On October 7, 2023, Israel was the victim of one of the most horrific terrorist attacks in modern history.
The heavily armed Hamas gunmen drove into civilian areas slaughtering everyone within reach, including women and children, Israelites, and Americans.
Over 1,800 Israelis were killed, thousands injured, and hundreds were taken hostage. Cell phones recorded in real time some of the worst atrocities of the modern era: beheadings, raping women, burning children in front of their parents, and parents in front of their children.
At one Israeli community, close to 80 percent of the 280 murdered victims, including children, bore signs of torture. Israel rapidly responded to stop the slaughter, launching numerous airstrikes into Hamas-controlled Gaza in what is likely to be a long and brutal war.
Hamas was founded in 1987 specifically to annihilate Israel and the Jewish people. In 1987, the first intifada (Palestinian’ uprising), 160 Jews and over 1,000 Palestinians were killed.
Since 1987 Hamas has been responsible for hundreds of suicide bombings and deadly attacks on Israeli civilians. The U.S. State Department formally designated Hamas a terrorist group in 1997.
In a 2005 land-for-peace deal Israel forced 9,000 Jews from the Gaza Strip to give Muslims total control of the area. The land-for-peace deal soon failed.
Hamas won the 2006 Gaza parliamentary elections, and, in 2007, violently seized control of the Gaza Strip from the internationally recognized Palestinian Authority. In the 2000-2005 intifada, over another 1,000 Jews and 3,000 Palestinians were killed.
Soon after the latest October 2023 intifada, massive protests broke out in America, not against the group causing the atrocities, but against the victims of the atrocities, the Israelis. Students at Harvard, Columbia, George Washington, and scores of other colleges witnessed large numbers of anti-Israel protesters.
They demanded a cease fire, meaning Israel should do nothing to stop the thousands of rockets that are killing thousands of Jews as I write this.
When the current American administration came into office, they drastically cut U.S. oil production, causing the world price to drastically increase. The result was Iran’s oil profits rose by billions of dollars, much of which, instead of using it for humanitarian purposes, was given to Hamas to purchase the tens of thousands of the rockets they used to attack Israel.
Added to this were the billions of dollars the Biden administration allocated to Iran to which ended up supporting Hamas’ attacks against Israel.
Israel’s Founding
In 1516, the Ottoman Turks invaded and occupied Palestine until 1918 when Britain occupied the country. After WWII, having few choices and fleeing persecution in Europe and Arab countries, millions of Jews moved into the area where Jews have lived for the past two-thousand years.
Instead of assimilating these refugees, as was done with other groups, Jews faced continued persecution as they have in most countries for most of modern history. If a million highly trained Muslim Arabs instead of Jews immigrated to Palestine, they would have been welcomed, documenting the fact that the main issue in the current war is anti-Semitism.
To solve the Israel/Arab conflict, two states were formed from the former Palestine by the UN in 1947 and Israel became independent in May 1948. Islam is now the second-largest religion in Israel, constituting 1.707 million or 18 percent of the country’s population.
Ethnic Arab citizens make up the majority of Muslims in Israel. In the war against Israel, thousands of Muslims are also being killed. So fanatical is Hamas that they want the Jews to perish even if thousands of Arab Muslims also die.
Israel’s counteroffensive in Gaza has, since October 7, 2023, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry, killed over 10,515 people, over half under age 18. Authorities estimate that the final death toll will be over half a million Gaza residents and several thousand young Israelis will die.
One estimate is that over 37,000 pregnant women will be forced to give birth with no electricity or proper medical supplies in Gaza in the coming months, risking life-threatening complications for themselves and their babies.
If the estimated 50 billion dollars Hamas spent for war was used to help the Gaza people, their lives would have vastly improved. In the end, the enormous carnage and suffering of both Israelis and Gaza people is due to anti-Semitic hate. To Hamas, if they can snuff out the life of thousands of Jews, their loss is well worth it.
One fact is clear. Many of the student protestors, in siding with the brutal terrorists, have very little knowledge of the problem. One sign read: “When people are occupied, resistance is justified” except if the occupiers are Turks.
Another said, “We must finish the work of Hitter and exterminate all Jews”. In calling Jews’ attempts to defend themselves genocide, protestors are either ignorant of, or have chosen to, ignore the facts.
The behavior of anti-Semites at elite universities includes threats to harm Jewish students. This is yet another reason why more parents and students are thinking twice about the value and wisdom of a college education, not to mention its often six-digit cost of attending a university.
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Dr. Bergman is a multi-award-winning teacher and author. He has taught in the science and psychology area for over 40 years at the University of Toledo Medical College, Bowling Green State University, and other colleges. His 9 degrees include a Doctorate from Wayne State University in Detroit, Michigan. He has over 1,800 publications in both scholarly and popular science journals that have been translated into 13 languages. His publications are in over 2,400 college libraries in 65 countries. Bergman has spoken over 2,000 times at colleges and churches in America, Canada, Europe, the South Sea Islands, and Africa.