Mike Huckabee, the U.S. ambassador to Israel, visited Kibbutz Kfar Aza on Monday, nearly two years after he saw the site following the Hamas-led attack there on Oct. 7, 2023.
“It’s almost as ugly today as it was two years ago when there was still blood streaming from every wall and every house,” he stated, noting that the kibbutz once housed some 1,000 people.
“Now unfortunately, no one lives here, because they can’t,” he said. “What happened on Oct. 7 was a cruel, vicious, blood-curdling atrocity, in which children, young families were viciously massacred, mutilated and humiliated by the acts of the savages of Hamas.”
The terror group carried out “some of the most evil acts of human history” with a degree of “glee and pride that is unimaginable,” the envoy said.
Huckabee stated in a separate post on Monday that Hamas’s “heinous attack was part of its genocidal goal to destroy Israel and murder Jews in Israel and around the world.”
“Since that day, 1,152 courageous Israeli soldiers and security personnel, including U.S. citizens, have fallen as Israel has fought a multi-front war of survival,” the envoy and Baptist minister stated. “May Oct. 7, 2023, forever remind us that evil and antisemitism are not mere metaphors but brutal realities that God and holy scripture enjoin us to combat with all our might.”
U.S. Jewish groups and elected officials also issued statements ahead of the two-year anniversary of Oct. 7.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, said at a Jewish Federation of Greater Houston event on Sunday that “no one has responded with the grace of God as effectively time and time again as the people of Israel.”
“We gather to remember those taken from us two years ago in the deadliest attack against the Jewish people since the Holocaust,” he said. “We pray every day that every hostage is returned to their families, who have waited far too long.”
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) spoke at an event in Connecticut on Sunday, hosted by Greater Hartford for Israel and the Jewish Federation of Greater Hartford.
Israel’s security is “essential to our national security,” the Jewish congressman said at the event. “It is a fight against terror that threatens the United States. It is a fight against antisemitism that threatens every one of us every day.”
The Orthodox Union stated that “we cannot and will not forget Oct. 7.”
“We cannot and will not forget those in the region and throughout the world who celebrated those monstrous attacks, nor those who have used them as a pretext to launch a worldwide wave of Jew-hatred that has yet to abate,” the nonprofit said.
“We cannot and will not forget the cynical manipulation of Hamas, burying their terror infrastructure under the homes, hospitals and mosques of Gaza,” the OU added. “We will not stop praying for the day that Palestinians join Israelis in seeking peaceful coexistence.”
‘Middle East has been changed forever’
The Republican Jewish Coalition stated that the “resilience, patriotism, determination and relentless grit of the Israeli people” in response to Oct. 7 have “inspired people around the world and united world Jewry in pride and solidarity.”
“From Gaza to Tehran, from Damascus to Beirut, the face of the Middle East has been changed forever,” the RJC said. “The U.S.-Israel relationship is stronger than it has ever been, in particular with the obliteration of Iran’s nuclear-weapons capabilities.”
“We pray for the swift reunification of the hostages with their families and for peace in Israel,” it said.
On Sunday, the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York co-hosted an Oct. 7 memorial program with UJA-Federation of New York and the Hostages and Missing Families Forum. Mark Treyger, CEO of the council, said that leaders “will be judged by their ability to bring the hostages home, end the war and secure lasting peace for Israel and the region.”
The Combat Antisemitism Movement called for “heightened vigilance” at the national, state and local levels on Monday after identifying what it said are “hundreds of events planned across the globe tomorrow for which promotional materials have featured clear expressions of support for the horrific atrocities perpetrated by Hamas.”
“The Oct. 7 anniversary should be a moment of unity, reflection and healing, not hatred,” Sacha Roytman, the group’s CEO, stated. “We must not allow this solemn occasion to become a platform for incitement, violence and open antisemitism.”
“Freedom of expression does not extend to the glorification of terrorism or calls for violence against Jews,” he said. “Governments have both a moral and legal obligation to act.”
