Hamas official Ghazi Hamad speaking on LBC TV, Oct. 24, 2023. Photo: Screenshot

JNS.org – If you’re wondering why so many Jews, from left to right, have such a short fuse lately, look no further than Ghazi Hamad, a Hamas leader with an affinity for clarity.

“Israel is a country that has no place on our land,” Hamad said in an interview with Lebanese TV that has blown up on social media. “We must remove it because it constitutes a security, military and political catastrophe to the Arab and Islamic nation. We are not ashamed to say this.”

The massacres of Oct. 7, Hamad added, are “just the first time, and there will be a second, a third, a fourth.”

For those of us who have been paying attention, these vows of Jewish annihilation are nothing new. It’s written in black and white in the Hamas charter.

So why are so many people now so stunned?

Because Oct. 7 changed everything.

A terror attack that kills three Israelis is not the same as a terror invasion that massacres 1,400 Israelis—including infants, women, families and the elderly.

The sheer magnitude of these atrocities, in other words, has forced everyone to pay attention.

And here’s the thing about murdering, raping and mutilating 1,400 people—it leaves no room for nuance. The cruelty overflows with clarity.

No wonder so many people jumped on the activist group IfNotNow, which forever discredited itself when it saw the massacres and immediately blamed Israel:

“Israel makes every day under apartheid a living hell for Palestinians. Human beings can’t live like this…. Blood is on the hands of Israel’s fascist government, army, and everyone who has aided their crimes against Palestinians.”

IfNotNow saw the worst Jewish calamity since the Holocaust and chose to stick to their usual pro-Palestinian talking points.

In that sense, the unprecedented magnitude of Oct. 7 has been a clarifying moment. It has shown us people’s true colors.

It has also brought clarity to how most Jews have reacted to everything that has followed that darkest of days.

When we think of babies slaughtered and women raped and families burned alive, our revulsion at the assault on Jewish college students across U.S. campuses has zero nuance.

Our revulsion at those blaming Israel or the “occupation” for the massacres of Oct. 7 has zero nuance.

Our revulsion at college leaders, politicians, Hollywood personalities and others who have been wishy-washy in their condemnation of the barbaric slaughter of 1,400 Jews has zero nuance.

Our revulsion at those college leaders who have failed to protect Jewish students during this epidemic of anti-Jewish hostility has zero nuance.

Our revulsion at the haters who are tearing down posters of Israeli hostages has zero nuance.

For many of us, Oct. 7 is a day that shattered nuance. It is one of those transcendent moments that might permanently reset the Jewish table, a day when so many Jews lost their innocence.

The trauma of losing 1,400 Jewish souls and then seeing much of the world rise up against Jews will not easily go away. It is now hardwired in our collective memory.

We’re not fooled by the current focus on Israel’s efforts to eradicate Hamas. We know that many of those who are now bashing Israel and calling for a “ceasefire” were also bashing Israel right after Hamas murdered 1,400 Jews.

We’re not fooled by the leftist intellectuals who use Israel as a battering ram for everything they hate about the West, from colonialism to capitalism to white privilege to nationalism.

We’re not fooled by a biased media that now gleefully highlights Palestinian deaths in Gaza, because we know that the cowardly murderers of Hamas, who hide behind their own women and children, are ultimately responsible for every single Palestinian casualty.

And of course, we’re not fooled by those reflexive calls to make “peace” with those who are sworn to our destruction.

We don’t know where this war is going, but we know where the Jews are going.

After the bewildering and surreal darkness of Oct. 7, followed by the biggest burst of Jew hatred in recent memory, the great majority of Jews have picked a side.

Their own.

Originally published by The Jewish Journal