Slaughter and horror
Anyone with eyes to see or ears to hear is familiar with episodes of horrific violence over the past few decades. Evil people commit unspeakable crimes against humanity with horrifying regularity.
But somehow Hamas’ slaughter of Israelis last weekend feels different in its intensity and immediacy, and not just because the terrorists grotesquely exploited social media to document their atrocities.
The chilling and methodical depravity that stalked infants and the very old, as well as young people joyfully dancing at a music festival, was profoundly disturbing because it was so purposeful and purposeless: An army of mass murderers rampaged in search of victims targeted solely because they were Jews. No military objective, no strategic aim.
This was as violent an eruption of the ancient evil as we have seen since 1945. However much, over the past three-quarters of a century, we have seen crowds chant “Death to Israel” and “Death to America,” many of us never imagined the existence of would-be Nazi hordes who, given the chance to kill Jews, would kill and kill and kill, and then celebrate the carnage.
We knew there were murderous antisemitic fanatics surrounding Israel and even in the United States, certainly dozens of them and perhaps hundreds. Many have used suicide as a weapon, so deep was their hatred. But the idea that, once the Israeli military responded, some 1,500 terrorist bodies were left in the wake of this bloodletting suggests that many, many more retreated to Gaza with their hostages.
Exactly how many would-be terrorists eager to kill Jews are in Gaza, in southern Lebanon, in Iran, awaiting their chance? Did we really think we could negotiate with a Tehran regime that sponsored, approved and applauded these atrocities?
But we did believe it. Many people I know were convinced of the wisdom of negotiating with Iran. Even the most conservative “peace through strength” conservatives I have known for decades did not imagine that our enemies would be capable of such evil as we have just seen.
The number of people struggling to express their sense of horror that such sinister violence against Jews could be perpetrated in the 21st century is leaving me at a loss for words, unable to focus on anything else.
My contempt for the unserious people who destabilized the Congress on the eve of this outrage only grows, and so does my disgust for those who sign petitions and march in apparent support for the perpetrators of this savagery.
We cannot allow ourselves the luxury of believing “never again” actually meant “never again.” Israel will now wage the war it must, to shatter the very idea that the deep evil driving Hamas can be allowed to thrive. The United States and the civilized world—which includes many Muslim nations—must support this effort.