Israel will recover and rebuild: it has no choice

“For a nanosecond, democratic nations will understand what Israel has always had to deal with,” I wrote. “Having witnessed the barbarity of terrorism and the depravity of terrorists, this awakening will, at least for a moment, inform the world’s outlook and generate empathy for Israel’s reality - that it’s on the frontline fighting for democracies everywhere. And this has been the situation since David Ben-Gurion presided over the declaration of the state in the Tel Aviv Museum on May 14, 1948.”

It’s not what you’re thinking. I did not write that in response to October 7. I wrote it 22 years ago as editor of the Australian Jewish News after an aircraft crashed into the World Trade Centre’s South Tower on September 11, 2001.

So unprecedented was the scale of 9/11 that I was convinced nations would relate to the hostile universe that Israel inhabited, one which does not allow for democratic values or women’s rights or alternative voices - but only for a moment. After which, realpolitik would kick in, expressions of support would be mostly cast aside and partisan interests would reclaim the agenda. And so it was.

Inevitably, my thoughts defaulted to a similar position in the immediate aftermath of October 7 – thoughts which were reinforced as first-hand information became available regarding the savagery inflicted on Israeli women and on young adults at the Nova music festival, as well as from harrowing footage gleaned from Hamas body-cameras and Israeli CCTV, some of which had viewers gasping in horror.

Aware of the unprecedented assault – the most devastating on Jews anywhere since the Holocaust and in Israel’s history – democratic nations and civil society couldn’t help but evince some understanding of the nature of the beast with which Israel habitually contends, and conveyed empathy in the wake of the attack and the abduction of the hostages.