Just a week ago, we saw how fast a viral video could virally whip around the world.

It was taken during Australia’s Hanukkah-by-the-Sea family-fest that turned into a mass shooting tragedy. Yet it ended with that astonishing, made-for Hollywood heroic twist. It was quickly seen by just about all the planet’s most powerful deciders; and also, just about everyone you know.

But we’re all so rushed these days that most of us – and especially our power elites – seem to have missed the lesson we all just saw. So we’re going to rewind, replay and rethink the huge lesson that video can still teach us. Because it could make a world of difference.

Video: At Sydney, Australia’s beachfront park, two black-shirted riflemen were shooting to kill moms, dads and kids they didn’t know – just because they were Jewish. We saw a burly guy in a white shirt rush the back of one of the shooters, jump him as he was firing. They wrestled for the gun – White Shirt got the gun, Black Shirt hit the ground, then got up slowly, staring into the barrel of the gun he’d been using to kill Jews.

He had to be thinking his life was about to end – but no. White Shirt didn’t pull the trigger. He let the mass killer live – and retreat toward his fellow killer (who we now know was also his dad).

Most of us around the world saw that and assumed the hero who saved the Jews was one of the Hanukkah celebrants – maybe an Israeli military vet. Many hours later we got his name: Ahmed el Ahmed.

Yes, he is a Muslim, a fruit vendor, and was born in Syria. Now he’s a married father of two young girls. He just came to the beach for a cup of coffee. But when the shooting started, he jumped his fellow Muslim and saved uncountable numbers of Jews. Later, Ahmed was shot twice in the arm; he’s hospitalized and recovering.

“He wasn’t thinking about the background of the people he’s saving, the people dying in the street,” said the hero’s father, Mohamed Fateh el Ahmed. “He doesn’t discriminate between one nationality and another.”

Think of what Ahmed actually did: He saw someone committing despicable and inhumane evil – and quickly chose to save his fellow humans. Even though the victims were Jewish.

Ahmed acted with strength and courage to prevent fellow Muslims in Australia from murdering Jewish moms, dads, children and grandparents. Now let’s spin our globe and apply Ahmed’s golden rule.

Our globe stops at the Middle East. Violence-bent rightwing Israeli settlers in the West Bank have been committing atrocious crimes – bloodshed and arson – against Palestinians who live there. The Israeli extremists seek to drive the Palestinians out and take over their homes and land.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu knows the crimes his people are committing are abhorrent. But he hasn’t moved aggressively to stop them because he fears his far-right government will collapse. Just as Ahmed did half a world away, Netanyahu must act strongly and decisively to stop his people from their inhumane crimes. Most Israelis cannot abide the crimes their people are committing while their leader averts his eyes.

Doing the right thing isn’t an option. It’s the only thing – in Australia, in Israel, and most definitely here in the United States. President Donald Trump watched the video and praised Ahmed’s heroism in preventing a fellow Muslim from murdering Jews.

But Trump lets his Secretary of War – who proudly showed the world 26 unclassified videos of his military sinking small Venezuelan boats allegedly running drugs – now refuse to release video of his military’s second strike that killed two survivors clinging to their shattered boat’s overturned hull.

Military law defines that as a crime. The Defense Department’s Law of War Manual states that making “shipwrecked… armed forces and other persons… the object of attack is strictly prohibited.”

But Republicans who control Congress have failed to hold hearings demanding full disclosure and reasserting their right to declare war. Also, many congressional Republicans abhor dictatorship-like scenes of immigration raids where masked enforcement teams brutally arrest civilians who, we later learn, weren’t the worst of the worst, but hard-working, tax-paying Latin American residents.

We grew up thinking America was the world’s good guys. Today, many Republican friends and others I respect loathe Trump’s policies and ways; but not publicly. They are embarrassed by his childlike king-of-the-sandbox name-calling, bullying, bragging, lying and misconduct. But a partywide laryngitis pandemic still prevents them from loudly demanding that their leader reflect their values.

Many congressional Republicans understandably fear Trump’s primary campaign retribution. But there are also many fine wealthy Republican civilians who proudly contribute to their party and leader. Their continued silence enables policies and acts no one would attribute to good guys.

Republicans in high places, and maybe in your home, will repossess their lost pride by heeding the lesson we just learned from a fruit vendor from Syria who saved Australia’s Jews and became the world’s hero.

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