Page 73 - October 7 - Teresa Pirola

terror on October 7?
Perhaps Hamas isn’t really that bad, seems to be the unspoken reasoning. Wasn’t it a case of the bear being poked? Perhaps the antisemitism in our streets is just a bit of overreach in an otherwise peaceful protest. Things are sure to settle down soon. An interfaith prayer service or two will bring people together and we can all be friends again.
Yet the facts on the ground say otherwise. Antisemitic incidents in Australia have increased sevenfold in the two months following October 7. Meanwhile, antisemitic comments online are too ubiquitous to measure.
Further, the emerging evidence regarding the brutal and sadistic violence on October 7 makes a lie of the notion of ‘freedom fighters’ defending a Palestinian justice cause. It was a premeditated, highly organised slaughter designed to cause maximum civilian deaths and horrific human suffering. It appears that rape and mutilation of the bodies of women were weaponised as an element of Hamas’ strategy.
Many Catholics may wish to play the ‘both sides are at fault’ card and entertain the idea that we shouldn’t take Israel’s ‘side’ against Hamas—that we can simply speak about ‘human dignity’, appeal to the goodness within the human heart, and wait for Israelis and Palestinians to come together in peace.
But how does Israel, a democratic state with a history of making peace with its past enemies (Jordan, Egypt, and several countries within the Abraham Accords) make peace with a listed terrorist organisation like Hamas, which is aligned with Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah—all backed by an Iranian regime that denies Israel’s right to exist and calls for the destruction of the Jewish state? How does Israel make peace with leaders who have no ethical qualms about massacring unarmed civilians, taking children as
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