The October 7 massacre is a pivotal moment in Jewish and Israeli history. An accurate and unvarnished understanding of its significance reveals the contours of a future inevitable for Israel and the Palestinians.
Hamas must be obliterated. For decades, Hamas was “managed.” It was assumed by all that it was reasonable for Israel to tolerate hundreds and thousands of rockets being fired at civilians, or the occasional roadside shooting, or suicide bombing, because they only killed a relatively small number of Jews. And any Israeli response would quickly be condemned as “disproportionate.” October 7 means that such thinking is permanently and irremediably obsolete.
As long as Hamas exists, another October 7 is possible. In fact, unavoidable. Ghazi Hamad, a member of Hamas’ political bureau, has already said so. “We must teach Israel a lesson, and we will do it twice and three times. The Al-Aqsa Deluge [the name Hamas gave its October 7 onslaught] is just the first time, and there will be a second, a third, a fourth.” They did teach Israel a lesson, and Israel has learned the lesson very well. There is only one inescapable conclusion from it: This is intolerable. Hamas must be obliterated.
This does not give Israel a moral blank check. There are laws of war, humanitarian law, etc. Not least among these is the principle of avoiding, to the extent possible, causing injury to innocent civilians. That being said, refer back to point one. Israel will no longer allow Hamas to effectively use human shields to protect itself. Case in point, the attacks (plural) on Jabalia refugee camp. After the first attack, the media reflexively spoke of the extreme loss of civilian life, the heartbreaking stories of whole families being killed, etc. And of course, the blood libel accusation of genocide reared its ugly head.
The fact that under the refugee camp was hidden a Hamas stronghold, complete with Ibrahim Biari, one of the planners of the Oct. 7 terror attack, and many dozens of his men, was irrelevant. As was the fact that Israelis had been urging Palestinians to leave the area for weeks. As was the fact that in some cases Hamas actively prevented civilians from leaving, taking car keys, even shooting people. As was the fact that the death toll, all the breathless BBC reporting aside, was in the dozens, not the thousands.
Under normal circumstances, the accusations against Israel would take their toll. The New York Times and Washington Post would write pearl-clutching articles about how Israel was “losing the moral high ground,” etc., etc. Senator Sanders would try to “save Israel from itself.” Myanmar would tear itself away from crushing its Rohingya Muslim minority, and China its Uyghur Muslim minority long enough to call for yet another U.N. General Assembly resolution condemning “genocide, apartheid, islamophobia, racism, settler colonialism, and women wearing pants” that would pass by a vote of 140-5 with France abstaining. And Israel would freeze, and reluctantly agree to a cease-fire.
But this time, an odd thing happened. Israel went back the next day and bombed the Jabalia camp again. Evidently more Hamas terrorists were hidden there, and neutralizing them was more important than the world’s opinion. Israel is not playing. Hamas must be obliterated.
Put another way, the “normal” thinking—it wasn’t “normal” at all, because it wouldn’t apply to anyone else, but it was of course applied to Israel—the “normal” thinking was that Israel had a right to defend itself, but because Hamas so successfully embedded itself among the civilian population, at a certain point the “collateral damage” would rise to a level where Israel would have to stop. And therefore live with the continued presence of Hamas. And therefore with the threat of an October 7. That was “normal.” [sic]. No longer. October 7 is the unyielding cliff against which the waves of moral relativism crash in vain.
Now, after October 7, all thinking must be reversed. Hamas must be obliterated. If Hamas has (illegally) embedded itself among the civilian population, it is not Israel that must stop. The innocent civilians of Gaza, if they are to be saved, must be saved another way. October 7 has permanently changed the equation of proportionality. The Israelis are no longer responding to some ineffective and inconvenient rockets. They are responding to babies being burned alive in ovens. The world will have to live with it.
There has been talk about a humanitarian pause, in order to do….something. Whatever that “something” is does not require a pause in the obliteration of Hamas. If the world wants to bring in water, medicine, and food, fine. If the world wants to let people (foreign nationals, the wounded, children) out of Gaza, fine. If the world wants to have a discussion about civilians, or hostages, or a Palestinian state, or anything else, fine. Go right ahead. But Israel has a job to do and absolutely no reason to stop doing it. They brought in dozens of trucks with supplies, without a pause. It could be thousands. They let out hundreds of people, without a pause. It could be tens of thousands. There is only one thing a pause could accomplish, and that is to strengthen Hamas. But Hamas must be obliterated.
Israeli spokespersons have often been criticized for bringing up the Holocaust. Since Israel is powerful and privileged, it is argued, it has no right to evoke the memory of the Holocaust in order to portray itself as weak and vulnerable. October 7 has demonstrated exactly how powerful and privileged Jews are, and how apt the Holocaust comparisons are as well. Jewish babies burned alive in ovens. Bodies so burned that there is not even any DNA left to identify them. Girls literally raped to the point that their pelvises were shattered. As our ancestors responded when our sister Dinah was raped by Shechem, “An outrage was done to Israel…and such shall not be done.”
But the Holocaust comparison does not stop there. The response to October 7 is similar to the response to the Holocaust in many ways. On the one hand, celebration by the perpetrators. On the other hand, denial that it ever even happened. The same terrorist bragging about his murder of babies on TikTok will claim that he only fought Israeli soldiers. In the same way as a Holocaust denier wishes that Hitler killed even more.
And of course, blaming the victims. Jews supposedly died in the Holocaust because of the wrongs done to the German people. Jews supposedly died at a dance concert because of the wrongs done to the Palestinian people. As the moral geniuses at Harvard (obscenely) claimed, “We, the undersigned student organizations, hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence.” Just like the Jews were responsible for Auschwitz. After all, if there were no Jews, Auschwitz never would have happened. Makes perfect sense. If you’re at Harvard.
And perhaps most painful—the double death of denial. It was not terrible enough that Jews died in the Shoah. The Holocaust deniers kill them a second time by claiming it never happened, and thus erasing their memory. The same dynamic underlies the cretins tearing down the posters depicting the 230 hostages held by Hamas. It was bad enough that they were taken. Now, it is important to erase them, so they don’t get in the way of the important thing—condemning the Israeli response.
There is an additional perversity in this. The actions of Hamas were so barbaric that they cannot be shown on television. But since they can’t be shown, they can’t be proven. It is the same paradox faced by the Holocaust Museum in Washington. If they show what really happened, it would be too obscene to be bearable, and no one would see it. But the alternative was to “soften” the presentation, by which means many millions of people have successfully been shown something other than what really happened. So that is why all over the world, assemblies of journalists have been shown the equivalent of 43 minutes worth of “snuff films” showing what Hamas really did, and leaving it to the journalists—many physically sickened by what the witnessed, many proclaiming that it was the worst cruelty they had ever experienced—to figure out how to make the point. Good luck.
The barbarity of Hamas, and the world’s disheartening but increasing support for it, should not surprise us. It is the inevitable outcome of the 1970’s terrorist chic rhetoric that allows “the oppressed” to fight against their “oppressor” “by any means necessary.” So while Israel must be held to a higher standard than any other nation on earth, Hamas is allowed, indeed, encouraged, to use “any means necessary.”
Hence, October 7.
Hence, Hamas must be obliterated.
It is the moral mandate of our time.