There is a saying that has become popular in recent years: When someone shows you who they are, believe them. The barbarity of Hamas and other Iranian proxies leaves no doubt about their murderous intentions. Islamists consider any Jewish social and political equality an “occupation.” History tells us as much.
On Oct. 7, Hamas and other Gaza-based terrorist groups launched hundreds of rockets and infiltrated the Jewish state. More than 1,400 Israelis were murdered, thousands wounded, and hundreds taken hostage and brought back to Gaza. At one music festival, more than 260 attendees were shot, beaten, and stabbed to death. Women were raped on the corpses of their friends.
Small communities in Israel’s south were subjected to unimaginable horrors. Children were shot in front of their parents, babies were murdered in their cribs, older adults were set on fire in their own homes, and family dogs were dismembered in front of screaming children. The brutality was planned.
Documents recovered from slain terrorists show that Hamas intentionally targeted youth centers and kindergartens. Interrogated Hamas operatives have also acknowledged that civilians were deliberately targeted, raped and tortured.
As for Hamas, it was proud of its handiwork. The group livestreamed its barbarism.
But instead of condemning Hamas’ wanton brutality, some in the West have excused it. Hours after the massacre — before the Israel Defense Forces even responded — college campuses and city streets filled with those celebrating the violence.
Some in the press, such as Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah, have even claimed that the Hamas attack was but the inevitable result of Israel’s “occupation” and the lack of a Palestinian state. History and the facts say otherwise.
The scale of the atrocities is new, but they are not without precedent.
In 1920, Jews were massacred in Jerusalem by Arab rioters led by Amin al-Husseini, a future Nazi collaborator. Husseini wanted to sway ruling British officials from supporting a separate Jewish state in the Jewish people’s ancestral homeland. The rioters chanted “the Jews are our dogs” and “we will drink the blood of the Jews.” More violence followed.
(Read the rest of CAMERA’s Oct. 18, 2023 Washington Times Op-Ed here)