The greatest perversity of those who conceived the atrocious terrorist attack committed by Hamas in Israel on October 7 seems to have aimed, looking back now, at much more than extreme violence and terror.
It aimed to put Israel in a lose-lose situation with the goal, seemingly crowned with success, of reawakening a terrible monster, only dormant since the end of World War II – antisemitism.
In hindsight, the scenario was simple. An attack of extreme violence, beyond the level the area was accustomed to. An attack planned with rather rudimentary means, like those paragliders with which Hamas terrorists landed at the festival where they slaughtered dozens of young people.
Violence that could not, especially in the case of a people with the mentality and history of the Israelis, fail to provoke terrible fury and a corresponding response. The Tel Aviv government could not have avoided a military response, even if they had wanted to. The people would have torn them apart. And if we were in their place?
And for the predictable response, Hamas prepared an authentic image and victimization nuclear weapon: human shields with which they lined up absolutely all key military targets. All of Hamas’s criminal infrastructure was under buildings with humanitarian value, especially schools and hospitals. So any strike against these Hamas targets involved civilian casualties.
And at the first civilian actually killed by Hamas, after being used as a human shield, an entire antisemitic propaganda machine unleashed the monster and incited it not only against the state of Israel, but against Jews worldwide. And, in my opinion, that was exactly the goal. The effect? The number of antisemitic incidents has reached a historic high worldwide.
Let it be as clear as possible. The Israeli offensive in Gaza was not without error, Prime Minister Netanyahu is a leader more than questionable, a leader who, through his anti-Justice fight, weakened his country to the level of vulnerability exploited by Hamas. Any civilian victim is an immense tragedy, and any specific mistake must be punished.
But that does not mean we should forget October 7, forget the act of terrorism that provoked the response, forget who uses civilians as human shields, forget the hostages, forget that these terrorists were elected by today’s civilian victims or their families and, after seizing power, their first act was to slaughter their political opponents.
And, above all, nothing justifies antisemitism. It seems somehow that the theme of Palestinian children is just a pretext to unleash a hatred that has never been extinguished and was just waiting for the opportunity to erupt. Otherwise, how do we explain how many people have been killed, including in Europe, by Islamist terrorist organizations in waves of insane attacks?
Latent antisemitism exists in Romania even if, at least for now, fortunately, it is not violent. Recently, I witnessed a heartbreaking episode. I was in a group where a person was telling us about the experience of visiting Auschwitz-Birkenau, what they had seen, felt there, how those who accompanied them reacted. And at one point, an individual in the group asked deeply, „don’t the Jews deserve their fate?”. I was tempted, I confess, to turn the table on them.
We were being told about the mountains of glasses, hair, and teeth, about the things of the systematically exterminated Jewish children, and someone could ask if a people might deserve such a fate. What kind of mind and soul must one have to wonder if any being deserves such a thing?
There is no concern for Palestinian children. If there were, the main enemy should be those who hold them prisoners and cynically throw them in front of bullets, those who deprive them of education and indoctrinate them to put on bomb belts. There is not even anger over the mistakes made by the Israeli army. It is antisemitism as an ideology, but also as an emotional and intellectual handicap.
And the best proof is that the supposedly protests for Palestinian children contain slogans that refer to the dismantling of the state of Israel, such as „from the river to the sea,” used by Palestinian terrorist movements, including Hamas. How big is the step from here to a new Holocaust?
Where does this hatred come from? From my point of view, first and foremost, from envy. Because, in general, Jews are successful people in their professions, often very lucrative.
Unbiased minds and souls could find a certain explanation for the success of the Jews, an explanation we also find in the latest census data from Romania: 61% of those who declared themselves Jews have higher education, compared to only 17% of Romanians.
They could study the principles of education traditionally given to Jewish children. Because the explanation for the success they envy with jaundice often lies in education.
Certainly, Jews also have their scoundrels, failures, and misfortunes, but that is true for any people.
And in the case of students, the origin of this epidemic of ideological antisemitism should probably be sought in the education received in the original environment, in a generalized anti-system revolt, which can now be dressed up as humanitarian, and in a high level of susceptibility to manipulation.
What especially these fervent young people should not forget is that a awakened monster can no longer be kept under control and ends up devouring even those who fed it.