The question is always the same: How can you say never again? Yascha Mounk is a leading scholar on the crisis of liberal democracy. He is a professor of “Practice of International Affairs” at Johns Hopkins University, a columnist for “Atlantic”, writes for the “New York Times”, is a senior fellow at the German Marshall Fund and two days ago gave valuable food for thought to try out orientation in difficult times of the Middle East conflict. Mounk was right to say that Not everyone who currently criticizes the Israeli government is anti-Semitic. That those who are trying in these hours to place the conflict between Israel and Hamas in a larger historical context are not all anti-Semites. That not everyone who cries over the deaths of Palestinian civilians is anti-Semitic. But after establishing the correct premise, he adds an additional element: “But if you call the massacre of 1,400 civilians a ‘military action’ or call for a ceasefire without mentioning the children who are still in the clutches of a terrorist organization, people will rightly wonder why you don’t seem to care the lives of innocent Jews”. Yascha Mounk makes an important point from an unconventional position. He recorded it in the hours after the pogrom, which was recorded at the airport in Makhachkala, the capital of the Muslim-majority Russian republic Dagestan, where a group of protesters stormed the runway and terminal after announcing the landing of a plane from Israel. And it comes at a time when the international community is still debating the non-binding UN resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. Mounk doesn’t say it clearly, but his argument is clear.
A ceasefire today is not a humanitarian gesture. It violates Israel’s legitimate right to self-defense under the United Nations Charter and its clear duty to protect its citizens from a genocidal enemy. The vast terrorist infrastructure that Hamas has created over the past 17 years, including 300 miles of tunnels and a powerful array of rockets and other weapons, remains untouched. And it offers no further elements to answer a painful and dramatic question: Can those calling for a ceasefire explain the alternative way in which Hamas can be disarmed, in a way other than removing it from power and the to return the hostages still in Gaza?
The Telegraph asked two days ago which other country would be denied the right to confront those who have killed so many of its citizens and how one can imagine how Israel could destroy the Islamists if it were not in the would be able to carry out military action against them. The point is always the same: How can you say never again? Of course, Mounk is asking himself this question, and Jews around the world, who are experiencing first-hand what the internationalization of the Intifada means, are also asking themselves this question. Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt, US special envoy to monitor and combat anti-Semitism (SEAS), said yesterday that law enforcement agencies and community groups on every continent – from Europe to North America, from Australia to South Africa – had reported an alarming increase in anti-Semitic behavior.
A report published on Friday, reported yesterday by the Jerusalem Post, revealed “a deeply worrying trend” in the worldAnti-Semitism on college campuses across the United States: 45 reported incidents of anti-Semitism occurred on campus in just three days, out of a total of 134 cases documented in the last two weeks. Among the most disturbing incidents was one at Cornell University, where a professor labeled “anti-Semitic” described the Hamas massacre during Simchat Torah celebrations in settlements in the western Negev as an “emotional event.” Meanwhile, a professor at UC Davis in California used social media to incite violence against Jewish students. At the University of Michigan, nearly a thousand faculty and staff signed a document blaming Israel for atrocities committed by the terrorist organization Hamas.
In the United Kingdom, the Telegraph wrote, anti-Semitic attacks rose by a shocking 1,350 percent in October compared to the same period last year. In the days following the October 7 atrocities, according to the Community Security Trust, there were 24 attacks, 35 cases of damage and desecration of Jewish property, 64 direct threats, 475 cases of abusive behavior, including verbal abuse, messages inciting hatred and incited abuse online. According to the Jewish Community of Vienna, there were 76 incidents of anti-Semitism between October 7th and 19th, an increase of 300 percent. According to Rias, the NGO that tracks anti-Semitic incidents in Germany, there was a 240 percent increase in anti-Semitic incidents from October 7 to 15 compared to the same period last year. In the United States, the Anti Defamation League said it tracked a total of 193 anti-Semitic incidents following the October 7 Hamas attack, representing a 338 percent increase in anti-Semitic incidents compared to the same period in the United States -23. October).
A national survey released last week by the University of Chicago found that about 10 million American adults have high levels of anti-Semitism and support for political violence — a number that, it notes, is “higher than the total number of Jews.” in the United States.” In France, Politico wrote, more anti-Semitic incidents were registered in the last three weeks than last year: 501 crimes were reported, ranging from verbal abuse and wall writing to death threats and physical attacks. According to Following the attacks, the Interior Minister deployed additional police and soldiers in front of Jewish schools, places of worship and community centers.
Given the tragedy in Gaza, calls for a ceasefire are understandable. But they are appeals that seek to sidestep the problem by refusing to answer a key question: How do you say never again? How can one not understand that the martyrdom promoted by Hamas is not directed against Israel, but against the Jewish people? And how can we not understand that if the international community were truly in favor of international law, it would have to organize peace demonstrations in front of the embassies of Islamist regimes that supply weapons to Hamas terrorists?
The tragedy of Gaza is visible to all. But eliminating Hamas remains the only way to save Israeli civilians, Palestinian civilians and Jews around the world from the murderous fury of a group of terrorists who are fighting not to have two peoples and two states, but to have only one and to wipe out another. Hunting Jews: never again.