at home and cry for the rest of her life. But Noa behaves differently despite the horrible experience she went through, and that doesn’t necessarily work out in everyone’s head.”
She emphasizes that it is also possible that the criticism directed mainly at Argamani, unlike that directed at the other abductees, stems from the fact that she behaves differently, and that she challenges from the first moment the narrative that the public has ‘put on her’. “Noa is the beautiful face of the injustice we have suffered, and from the first moment since her rescue from captivity, she embarked on a struggle against the narrative that presented her only as someone burying her mother or waiting for her partner. We recognized this even more when she asked to move from a hospital to the place where her mother was hospitalized, when she asked to receive Information about her mother and her condition, when she wanted to decide on her own whether she was flying to the American Congress and with whom she was flying and when she recently sought to clarify and clarify her testimony at an event held at the Japanese embassy, then she claimed that the media distorted her words. This is actually her struggle to regain an active role, to regain the The control and being someone who determines the course of her life for herself. In my opinion, this is definitely a desire that can be respected.” In general, says the doctor, “the best thing we can do for the freed abductees and the bereaved families is not to label them or reduce them to one label, but to let them live their lives freely.”