What has puzzled me most since Oct. 7 is not Hamas’s barbarity. Terrorists behaving like terrorists is hardly surprising. What is surprising—and more disturbing—is the reaction of so many people in the West.
One would have expected the massacre of more than 1,200 Israelis, the rape and torture of civilians, the murder of children and the kidnapping of innocent men, women and elderly people to produce an overwhelming expression of sympathy for the victims and revulsion toward the perpetrators.
Instead, in far too many quarters, it produced demonstrations celebrating the massacre, excuses for terrorism and an explosion of antisemitism.
It makes no sense. Then again, antisemitism never has.
Many people refused to judge Oct. 7 on its own moral terms. They viewed it through ideological lenses that had already determined who was guilty and who was innocent before the first terrorist crossed the border.
The narrative was established in advance: Palestinian Arabs were the oppressed, Israel the oppressor. Once that framework was accepted, the facts became inconvenient or, worse yet, irrelevant. Hamas’s atrocities were rationalized as resistance; terrorism was rebranded as liberation; and the murder of civilians became an understandable consequence of political grievances.
But there is no moral equivalence between the deliberate slaughter of civilians and a nation’s obligation to defend them. One need not endorse every Israeli government policy or military decision to recognize that distinction. Nor does sympathy for Palestinian Arab civilians require excusing Hamas.
Yet that elementary principle disappeared from much of the public discourse.
Israel’s response to the massacre was not about revenge. It was about preventing future massacres. No sovereign nation could be expected to tolerate a terrorist army on its border that openly promises to repeat its atrocities and possesses the weapons and infrastructure to do so. Dismantling Hamas’s military capabilities was a matter of national survival and Israel’s responsibility to protect its citizens.
The reaction to Oct. 7 raises a question that extends beyond contemporary politics: Why have the Jewish people, throughout history, so frequently been the objects of hostility, suspicion and resentment, even in societies that profess to value tolerance, justice and human dignity?
One explanation lies in the distinctive moral legacy of Judaism.
Through the Hebrew Bible, the Jewish people introduced a revolutionary conception of human responsibility. Human beings are not governed solely by appetite, ambition, strength or the will of the powerful. They are accountable to a moral law higher than themselves. Power does not establish righteousness. Might does not make right. Human life possesses inherent value. Even kings are subject to moral judgment.
The commandments placed restraints on violence, cruelty, dishonesty, exploitation and the unchecked pursuit of personal desire. They established obligations not merely upon us but upon others, as well. The stranger, the poor, the vulnerable and even the enemy are not beyond the reach of moral considerations.
This was a profound departure from the ancient world’s acceptance of power as the ultimate arbiter of human affairs. Judaism insisted that civilization requires more than strength and self-interest. It requires discipline, responsibility and recognition of boundaries that human beings must not cross.
That lesson has never been universally welcomed.
There has always been tension between civilization’s moral demands and humanity’s baser instincts. Restraining aggression, controlling appetites and accepting responsibility conflict with the impulse to satisfy desire without regard for consequences. It is easier to celebrate power than to subject it to principle.
The most important lesson is how fragile the veneer of modern civilization can be.
Oct. 7 demonstrated what happens when those restraints are discarded. Hamas terrorists did not merely murder innocent people; they celebrated the killings, boasted of their brutality and treated the suffering of their victims as an achievement.
Yet some in the West searched for explanations that diminished the perpetrators’ responsibility, subjecting the victims to political scrutiny while offering their murderers ideological excuses.
This brings us to an uncomfortable possibility: Antisemitism is not merely hatred of Jews. It can also reflect resentment toward what Jews represent.
Throughout history, Jews have been accused of being too religious, too secular, too capitalist, too socialist, too insular, too assimilated, too powerful or too influential. The accusations contradict one another, but the hostility remains remarkably consistent.
The form of antisemitism changes with the prevailing ideology. In one era, Jews were condemned in the name of Christianity. In another, they were targeted by racial nationalism. Under communism, they were accused of serving capitalism. Today, they are frequently condemned through the language of colonialism, oppression and human rights.
The vocabulary changes; the impulse to single out the Jew does not.
This is not to suggest that every criticism of Israel is antisemitic. Israel, like every democracy, is subject to legitimate criticism. Its government and policies are not beyond scrutiny. But criticism crosses a line when Israel alone is denied the right to defend itself, Jewish self-determination is treated as uniquely illegitimate or standards are imposed on the Jewish state that are rarely demanded of other nations.
The double standard is revealing. Countries with abysmal human rights records receive a fraction of the condemnation directed at Israel. Terrorist organizations are granted political legitimacy, while the Jewish state is repeatedly required to justify its existence and its right to defend its citizens.
Those who claim to champion universal human rights while applying them selectively are trapped in a fundamental contradiction. The murder of an Israeli child is no less abhorrent than the murder of a Palestinian Arab child. Rape does not become resistance because the perpetrator adheres to a favored political cause. Terrorism does not become legitimate because its victims are Jews.
Morality that changes according to the identity of the victim is not morality at all. It is ideology masquerading as conscience.
The most important lesson of Oct. 7 is how fragile the veneer of modern civilization can be. We have sophisticated technology, international institutions, universities and elaborate declarations of human rights. None guarantees moral clarity.
Education does not necessarily produce wisdom or political sophistication. When ideology overwhelms conscience, even supposedly enlightened societies can rationalize barbarity—think Nazi Germany and its all-too-willing European accomplices.
The Jewish people have experienced this cycle for thousands of years. They have been welcomed, expelled, persecuted, emancipated and persecuted again. Despite their extraordinary contributions to the intellectual, scientific and cultural development of the societies in which they lived, they have repeatedly been portrayed as outsiders or enemies within.
Oct. 7 did not create this ancient hostility. It exposed how little of it has disappeared.
The Jewish people have never claimed to be perfect, and neither has Israel. But Judaism’s enduring contribution to civilization is the insistence that human beings are accountable to something greater than their appetites, ambitions and political allegiances. There are moral boundaries, and neither grievance nor ideology excuses their violation.
The tragedy is that, after thousands of years, we still must make that argument.
Antisemitism may ebb and flow, but it has never disappeared. Oct. 7 reminded us that beneath the language of enlightenment, tolerance and universal human rights, some of humanity’s oldest prejudices remain very much alive.
The question is not simply why Jews continue to be hated. It is why so many societies, having learned the lessons of history at such terrible cost, remain so willing to forget those lessons.
