October 7 in Perspective

Today marks the two-year anniversary of one of the most brutal attacks on the Jewish people since the Holocaust. The unspeakable horrors of that day should have provoked an even greater empathy for the Jewish people and what they have suffered throughout history. Ironically, it has in many cases done just the opposite. The heinous events of 10/7 have spawned an ever-growing antisemitism to the point of many siding with the demonically inspired terrorists whose single goal—as openly stated in their charter—is the utter obliteration of the State of Israel. In the minds of far too many—including many American Christians—the myth of the perfect Israel has become the myth of the villain Israel, responsible for the world’s ills and a perpetrator of western colonialism, genocide and apartheid.

The Jewish prophet Isaiah, writing in the late 8^th Century B.C., calls us to moral perspective when he says, “Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter!” (Isaiah 5:20). In summary form, here’s the evil of October 7 that we must never forget and must always remember before offering any opinion on Israel’s response to their invasion by Hamas and other terrorists:  

• On the morning of October 7, 2023, some 6,000 terrorists, including Hamas and other associates, murdered more than 1,100 Israeli citizens, dozens of foreigners, wounded 5,000 more and kidnapped 251 hostages. Comparing the populations of Israel and the United States, an equivalent attack on the U.S. would kill more than 40,000 Americans, wound 170,000 and see 8,500 carried away into captivity.

  
  

• The mass atrocities committed by Hamas and its associates is too gruesome to recount in detail. It included decapitations, dismemberment, systematic sexual abuse, gang rape, genital mutilation—all similar to atrocities perpetrated in many anti-Jewish pograms in previous centuries. Many were brutally tortured beyond recognition. Written instructions found on the body of a killed terrorists asserted: “You must sharpen the blades of your swords and be pure in your intentions . . . Know that the enemy is a disease that has no cure, except beheading and removing the hearts and livers. Attack them!”^[i]

• The 251 hostages taken by the terrorists were imprisoned in Gaza in private homes, in rooms inside hospitals, or in the vast labyrinth of tunnels that Hamas had built underneath Gaza. Many of these were strategically situated under hospitals, schools and mosques.^[ii] Some were held in cages, experienced physical, sexual, and psychological torture, and provided with a near-starvation diet. As of today, 83 of the hostages have been confirmed killed.The floor of a child’s bedroom is stained with blood in Be’eri, an Israeli kibbut

The floor of a child's bedroom is stained with blood in Be'eri, an Israeli Kibbutz near the Gaza border. Tamir Kallifa/The New York Times/Redux

This is the evil that some are justifying and calling good. It is estimated that 90% of Palestinians celebrated October 7, dancing in the streets and handing out sweets, just like many did when the blood of Americans flowed in the Twin Towers on September 11.  In many ways, it’s not surprising. Amin al-Husseini, the man who dominated Palestinian nationalism before 1964, was already a Berlin-based Nazi collaborator during World War II. In a January 1941 letter to Hitler, he stressed that “the Arab peoples will be ready to serve the common enemy his just deserts, and to take their place enthusiastically alongside the Axis. . . .”^[iii] Is it any surprise that his successors, Yasser Arafat and the present Palestinian President Mahoud Abbas, have followed in his footsteps?

In response, what has been Israel’s response to such a vicious attack on its people?

Ironically, many today (including Christians) vilify Israel, accusing her of “ethnic cleansing,” “apartheid,” and “genocide.” The absurdity of such claims could not be more obvious, except to those who believe the myth of the villain Israel. Having summarized the evil of October 7, here are the indisputable, well-documented facts of Israel’s war against terror over these last two years:

• In the first six months after October 7, Israel and its allies provided nearly 375,000 tons of humanitarian aid to Palestinian civilians, through land, air, and sea. Israel has delivered more humanitarian aid to Gaza than any military in history has provided to an enemy population during wartime.

  
  

• Israel has supported hospitals, repaired water pipelines, and enabled 36,000 patients to leave Gaza for treatment abroad.

  
  

• The IDF has coordinated millions of vaccine doses, supplies fuel for hospitals and infrastructure and facilitated the flow of food and medicine through the UN, aid groups and private partners.

• The U.S.-Israeli Gaza Humanitarian Foundation alone has delivered more than 82 million meals while weakening Hamas’s control over aid.^[iv]  

One must ask: Are these the actions of a genocidal war? You don’t feed those you are trying to ethnically cleanse. As of today, more than 94,000 trucks carrying over 1.8 million tons of aid have entered the territory. That’s nearly one ton of aid for every man, woman and child in Gaza. But much of it is looted or stolen. The Washington Institute for Near East Policy estimated in May 2024 that Hamas had already stolen “no less” than $500-million worth of the aid.^[v] Even the United Nations, not known for it's favorable position towards Israel, recently admitted that 88% of aid slated for Gaza is looted along entry routes.^[vi]

One of the most absurd accusations against Israel today is that it is a colonial, settler state, comparable to Imperialist Great Britain, Belgium, or France. The reality is that the Arab population has increased roughly ten-fold within the borders of Mandatory Palestine since the days of the first aliya (immigration to Israel). If Israel’s goal was colonization, then it has been an abject failure.

But what about Israel’s military offensive? Is Israel guilty of genocide and war crimes? Many military experts agree with John Spencer, Chair of Urban Warfare Studies at the Modern War Institute at West Point, that “Israel has taken more steps to avoid harming civilians than any other military in history.”^[vii] These measures include warning civilians before attacks using text messages, phone calls, leaflets, and broadcasts. At times when Israeli troops have come under fire, they have been ordered not to shoot back because civilians might be harmed. In stark contrast, Hamas hides rockets in schools, launches missiles from hospital courtyards, and forces civilians to serve as human shields. They even parade as relief workers! Surprisingly, 19 of the “associate” terrorists cooperating with Hamas were members of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), an agency supposedly devoted to providing essential humanitarian aid and protection services to refugees in the Middle East. In January of 2024 Israel identified 440 UNRWA employees in Gaza who were active in Hamas’ military operations and 2,000 more who were registered Hamas operatives.^[viii]

Typical ratios of civilian to combatant deaths in wartime range from three-to-one to ten-to-one, as in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, and Syria. Even if one takes the inflated figures of deaths offered by Hamas and subtract the number of combatants that Israel says it has eliminated, it would produce a ratio of civilians to combatants killed of less than two-to-one—an extraordinary figure considering Hamas’ strategy of using their own people as human shields and strategically locating their terrorists in hospitals, schools, other public centers. As a leader of Hamas once put it:  

For the Palestinian people, death has become an industry, at which women excel, and so do all the people living on this land. The elderly excel at this and so do the Mujahideen [i.e., a Muslim who fights on behalf of his faith] and the children. This is why they have formed human shields of the women, the children, the elderly, and the Mujahideen, in order to challenge the Zionist bombing machine. It is as if they were saying to the Zionist enemy: “We desire death like you desire life.”^[ix]

How can so many today actively take up the cause of those who desire death rather than those who desire life?

Admittedly, there are a certain number of Palestinians who did not celebrate October 7 by dancing in the streets and handing out sweets. Some, indeed, are Palestinian Christians unfortunatley caught in the turmoil of Israel's war against terror. Likewise, the Jewish State of Israel is far from perfect and has admittedly—as any nation state—committed errors resulting in the loss of innocent life.

But let us beware, lest the myth of the perfect Israel become the myth of the villain Israel and we begin to call evil good and good evil. Rather, as the Psalmist exhorts us, let us "pray for the peace of Jerusalem" (Psalm 122:6) and for all the peoples of the Middle East.

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^[i] “Kill, Behead, Rape: Interrogated Hamas Members Detail Atrocities against Civilians,” Times of Israel, October 24, 2023 as cited by Rafel Medoff, The Road to October 7: Hamas, the Holocaust, and the Eternal War against the Jews (University of Nebraska Press: 2025).

^[ii] David Leonhardt and Lauren Jackson, “Gaza’s Vital Tunnels,” New York Times, October 30, 2023.

^[iii] Elpeleg, The Grand Mufti, 202-5, as cited by David Brog in Reclaiming Israel’s History: Roots, Rights, and the Struggle for Peace (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, 2017).  

^[iv] Statistics provided by John Spencer, U.S. Army veteran of the Iraq War and presently studying urban warfare at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point; see also Alan Dershowitz, The Ten Big Anti-Israel Lies: And How to Refute Them with Truth (New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2024).

^[v] Rafael Medoff, The Road to October 7: Hamas, the Holocaust, and the Eternal War against the Jews (University of Nebraska Press: 2025), 117.  

^[vi] https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2025/08/05/un-reports-88-percent-of-aid-trucks-slated-for-delivery-in-gaza-since-may-looted-along-routes/

^[vii] John Spencer, “Israel Has Created a new Standard for Urban Warfare. Why Will No One Admit It?” Newsweek, March 16, 2024. www.newsweek.com/israel-has-created-new-standard-urban-warfare-why-will-no-one-admit-it-opinion-1883286.

^[viii] “Group of 3,000 UNRWA Teachers Celebrates Hamas Massacre and Rape,” UN Watch, January 10, 2024; “UNRWA Confirms Terrorist Killed by IDF who Let Re’im Shelter Massacre Was a Satter,” Times of Israel, October 25, 2024.

^[ix] “Hamas MP Fathi Hammad: We Used Women and Children as Human Shields,” February 19,2008, the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), www.memri.org/tv/hamas-mp-fathi-hammad-we-used-women-and-children-human-shields.