The October 7 barbaric rampage against Israeli civilians in southern Israel by Palestinian terrorists from the Gaza Strip, the worst massacre of Jews in a single day since the Holocaust, is a preview of the consequences of a “two-state solution” for the Jewish people.
Gangs of black-clad Palestinian murderers penetrated Israeli territory to kill, maim, rape, mutilate and capture civilians. Their goal: To terrorize the Israeli population into submission.
Israel’s staggering death toll, overwhelmingly civilian, as of October 12, surpassed 1,300, a number equivalent, based on population, to over 45,000 Americans. This number will undoubtedly continue to rise as more bodies are discovered.
Hamas killers rounded up women and children like Nazi Einsatzgruppen — killing squads — and machine-gunned them.
They shot Israelis in cars and at bus stops.
They went house to house to murder civilians hiding in safe rooms.
They brutally mutilated 40 babies, beheading many. They snatched children as hostages after murdering their parents in front of them.
They turned a music festival into a killing field, slaughtering almost 300 young people, raping, injuring and taking hostages.
They desecrated dead bodies, dragging them through the streets of Gaza City, stomping, beating and spitting on them, and displayed hostages, including Americans, in front of exultant crowds of cheering Palestinians, shouting allahu akbar.
Videos of this butchery, made by Hamas killers in the tradition of ISIS, displaying their atrocities as trophies, were posted on social media to maximize pain and terror. Gleeful terrorists uploaded images of their horrifying acts of torture for the world to see.
Film of a Jewish girl being pulled by the hair by her captors with blood streaming between her legs was proudly shown by the invaders.
A crying granddaughter describes how her grandmother’s murderers posted the video of her killing on the victim’s Facebook page so her family would view it.
These are the people with whom the world wants Israel to make peace!
Such evil is mind-blowing.
In case you think this depraved behavior toward Jews is new, Arabs in Palestine used the same tactics before the modern State of Israel was officially declared in 1948. In 1929, 94 years ago, they tortured, killed, raped and mutilated Jews in the Hebron Massacre, destroying the Jewish community.
Imagine if these Palestinian Arabs who executed Saturday’s heinous attack on Israeli villages near Gaza had control of all or part of Judea and Samaria (aka West Bank), a stone’s throw from Israel’s main population centers.
The murderous mayhem would be unfathomably worse.
Yet for decades, U.S. and Western diplomats have pushed a “two-state solution” to the Palestinians’ conflict with Israel, pressuring Israel to make strategically dangerous territorial withdrawals to accommodate a Palestinian state.
Israel made such a withdrawal in 2005, unilaterally removing every Jewish resident from Gaza, even taking bodies from the Jewish cemeteries. Palestinians quickly demolished the flourishing, profitable greenhouses bequeathed to them by Israel, instead turning the Strip into a terror enclave regularly attacking Israel rather than establishing a prosperous, peaceful state.
After the Israelis left, Hamas won elections and took control over Gaza, which they have maintained to the present day.
Hamas’s intentions toward the Jewish state are clear. Israel faces a painful reality which the world ignores: The Palestinians want every Jew removed “from the (Jordan) river to the (Mediterranean) sea,” dead or alive.
Hamas’s founding charter states, "The land of Palestine is an Islamic Waqf [Holy Possession] consecrated for future Moslem generations until Judgment Day…. The Day of Judgment will not come about until Muslims fight the Jews … Israel … will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it.”
A June poll of both West Bank and Gaza Palestinians revealed that most Palestinians are more interested in killing Jews than making peace with them. Seventy-one percent back the terror groups currently in the West Bank.
Eighty percent want President Abbas, Palestinian ruler in the West Bank, removed from power. Today, Hamas would win West Bank elections if Abbas were ever to call for elections. That’s why he never has. Only 28% of Palestinians polled support creating two states.
Islamists count on Western pressure to restrain Israel. Western governments mistakenly assume that Israel can afford to take “risks for peace.” Current events show that the cost of such faulty thinking is far too high.
Saturday’s atrocities should provide clarity.
Palestinians have blatantly revealed themselves. President Abbas, who the Biden administration calls a “partner for peace,” issued a statement of solidarity with the Hamas butchers. His political party immediately called for jihad against Israel while West Bank Palestinians mocked Jewish victims on social media.
Will the October 7 massacre finally jolt the world into acknowledging the true nature of Israel’s adversary?
In an October 10 address to the nation, Biden condemned the “act of sheer evil” perpetrated by the “bloody hands of the terrorist organization Hamas, whose stated purpose for being is to kill Jews.”
Will Biden now abandon the delusional, suicidal notion of a two-state solution? Or does he want this “act” replayed in the homes and on the streets of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem?
Ziva Dahl is a senior fellow with the news and public policy group Haym Salomon Center. Ziva writes and lectures about U.S.-Israel relations, U.S. foreign policy, Israel, Zionism, Antisemitism and BDS on college campuses. Her articles have appeared in such publications as The Hill, New York Daily News, New York Observer, The Washington Times, American Spectator, American Thinker and Jerusalem Post. Read Ziva Dahl's Reports — More Here.