A Pogrom on Shemini Atzeres

Already, it is no exaggeration to compare the impact on Israel of Hamas’s Shemini Atzeres invasion from the Gaza Strip to that of 9/11 on America. In terms of casualties so far, the over 800 Israelis known to have been killed exceeds by many multiples the number of Americans killed on 9/11, as a percentage of the population. IDF spokesman Lt. Col. Jonathan Conricus declared it “the worst day in Israel’s history.”

Just as the world changed forever for Americans after 9/11, so too will the world never again be quite the same for Israelis after Hamas’s Shemini Atzeres attacks. Israeli Jews are justly renowned for their resilience, but whatever shreds of our sense of security still remained have now been shattered. The images of Hamas terrorists going methodically house-to-house in Jewish settlements searching for Jews to execute have been seen by every Israeli.

In terms of the magnitude of the IDF’s intelligence and operational failures, Israelis would have to go back to the Yom Kippur War, which broke out almost exactly fifty years to the day (on the secular calendar) prior to yesterday’s attacks — October 6, 1973. Then, the “Concept” that dominated the intelligence echelons dismissed the possibility that the Arab armies would dare attack Israel, in light of their devastating defeat in 1967. But as traumatic as the opening days of the Yom Kippur War were for Israelis, at no point did Syrian and Egyptian forces penetrate within the 1949 armistice lines and massacre Israeli civilians.

This time, it appears that Hamas duped Israel into believing that it cares more about the well-being of Gaza residents, including the 17,000 workers who cross into Israel daily, than about killing Israelis, by refraining from joining Islamic Jihad in recent attacks on Israel.