Hamas, an Existential Threat To Israel And The Jewish People.
To ignore evil is to become an accomplice to it.
(Matin Luther King)
Late Saturday, October 7, news of a Hamas terrorist attack on Israel started coming out. However, anyone who was following the unfolding events knew within a very short time that this “terrorist attack” was not a “terrorist attack,” but a barbaric terrorist invasion of Israel. Though many of the atrocities were known within a day or two, the full extent of these horrors is only now being revealed. Unfortunately, I’m bracing myself for further revelations of the depravity of Hamas to become known in the near future.
So far, we know:
- Hamas murdered at least 1,200 people, the vast majority of them civilians;
- The elderly and young were favorite targets of Hamas for murder;
- Hamas engaged in widespread rape of women, and then paraded some through the streets with bloody pants;
- Hamas burned people alive;
- Hamas kidnaped about 150 people to be used as hostages;
- Hamas slaughtered 40 infants, some of whom were decapitated; and
- Hamas terrorists would film the brutal slaying of their victims with the victims’ own cell phones, and then post the videos to the victims’ social media accounts.
We also know that many Palestinians who are not members of Hamas rushed into Israel from Gaza to film and celebrate these horrific atrocities.
By Tuesday Israel reported they recovered about 1,500 dead Hamas terrorists in Israel. To put that in perspective, it is more than one and a half U.S. Army battalions killed. If the Israelis killed that many terrorists, then the total number in the initial attack had to be exceptionally large.
To put the degree of this attack into perspective.[i] If we would have suffered the same percentage of deaths on 9/11, 2001 as the Israelis did on October 7, instead of 2,977 killed. we would have had 37,277 killed – 12.5 times as many as we did. And that does not factor in the rapes, wounded, and kidnapped. Think about that for a minute.
By Sunday afternoon it was clear that this terrorist invasion coupled with the unbelievable depravity of the terrorists had shifted Israel’s perspective. In the past Israel viewed Hamas as a problem that could be managed, now they recognize that the problem can only be solved by the eradication of Hamas. It is time the rest of the world recognizes this fundamental truth.
In response to Hamas’ invasion and in keeping with its new understanding of the problem, Israel’s response was swift and decisive. Since the beginning Israel has launched a massive number of airstrikes against military targets in Gaza and have called up a reported 360,000 reservists, bringing the total number of people on active duty to approximately 530,000. They’ve also closed their border with Gaza and turned off electricity and water they supply and stopped all food and aid shipments. The question is not if Israel is going to launch a ground attack, but when.
As Israel continues their air assault, Palestinian civilian causalities are mounting. What neither Hamas nor the press tell you, is that the blood of those civilians is on the hands of Hamas – who uses them as human shields in a barbaric attempt to garner sympathy from the world. Hamas not only fires rockets into Israel from the roofs of homes, or next to homes, but also builds their military facilities in buildings housing civilians – like apartment buildings and hospitals. A couple of examples;
- Hamas operates a sophisticated command bunker that is located beneath Shifa Hospital in northern Gaza.
- Hamas Fires rockets and mortars from the rooftops of, or in close proximity to, civilian residents, apartment building, schools, hospitals, and mosques.
- Hamas locates their military or security-related infrastructures such as HQs, bases, armories, access routes, and defensive positions within civilian areas, including civilian buildings and mosques;
- Hamas turned the Islamic University of Gaza into a training center for Hamas engineers and R&D facility for its weapons development.
Additionally, Hamas instructed the citizens of Gaza to ignore Israeli warnings to evacuate certain areas. For those who are concerned about Palestinian civilians, as we all should be, I would like to point out two things:
- First, Hamas could stop the fighting right now by releasing the hostages, laying down their weapons, and surrendering to the IDF.
- Second, Egypt shares a border with Gaza. However as of writing this article, Egypt refuses to take Palestinian refugees. Instead, they continue to allow only a few who have been pre-approved by Cairo to cross the border.
Hamas is an existential threat not only to the state of Israel, but to the very survival of all Jews living there. Hamas’ leadership has frequently and publicly called for the extermination of the Jewish people and for years used the schools to indoctrinate their children to hate Jews for committing the non-crime of being Jewish.
If Israel is to continue to exist it cannot abandon its war to eliminate Hamas. It is foolish to ask them to do so in the name of saving civilian lives when Hamas uses them as human shields and Egypt will not accept them as refugees.
Other sources:
[i] In 2011 the population of the U.S. was 285 million. We lost 2,977 people in the 9/11terrorist attacks. In 2023 the population of Israel is 9,174,520 and at least 1,200 were killed during the October 7, attack, or 0.000131 of their population. .000131(311,600,000) = 37,277..