I never thought as a liberal I would ever subscribe to the 15th century counsel of Niccolò Machiavelli but then came October 7
By David E. Kaplan
Times have changed; a threshold has been crossed.
Hamas has exposed its barbarism and much of the world has exposed its antisemitism.
In Israel’s past wars with Gaza, by day three, many of us active in combatting the inevitable international narrative against Israel, particularly the lawyers amongst us, would have already begin preparing legal arguments to submit to the ICC – International Court of Justice. Our committee, TbT (Truth be Told), established in 2001 to combat the global media assault on the Jewish state would have been in high gear. Today, we have a different mindset – we just don’t care anymore – and hope that the endless propaganda photos of a devastated Gaza shown all day, notably on Al Jazeera, BBC, Sky and France 24 designed to stir hate against Jews will this time have a sobering impact of deterrence –‘Mess with Israel at your peril’
No doubt the Mullahs of Iran and Nasrallah in Lebanon are looking too at these photos of urban devastation and considering:
“Is it worth it to push these Jews too far? Do we really want to invite Israel to transform our landscape as well?”
If these are the cerebral calculations percolating in their evil distorted minds – good.
This time Israel will agree to a cease fire when it deems fit to do so not when the hypocrites at the UN decide.
For far too long, since the time of the exile from Jerusalem by the Romans 2000 years ago, Jews were expected to take it; not fight back; after each beating to pack our bags and with stooped shoulders and heads down, move on to the next temporary home.
The wandering Jew – we were a people constantly culled, always at the mercy of others to be spat on, segregated into Ghettoes and abused at leisure. The Holocaust was to be the final straw – “Never Again”. Joe Biden is the first world leader to truly “get it” – his words – and why he repeats it when he tells the story of his first meeting as a young senator in 1973 with Golda Meir who said:
“We Jews have a secret weapon; we have nowhere else to go!”
We don’t even today; evident by the spike in antisemitism across the world reaching levels of a ‘global pogrom’.
In Russia’s Dagestan , a crazed mob stormed a plane from Tel Aviv chanting antisemitic slogans reminiscent of a dark past under the Tzars and in the USA where it was once believed Jews had found sanctuary, FBI Director Christopher Wray has warned that antisemitism in the US is a national crisis. Universities in Europe and the US are not safe but danger zones for Jews as the UK and France are also warning of major upticks in antisemitic incidents. Addressing the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Wray was not being over dramatic when he warned “This is a threat that is reaching, in some way, sort of historic levels.” He added that although Jews make up only about 2.4% of the US public, they account for about 60% of all religious-based hate crimes. If Jews thought “Never Again”, Hamas sent the message, “Forever Again”.
It is not only Hamas but the world’s reaction to Hamas’s barbarism that has reminded Jews why Israel needs to fight hard and smash Hamas and send a strong message to Hezbollah and Iran. Hence the resonance of Machiavelli: “It is better to be feared than to be loved”.
Going into Gaza with massive force – land, sea and air – Israeli officials are constantly grilled on TV networks that even if Hamas is defeated:
“What about the day after?”
What Israel does know is that if it allows this governing evil to prevail, there will be “no day after” for Jews, not in Israel not anywhere. While we should have been wizened by a 2000 years of history, we had a painful refresher course on October 7, 2023.
And the first lesson of instruction is the realisation that the monsters Israel is facing are not fighting for a better future for the Palestinian people but to extinguish the future of the Jewish people. You only have to listen to what Hamas officials are saying.
“Israel is a country that has no place on our land,” Hamas politburo member Ghazi Hamad told Lebanese news outlet LBCI news this week.
“We must remove that country,” he continued.
And while Israel is struggling to come to terms with the worst horror to inflict the Jewish people since the Holocaust, Hamad says:
“We will repeat October 7 again and again.”
When asked a week earlier on BBC about the massacre perpetrated by his Hamas comrades on the 7 October, Hamad stormed out of the interview.
You cannot reason with such people as the world discovered it couldn’t reason with Hitler and the Nazis. There are some people you need to defeat not debate.
Today after 10/7, Israel is not the same country and Israelis are not the same people. Not only because of what horrifically befell Jews on that day but the clear message of the world in its reaction to it.
Jews brutally murdered, raped, butchered, babies decapitated and taken away as hostages, all under a barrage of thousands of rockets aimed from Gaza at Israel’s civilian areas – all “war Crimes” – but it is only Israel’s response that the world hysterically accuses of “War Crimes”. The manic mouthings on the streets and city squares across the world are clear:
“From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” meaning free of Jews!
This is not about constructing a Palestinian state but deconstructing the only Jewish state. The barbarity inflicted on the state of Israel by Gazans was celebrated by their fellow Palestinians in Ramallah as a victory.
What hope is there for creating a future Palestinian state with people who celebrate massacres as victories? As I wrote in a previous article (ISRAEL’S “DAY OF INFAMY”), when Hamas killers carried off Israeli hostages, they carried off as well any chance of a Palestinian state for generations to come.
Jews have returned to their ancestral homeland and fulfilled the biblical prophesies of the “return of the exiles” and the “desert will bloom”. There remains an outstanding prophecy of Isiaah of “Turning swords into ploughshares” to be fulfilled. It will have to wait. Jews have a war to win, and yes, there will be civilian casualties. The difference is that Israel tries to prevent such casualties while Hamas sets out to cause them. This the world chooses not to see as exemplified by Queen Rania of Jordan denying on CNN that such atrocities by Palestinians were perpetrated or by the Secretary General of the UN, Antonio Guterres saying to the world that the wholesale slaughter by Hamas “Did not happen in a vacuum.”
Can you imagine if Kofi Annan, the UN Chief in 2001, had reacted to 9/11 in his address to the General Assembly by saying:
“it did not happen in a vacuum”.
It would have been tantamount to excusing the evil perpetrators of the worst terrorist attack ever on American soil. Would not Americans across the board have demanded his dismissal?
But then, the UN Secretary Geneal in 2001 would not have said that!
The truth is that Guterres’ “vacuum” comment was also not said “in a vacuum”. It exposed Guterres and the UN’s systemic antisemitism. Guterres’ refusal to apologize or even to sense the danger of his words in the light of his esteemed position only added fuel to the raging fire of global antisemitism. The man and the organization he heads are a disgrace.
Irrespective of what Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran and much of their supporters across the world think or do, Israel is here to stay – permanently – and the Jewish state will do what it takes to fortify its future.
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