Just as happened 50 years ago, radical Islamic forces launched a murderous assault against the world’s only Jewish state on a Holy Day on the Jewish calendar. They knew Jews would be busy at prayer and holiday observances, making the surprise that much worse. And to say they acted like animals is inaccurate only in that animals are incapable of the level of depravity they proudly recorded on video.
Barring a life-threatening emergency, observant Jews do not use electronics or telephones during the Sabbath and holidays — so although reports of the attack trickled through the Jewish community here in America, we were unable to read the news until Sunday evening. There was one thing, though, I knew to expect: calls for “restraint.” They come after each terrorist atrocity against Israel, and this case was no different.
Hamas, of course, never acts with restraint. Restraint entails, among other things, trying to avoid killing civilians, and Hamas targets civilians. What spokesmen for Egypt, the UAE, Russia, China, Australia, South Africa, and the UN secretary-general have called for, then, is “restraint” in Israel’s response to the worst massacre of Jews since the Nazi Holocaust. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and her colleague Rep. Cori Bush used a still more offensive term: “de-escalation.”
These calls are not merely inappropriate and one-sided, but genuinely evil. This pogrom transpired precisely because Israel was pressured into listening to previous calls for “restraint.”
Think about it: Not once have world leaders called for restraint from Ukraine. History records no
