The Al-Aqsa Flood of Antisemitism

The purpose of The Al-Aqsa Flood, Hamas’s October 7, 2023 “operation” in southern Israel, was to drown the Zionist enemy in its own blood.

However, this massacre and the kidnapping of hundreds of Israeli citizens did not elicit unanimous condemnation of this terrorist crime, but rather, in many cities around the world, on the five continents, hundreds of thousands of demonstrators supported the murderers and rapists, chanting the slogan “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” which meant the destruction of the State of Israel.

This slogan was first used in 1964 by the newly established Palestine Liberation Organization, which rejected the partition plan for Palestine that had been adopted by the United Nations on November 29, 1947, calling for “two states for two peoples.”

Neither the Arab countries that attacked the newly formed Israel on May 14, 1948, nor the Palestinian Arabs accepted the partition of Palestine approved by the United Nations resolution, for they did not accept the existence of Israel. The Palestine Liberation Organization then and later, followed by Hamas supporters, called for the establishment of a unified Palestinian state stretching from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, that is, they called for the destruction of the State of Israel.

The Palestine Liberation Organization’s call for the destruction of Israel predates the Six Day War, that is, before the “Zionist occupation.” In 1964 and now, it means support for the massacre and a campaign to encourage its continuation. The massive support for Hamas means that “Operation” Al-Aqsa Flood has become a “flood” of antisemitism in many corners of the world, a globalization of antisemitism.

The outbreak of antisemitism in the Middle East and around the world as a result of the October 7, 2023 massacre is due to the outrage of the Jews’ foes that the Israelis put up stiff military resistance to the pogromists. During the Holocaust, Jews did not put up proper resistance to murderers and pogromists. No one resented their passivity then. The extermination of six million Jews did not provoke protests in the world during the events themselves. The weak Jewish resistance to the Nazis and their handmaidens was accepted as a natural reaction. Jews as victims of crime evoked indifference or quiet sympathy.  The refusal of Jews to be victims of radical Islam creates the image of the Israeli oppressor.  Armed Jewish resistance to Hamas pogromists has provoked anti-Semitic outrage. Jews revolted against the pernicious tradition of submitting to the pogromists. 

Muslim Salim Mansour, a professor of political science at the University of Ontario, Canada, explains what is happening as follows: “The current wave of irrational antisemitism sweeping the Western world is inspired by Arabs, feeds on the Arab inferiority complex, and can lead to unfortunate consequences for Muslim nations as a whole. Arab antisemitism is caused by a sense of frustration accumulated over the past hundred years over the inability of Arabs to adapt to the modern world. The Arabs got along well with the Jews while they were a humiliated minority in the Islamic world, but they cannot forgive the Jews for having managed to establish their own state and prospering despite all the injustices done to them, while the Arabs, despite their natural wealth, cannot fit into modern civilization and culture.” Mansour writes of the Arabs’ inability to adapt to the modern world, that is, their “disproportionate” response to Western civilization.

Israel responds to the invasion of its country on October 7, 2023. Now there are calls for a “proportional response” on its part against Hamas. This is also the meaning of the sharp criticism of Israel expressed by the judges of the U.N. international court in Hague on January 26, 2024. That organization, too, was outraged by Israel’s “disproportionate” response to the massacre and kidnapping of Israeli citizens carried out by Hamas.

The only democratic country in the Middle East is being accused of a “disproportionate” response. Israel is always required to be “proportional” in military action. During the Holocaust, those countries that today demand “proportionality” and ” commensurability” in Israel’s military response were disproportionate in their military actions on the side of the Jews being exterminated, failing to use military force at all in favor of the victims.

Israel’s only proportionate response is to eliminate Hamas, that is, to eliminate the deadly threat that this terrorist organization poses to the lives and safety of Israeli citizens.  

“Commensurability” does not mean responding to an attack with force equivalent to the force of the attack. Rather, it means using force to the extent necessary to prevent future attacks. To prevent future Hamas rocket attacks, to prevent future terrorist raids from the ground and from under the ground, it is necessary to use far more force than Hamas has used. Those who demand “proportionality” are actually demanding Israel’s willful weakness and therefore its suicide. The implicit claim is that Israeli lives are worth less than the lives of others because they are Israeli. There is no call for “proportionality” toward Hamas murderers.

The correct demand is not “proportionality” but justice, which is the complete and final destruction of Hamas. This is the only “proportionate” response to Hamas, proportional to its threat. Demanding “proportionality” in the use of force by the IDF in the case of Hamas crimes is latent antisemitism, which does not preclude a new flood of antisemitism.

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