Ari Shavit
The massacre of October 7, 2023, was one of the most horrific atrocities perpetrated since World War II. On that day, Hamas-led militants kidnapped Israeli children, raped Israeli women, beheaded Israeli men, and burned alive entire Israeli families in their homes. But beyond this human and moral calamity, the catastrophe that befell Israel on a bleak Sabbath morning reverberates with historic significance. Because it took place in the immediate vicinity of Gaza—the one place in which Israel had dismantled settlements and withdrawn to the 1967 border—this massacre was an attack on the idea of a Jewish state in any part of the land of Israel. Because its very essence was the slaughter of peace-loving kibbutzniks and life-celebrating music festival attendees, it was an assault on the existence of a liberal and cosmopolitan democracy in the Middle East. And because it led to a surge of anti-Semitism the likes of which had not been seen since 1945, it was a blatant act of aggression against the Jewish people as a whole.
The attack was highly significant not only for Israelis and Jews, however, but also for the entire world. Hamas was able to carry out a technically sophisticated assault thanks to its patron, Iran, which has become a formidable regional power. And Iran’s influence, in turn, rests on its links to China, North Korea, and Russia—a nascent authoritarian axis that seeks to upend the U.S.-backed liberal international order. For Israel, 7/10 was 9/11 on steroids, and for the Jewish people, 7/10 was a new Kristallnacht. But the international community should have perceived the attack as a sequel to Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion of Ukraine: the second violent conflagration of the second Cold War. Hamas’s savagery was backed by an aggressive Iran that is supported by the authoritarian axis; as such, October 7 was a direct assault on the free world.
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