Upon learning that Winston Churchill had died, University of Chicago professor Leo Strauss told his students, "The contrast between the indomitable and magnanimous statesman and the insane tyrant—this spectacle in its clear simplicity was one of the greatest lessons which men can learn, at any time." Last October 7, there was another simple spectacle: the twisted insanity of anti-Semitism in all its horror, and an indomitable Jewish people fighting back.
That morning, nearly 4,000 Hamas fighters overwhelmed the 600 Israeli soldiers stationed along the border and broke into southern Israel. As Hamas overran military bases and cut off communications, the Israeli military struggled to respond. For one day, the Arab-Israeli conflict became a people's war.
The most famous image of October 7 is of Noa Argamani reaching out to her boyfriend as terrorists dragged her into Gaza. There, in a few seconds of video, is the world's oldest hatred in full view, and so is the simple desire of its victims for a normal life with the people they love. Cruelty has so disfigured her assailants' souls that they proudly released the video, and throughout the day Hamas and its allies jubilantly displayed their atrocities.
But those images are not the full picture. As thousands more Gazans joined the death squads to torture, rape, and butcher 1,200 Israelis, they slaughtered many civilians who had no way to defend themselves. Others, like Adar and Itay Berdychivsky, killed seven terrorists and saved their babies' lives before they fell. Heavily outnumbered and outgunned security guards repelled waves of attackers and protected entire communities.
As the Gazans worked their devilry, thousands of Israelis charged into the fray. Some units arrived piecemeal, some soldiers ran miles to the sound of the guns, and on their way they met civilians—some armed, some not—all grimly determined to throw back the assault and save their endangered countrymen. They killed 1,609 terrorists.
October 7 showed why Zionism is necessary. As the attack, the worldwide celebrations, and the ongoing genocidal rallies reveal, hatred of Jews has not abated. The Holocaust shamed most anti-Semites into silence. Hamas's depravities, however, enthuse them.
But now, the Jews can fight back. As one father remarked at his son's funeral, without Israel, "the image engraved in our collective memory would have been the photograph of that helpless Jewish boy in the Warsaw Ghetto holding his hands up in the air with Nazi rifles pointed at him." Instead, "the Jewish people are no longer helpless in the face of our enemies." Whoever heard of a pogrom where the dead murderers outnumber the murdered?
Few sights are more inspiring than a free people defending their homeland, and the Israelis are hammering Hamas, Iran, and Iran's other minions who joined the fight. Hamas planned to rule a captive Israel, but instead it skulks beneath the ruins of Gaza. Nearly all of Hezbollah's leaders are dead, and Israeli forces recently entered southern Lebanon to protect northern Israel's besieged communities. For the second time this war, Iran launched hundreds of missiles at Israel to little effect.
There are still 101 hostages in Gaza, 7 Americans among them. Israel recently recovered the bodies of six murdered by Hamas just before they could be freed. One of them, Ori Danino, was only there because he left safety to save lives and was taken. Amazingly, these hostages—emaciated, half-suffocated, kept in a pitch-black tunnel so cramped that they could not stand—fought back when their tormentors became their murderers.
The cost of October 7 has been too high, both for the Israelis and for the innocent Arabs whom Hamas and Iran have cynically and systematically thrown into the line of fire. No one wants to see this suffering—including the Israelis, who routinely expose themselves to danger to warn Gazan and Lebanese civilians. This is the price for years of American appeasement, and the Lebanese are the latest to pay it.
In Shakespeare's Henry V, the king tells his men before a desperate battle, "This story shall the good man teach his son." Like Henry's men, the Israelis are winning a famous victory. But they do not fight for the dubious claims of some king, or even for their own gain. They fight for the right to live in peace. All people of good will should help them.
The lesson of October 7 is that even in the face of enormous cruelty, there are few forces more tenacious than a free people defending the ones they love. And when the battle comes, it is no longer the Jews who should feel afraid.