Putting the 10/7 raid on Israel into perspective

What would the U.S. reaction be to a major terrorist strike against us that claimed 41,000 American lives?

We have already witnessed our response to a far lower loss of lives – the nearly 3,000 caused by al-Qaida’s 9/11 attack. But that tally represents only one-thirteenth of the 41,000 total. It did lead to us sending military forces overseas to destroy the group and to locate its founder, Osama bin Laden, and his No. 2, Ayman al-Zawahiri.

It took almost a decade, but on May 1, 2011, bin Laden was located and killed in an Abbottabad, Pakistan, safe house by U.S. Navy SEALs conducting a quick in-and-out helicopter raid. It would take 11 more years to locate al-Zawahiri, found living in a safe house in Kabul, Afghanistan, where he was killed on July 21, 2022, by a remotely piloted vehicle firing two Hellfire missiles.

The fact that we dedicated over two decades to tracking down these two murderers was a testimonial to our commitment to convey the message to future would-be terrorists that no matter how long it took, we would hunt them down and kill them. It is an accountability policy that Israel is well-known for as it tracked down every single Islamic terrorist involved in the 1972 Munich Olympic Games attack that killed 11 Israeli athletes.

But what if another terrorist attack occurred – by a group that had been regularly penetrating our borders for years to kill our citizens – striking at a city, for example, like Albany, New York, killing 41,000 of its citizens? Such a toll would equal 40% of Albany’s population in one fell swoop.

Undoubtedly, such an attack would release a wave of fury among our population demanding that we seek to eliminate that threat forever.

What the West fails to grasp about the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas raid into Israel that claimed the lives of 1,200 innocent civilians is that it was equivalent – based on Israel’s current population compared to ours – to the U.S. losing 41,000 citizens. Any country suffering such a dramatic loss of its citizens – further enraged by the fact the attackers not only tortured and brutalized their victims but also took over 200 of them hostage as they withdrew – has a license to undertake whatever actions it deems necessary to prevent the terrorists from ever posing a threat again.

In its Oct. 7 attack, Hamas was acting to fulfill its declared mission to eradicate Israel. So committed is it to that mission that negotiations to cease hostilities have no purpose but one – to buy time to heal its wounds, as it did after the 2014 war with Israel, only to launch future attacks against Israel. And, Hamas is not alone in its effort to eradicate Israel as it is now known that at least 7,000 Gazans accompanied the terrorist group on its attack to rape, pillage and plunder the Jewish state.

The Hamas mindset toward Israel is no different than Iran’s mindset towards the U.S. Looking back at the 2015 nuclear arms agreement President Barack Obama negotiated with Tehran’s mullahs – one he assured us would prevent Iran from ever having such weapons – we can see it has been an absolute failure. Iran is now on the brink of developing those weapons. Meanwhile, having turned a blind eye to Iran, allowing it to play us like a fiddle in furtherance of its objectives, we expect Israel to negotiate a ceasefire with a terrorist group looking to do the same with it.

We naively ignore the fact that Iran – by virtue of it supplying terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah with weapons – has them doing its bidding against Israeli and U.S. interests. As the Biden/Harris administration puts pressure on Israel to reach ceasefire terms with Hamas – which will only enable its survival to fight another day – we are doing Iran’s bidding as well. We not only hog tie Israel from achieving its goal to eradicate a threat but, by so doing, prevent it from preserving U.S. interests in the Middle East.

The bodies of six Israeli hostages – kidnapped by Hamas on Oct. 7 and held captive ever since – were recently found, shot at close range multiple times only 48-72 hours earlier. In an act of absolute Western stupidity, two days later the United Kingdom terminated some of its arm sales to Israel due to “a clear risk that they (British weapons) might be used to commit or facilitate a serious violation of international humanitarian law.” As Hamas blatantly violates humanitarian law, it is Israel – fighting to rescue every remaining hostage life – that gets scrutinized.

This is especially shocking as Hamas announced, after Israel successfully rescued four hostages alive in June, those guarding Israeli hostages were instructed to kill their wards whenever IDF soldiers approached.

An outraged Israeli Knesset member criticized the U.K.’s act as a betrayal of the free world, adding:

“On October 7th, Hamas brutally slaughtered babies in their cribs, burned entire families alive, and murdered children and parents in their homes. IDF soldiers are fighting and sacrificing their lives not just for Israel, but to defend the entire free world. If Israel doesn’t defeat this terror, you will be next. It’s time for the world to wake up.”

Meanwhile, when Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz was queried about the six hostages murdered by Hamas, unbelievably he dodged giving a response.

In pressing Israel to negotiate with Hamas, it is imperative we put its Oct. 7 losses into context. The loss of 1,200 lives may seem insignificant to a country boasting a population of 330 million, but it is very significant to a country with a population of only 9.5 million. When one factors in that Hamas has a long history as well of randomly murdering Jews on their own soil, Israel deserves the right to respond as it sees fit to eradicate the threat once and for all.

It is despicable for President Joe Biden, eager to force a Gaza peace deal upon Israel before leaving office, to support Hamas by claiming the Jewish state is “not doing enough.” Having suffered a devastating loss equivalent to the murder of 41,000 Americans, there is nothing more Israel need do but destroy the terrorist group once and for all.