It’s been 10 years since ISIS terrorists brutally murdered journalist James Foley, releasing a gruesome video of the killing that absolutely shocked the world.
Diane Foley, the late reporter’s mother, has spent much of the last decade devoting her life to helping other hostage families who have faced the same terror she experienced.
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“Jim was the oldest of our five children, a friendly, curious little boy, a voracious reader,” Diane told CBN News. “He just was always reading [and] a very good listener, too. Even as a young kiddo, he liked to hear what other people’s stories were.”
With those qualities, it’s no surprise Foley went into journalism, with his mother explaining what drove her son’s deepest media passions.
“He wanted to … understand why people went to war, what happens to people in the midst of war, civilians, children … what are the effects,” Diane said. “He truly loved it.”
That passion led Foley to become a freelance journalist and to begin embedding with military troops. His mother, a nurse practitioner, said she was ignorant of the dangers that can sometimes come with international journalism, which is what made Foley’s 2012 abduction so shocking.
While Foley had previously been imprisoned in 2011 in Libya and held as a political prisoner, the family assumed the incident was a “fluke,” with his release eventually coming. However, Diane soon realized something was wrong when Foley didn’t call the family on Thanksgiving Day in 2012.
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“Jim always called on holidays,” Diane said. “He always was in touch. He was very good about that, always reassuring us he was fine and asking how we were. So when we did not hear from him that Thanksgiving, [it] was kind of an ominous silence.”
The next day, Diane, who has a new book, “American Mother,” that details the entirety of the ordeal, learned from two of her son’s colleagues that he had been kidnapped near the border of Turkey while attempting to head home.
“He was en route to meet these colleagues on the border,” she said. “It was a shock and it was very different, because this kidnapping was only witnessed by his fixer, who couldn’t figure out who the captors were.”
Even more disturbing: Foley suddenly vanished for months, leaving Diane and her family with no information about his whereabouts and whether he was dead or alive.
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Dealing With the Government
Diane, who was left bewildered and was intent on saving her son, contacted the U.S. government to get answers. With little knowledge about the political scene and American hostage policies, she was reaching out in the dark hoping to receive illumination and assistance.
“When I reached out to our government and people told me Jim was their highest priority, I really believed it too long,” she said. “I was told to keep quiet initially, not tell anybody. So we went through Christmas and everything, just telling family and dearest friends. But by the beginning of the year, I just felt I had to reach out to media. I really needed help.”
Tragically, she said, the press wasn’t all that interested. Undissuaded, though, Diane quit her job and began making monthly trips to Washington, D.C., where she worked to try and bring her son home.
As European hostages with whom Foley was kidnapped started to return home, she realized that the U.S. “government was not prioritizing [Jim].” In those moments, it would be easy to understand why Diane and her family might have lost composure, given up hope, or been overtaken by rage.
Yet, she persisted, crediting her relationship with the Lord for guiding her.
“[It was] because of … my faith in God, really,” she said. “I prayed all the time, I had good friends and family encouraging me, but I wasted time.”
Confronting the Unimaginable
After nearly two years of pleading and working diligently for Foley’s return, Diane faced every mother’s worst nightmare — only her horror was elevated by the tragic fact that video of Jim’s beheading made international headlines.
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“We were all shocked,” Diane said, reflecting on the video. “I think our government was shocked, to be honest. We were all shocked. I think our government underestimated the Islamic State. I don’t think there’s any question about that.”
Diane continued, “I was very angry, because I felt I’d been patronized, even lied to, and sent in circles in Washington, that I wasn’t respected, I wasn’t enough to tell me the truth that our government had no plans to negotiate, for example. No one ever explained the hostage policy or the fact that we were not ever going to engage with the terrorists.”
All of this manifested in anger when Diane realized her quest to save Foley had come to the most wretched of ends. Ultimately, she felt the government’s response and handling was “unacceptable” and that she needed to leverage that frustration into something positive.
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Rather than allow rage to govern her reaction, the loving mother had to take a different route.
“I felt very challenged by Jim,” Diane said. “Jim was a really optimistic kid. [He] was … the kind of person who always looked for the good, looked for the good in others, expected the good. So I felt very challenged by my God and Jim, to be honest.”
Continue reading Diane’s story here.