Today marks exactly one year since Hamas fighters staged a surprise raid Israeli villages and settlements and murdered, raped, and cut them to pieces, tortured, burned alive… just doing what they are ordered to do in their holy writings and what they’ve been doing for over a thousand years. Some people also taken away, which is not surprising. Slave hunting is part of it. It was all the more shocking to us because it’s so well documented. From the videos taken by the attackers to the examination of the charred corpses. And that we were able to see up close the confrontation between normal people of our time and ancient raiders. A battered girl in jeans being loaded into the trunk of a car. The bloodied naked corpse of another young woman under the boots of laughing warriors. Like a tyrannosaurus emerging from the forest. More than a hundred of the abductees are still being held somewhere and in progressive Europe you are not allowed to publish their photographs. Lest anyone feel sorry for them.
Just two comments. First. What is so horrifying for us was relatively common in Europe centuries ago. When we read that in a pogrom took place in a city (including Prague), it means exactly what happened in Israel on October 7th. History textbooks only tell us mercifully withhold the details. Pogroms are actually historically normal. What is abnormal is our time, when such things happen very rarely. Will it last?
Second. It is incredible how bravely Israeli society and how much militancy, resilience, but also ingenuity the attackers have shown. If the Czech Republic had been subjected to a similar attack Republic, there would probably be over 100,000 dead and quite possibly a complete surrender would have followed. Yet it cannot be ruled out that it would sooner or …it will come to us too. There are enough mosques in neighbouring countries, radicals, organizations and weapons to round up a thousand fighters and to attack. But who would take such a risk? They are threatening us. other things. Like questioning the wisdom of a war against Russia.