On Oct. 7, Palestinian terrorists from the Gaza Strip infiltrated Israeli territory and began a campaign of barbarism and brutality the likes of which the Jewish state had never seen. Over one bloody day, an appalling 1,400 people were hunted down and killed in a genocidal pogrom.
Entire families were slaughtered in their homes. Parents were murdered in front of their children, children executed in front of their parents. At least 260 young adults at a music festival were methodically murdered in cold blood. Israelis were kidnapped and taken to the Gaza Strip, where the terrorists paraded them to a cheering rabble thirsty for Jewish blood.
Unfortunately, this list of horrors is just a sample. It goes on and on. The savage tactics used by Hamas resemble the worst war crimes of Islamic State and even Nazi Germany.
While many blame faulty intelligence for the failure to prevent this attack, some blame can also be laid at the feet of the Biden administration, which continues to financially reward Iran—Hamas’s primary funder. Such appeasement of evil-doers only encourages them to accelerate their campaigns to destroy Israel and harm America’s interests in the region.
Indeed, this grotesque campaign of bloodshed, orchestrated by Hamas monsters, is ironclad proof that attempts to placate the mutual enemies of Israel and the United States are as futile as were the attempts to appease Nazi Germany before World War II.
As sickening as the Hamas attack was, some enemies of Israel voiced the opinion that the Jewish state had it coming—as if to say Jews deserved to be massacred.
The Oct. 7 Palestinian terror massacre was the greatest slaughter of Jews in one day since the Holocaust. Eylon Levy, a former spokesperson for Israeli President Isaac Herzog, posted online, “It’s no exaggeration to say yesterday [Oct. 7] was the darkest day in Jewish history since the end of the Holocaust.”
Others have compared the Hamas attack to the 9/11 terrorist attack on the United States, in which approximately 2,600 Americans were murdered. That comparison is a woeful understatement. When you calculate Israel’s death toll in proportion to its population, it would be as if 41,000 Americans were killed.
Hamas committed a myriad of repulsive atrocities. They went house-to-house, killing entire families. They burned people alive. In Kfar Aza, a kibbutz close to the Gaza border, the bodies of babies and toddlers were found decapitated. A mother, father, son and daughter were filmed by Hamas terrorists crying in their home in Kibbutz Be’eri after their third child, a young girl, was killed.
Hamas also took at least 199 men, women, children and elderly hostage, including a Holocaust survivor in a wheelchair. One young woman was murdered, stripped to her underwear and paraded through Gaza on the back of a truck, to cries of “Allahu Akbar” (God is great). Passersby spit on her body.
According to the non-profit organization Israel War Room, Hamas was particularly targeting women for kidnapping. The group posted on X (formerly Twitter), “Hamas seems to have kidnapped mostly women. It has already been confirmed that Hamas fighters are using rape as a weapon of war.”
Hamas’s barbaric tactics resemble those of ISIS and Nazi Germany. Like the Einsatzgruppen, the jihadis rounded up Jews, herded them into rooms and then shot them. Like ISIS, they proudly showed off their hostages, parading them through the streets of Gaza and humiliating them. Now, they are threatening to kill hostages on camera, just as ISIS did. In a recent speech, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said, “We have always known what Hamas is. Now the whole world knows. Hamas is ISIS.”
The policies of the Biden administration encouraged Hamas and their Iranian backers to escalate their campaign to destroy Israel and harm American interests in the Middle East. After Biden took office, he immediately restored funding to the Palestinians that was cut off by the Trump administration—funding that Biden knew would go to subsidizing the Palestinians’ “pay-for-slay” policy of giving generous salaries to Palestinians who kill Jews.
Biden also relaxed sanctions on Iran in the hopes of renewing the nuclear deal negotiated by the Obama administration, freeing up billions of dollars for the Islamic Republic to fund its terrorist proxies, including Hamas. Just last month, Biden gave Iran access to $6 billion in exchange for freeing American hostages, further swelling the mullahs’ coffers. Since taking hostages proved so lucrative for Iran, it’s no surprise that its proxy Hamas followed its patron’s example and took at least 199 people, including Americans, captive during their assault on Israel.
To his credit, Biden had the courage unequivocally to condemn Hamas’s brutal acts. The same cannot be said of many others, who believe that Israel and the Jewish people are receiving their just desserts for their treatment of the Palestinians. Indeed, people at rallies in cities all over the world rejoiced in the mass slaughter of Jews orchestrated by Hamas.
At the Sydney Opera House in Australia, they chanted “gas the Jews” and “death to the Jews.” A demonstrator interviewed at a rally in New York said, “Hamas is a logical conclusion for people struggling and uprising.”
At Harvard University, 35 student organizations issued a joint statement blaming Israel for Hamas’s attack. At Yale University, the pro-Palestinian Student Association expressed “support for the Palestinian resistance against the violent colonial oppression by settlers.” The Yale Students Association stated, “We mourn the tragic loss of civilian lives and hold the Zionist regime responsible.”
There is no justification for Hamas’s genocidal rampage against Israel and the Jewish people. History recalls that the Nazis’ atrocities against the Jews were also justified by those who believed in false, antisemitic tropes. Using false claims about Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians to justify the slaughter of hundreds of Jews by Hamas terrorists is equally evil.
Source: JNS