The terrible events in southern Israel last weekend defy comprehension. That people can be so cruel beggars belief. The terrorist attacks by young Palestinians directed by Hamas in Gaza and trained and armed by Iran were an abomination for which there is no possible excuse. No political cause, no faith, no principle justifies such butchery, such inhumanity. No words can express the immense pain and suffering visited upon the Jewish people in Israel and beyond. Their grief is our grief. We stand with them.
This unprecedented outrage and its consequences look likely to permanently change Israel and the Middle East. Israeli feelings of horror and revulsion have quickly turned to anger, bringing calls to wipe Hamas “off the face of the earth”. Israel’s political and military leadership, unforgivably caught off-guard, is now battling to regain the trust of the nation. Prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu talks emotionally and not entirely convincingly of creating a “new reality” in Gaza, of ensuring terrorists never again threaten Israel’s people.
