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On this, the second anniversary of the massacre in Israel following the invasion from Gaza by Hamas and other terrorists, all commentaries about that day of horrors, should begin by recalling the specifics of that attack — its immediate toll, the brutality of the mayhem and the extraordinary cruelty of killers on that day two years ago.
Some 6,000 terrorists invaded Israel that morning, including approximately 3,800 terrorists from Hamas and approximately 2,200 terrorists from other terrorist groups and unaffiliated terrorists.
That’s the equivalent of the landing of two brigades of American troops — an invasion force close to the size of that which the U.S. deployed to Grenada in Operation Urgent Fury in 1983.
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The terrorists from Gaza murdered more than 1,100 citizens of Israel as well as dozens of foreigners, wounded 5,000 more innocents and kidnapped 250 hostages.
Of the 250 hostages, 146 have been freed or rescued, and 83 have been confirmed murdered by Hamas and other terrorists. Hamas and its allies continue to hold 20 live hostages and the remains of 30 others who died in captivity.
For the sake of understanding the scale of the trauma experienced by all of Israel and most of worldwide Jewry as well as all decent people in the world, consider this: the population of Israel is almost 10 million; the population of the United States is 340 million. An equivalent terrorist attack on the U.S. would kill more than 40,000 Americans, wound 170,000 and see 8,500 carried away into captivity.
Every discussion of the two years of war Israel has endured should begin with those numbers. It’s like noting that when Imperial Japan began its war of choice with the United States on December 7, 1941, a total of 2,403 Americans were killed and 1,178 were wounded. The casualties included 2,008 Navy personnel, 109 Marines, 218 Army personnel and 68 civilians. In the war of retaliation that followed, according to American Heritage magazine, deaths “in the ‘Pacific War’ included about three million Japanese (two-thirds combatants).”
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American casualties in the Pacific theater over the course of the entire war totaled around 160,000 dead, with a much higher number of wounded.
So far, since the war Hamas began, at least 913 members of the Israeli Defense Forces have been killed. Again, to get to an equivalent cost in lives of our uniformed forces, America would have to suffer more than 31,000 “killed in action” (“KIA”).
Approximately 33,700 Americans were killed in action in the Korean War, 47,400 in the Vietnam War, 150 in the First Gulf War, around 1,900 in the Afghanistan War, and roughly 3,700 in the second Iraq War.
So, the civilian toll from a 10/7 level attack on America would be 40,000. Israel’s military response has cost the IDF and Israel almost the equivalent number of lives lost by the American military in the Korean War and about six times the total number of our war dead in both Iraq Wars and the Afghanistan War waged since 1991.
These are the numbers and the scale that Americans must absorb and reflect on at length before offering any opinion on Israel’s response to the invasion by Hamas and other terrorists on 10/7 –- or on attacks since then on Israel from Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen, Shia militias in Iraq and Syria, from within Israel’s West Bank, and of course, directly from Iran in the “Islamic Republic’s” two massive bombardments of Israel since 10/7.
Israel’s seven front war has now entered its third year and may end soon. The United States has no parallel in our collective experience to the past two years in Israel.
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But only the willfully ignorant will ignore the scale of that attack on Israel or the burden Israel has borne in the two years since then without making some mental calculations as to what America would have done in the aftermath of anything approaching an equivalent strike on her and her people.
That Israel has conquered all its enemies, on all seven fronts, should not dull the sense of shock about what happened two years ago.
That Israel’s response has been one of the most discriminate wars ever waged in retaliation after being invaded and brutalized is an understatement. Propagandists for Hamas and Iran and all of Israel’s other enemies have counted on the endless churning of the news cycle to dim our memories of that awful day and obscure our vision of how carefully Israel has responded in its just battles that have followed.
Those propagandists have actually succeeded among the West’s fellow travelers and useful idiots, but not among any objective and serious outside observers.
Those observers will conclude that no other country in history has shown as much restraint as Israel in waging an obviously just war in response to such an invasion and slaughter.
John Spencer is a U.S. Army veteran of the Iraq War. He now studies urban warfare at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. He has studied Israel’s military operations in Gaza with professional detachment and a scholar’s approach to data and history.
“Israel has taken extraordinary steps to limit civilian harm,” Spencer posted on X in late July. Israel “warns before attacks using text messages, phone calls, leaflets, and broadcasts,” he continued. “It opens safe corridors and pauses operations so civilians can leave combat areas. It tracks civilian presence down to the building level. I have seen missions delayed or canceled because children were nearby. I have seen Israeli troops come under fire and still be ordered not to shoot back because civilians might be harmed.”
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Spencer, aware of the propaganda campaign waged against the IDF unequivocally 24/7/365 on social media and via “activist journalism,” laid down the facts at length:
“Israel has delivered more humanitarian aid to Gaza than any military in history has provided to an enemy population during wartime. More than 94,000 trucks carrying over 1.8 million tons of aid have entered the territory. Israel has supported hospitals, repaired water pipelines, increased access to clean water, and enabled over 36,000 patients to leave Gaza for treatment abroad.
The IDF has coordinated millions of vaccine doses, supplied fuel for hospitals and infrastructure, and facilitated the flow of food and medicine through the UN, aid groups, and private partners. The U.S.–Israeli Gaza Humanitarian Foundation alone has delivered more than 82 million meals—one to two million a day—while weakening Hamas’s control over aid. This is not genocide. It is responsible and historic mid-war humanitarian policy.”
Israel has done this against enemies that prepared for a siege in response to its invasion and savagery, by constructing an elaborate underground fortress of tunnels and redoubts — an underground warren outfitted to withstand what it thought would be a typical Israeli war of limited duration. Hamas planned on tactical surprise and strategic survival because it knows the history of international pressure on Israel not to win wars but only not lose them.
Not this time. While fighting a multi-front war with more restraint than history has ever recorded anywhere in the annals of war, Israel has never flagged in its determination to set free its hostages and to destroy the enemies which began this war. It appears poised to do both. But it is not over yet.
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10/7 ought to have changed Americans’ understanding of Israel and the threats which surround it. The savagery of that day two years ago — captured on film by the terrorists, undeniable and undenied — stunned and revolted most civilized people and scars and sickens any normal person who watched it. That kind of fanaticism evokes the worst of World War II or Stalin’s or Mao’s epic cruelty. Worse, in fact, as they did not appear to publicly celebrate death. Even the Nazis were ashamed of their barbarism.
Not Hamas and its allies. They celebrated their barbarism. Israel will never forget. Neither should the West.
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The lesson of 10/7 that everyone should hold on to: When enemies declare their intent to kill you and your family, to torture and maim before killing or abducting, to wipe out your country and your race or co-religionists — believe them. Understand that those enemies are serious and, given the opportunity, that they will do exactly those things.
And they will do them with glee and a bloodlust, we had thought subdued, at least in the West.
The events of 9/11 did not prepare Americans for 10/7 because the horror of that day appeared to have been perpetrated by 19 hijackers and a handful of planners, though Afghanistan’s Taliban provided them a safe haven from which to plot and plan.
Six thousand invaders was beyond our imagination. It should not be now.
For what Hamas did on 10/7, it, and its fellow fanatics, would gladly do again and again to Israel, the United States and any open and pluralist society. The evil of fanatical theocrats is still there, along with the evils of the radical left and its atheist overlords. Every 10/7 should be an Ebenezer to mankind’s capacity for cruel killing and its celebration — not just in Israel but in America and all other open societies.
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Hugh Hewitt is a Fox News contributor and host of “The Hugh Hewitt Show” heard weekday afternoons from 3 PM to 6 PM ET on the Salem Radio Network, and simulcast on Salem News Channel. Hugh drives Americans home on the East Coast and to lunch on the West Coast on over 400 affiliates nationwide, and on all the streaming platforms where SNC can be seen. He is a frequent guest on the Fox News Channel’s news roundtable, hosted by Bret Baier weekdays at 6pm ET. A son of Ohio and a graduate of Harvard College and the University of Michigan Law School, Hewitt has been a Professor of Law at Chapman University’s Fowler School of Law since 1996 where he teaches Constitutional Law. Hewitt launched his eponymous radio show from Los Angeles in 1990. Hewitt has frequently appeared on every major national news television network, hosted television shows for PBS and MSNBC, written for every major American paper, has authored a dozen books and moderated a score of Republican candidate debates, most recently the November 2023 Republican presidential debate in Miami and four Republican presidential debates in the 2015-16 cycle. Hewitt focuses his radio show and his column on the Constitution, national security, American politics and the Cleveland Browns and Guardians. Hewitt has interviewed tens of thousands of guests, from Democrats Hillary Clinton and John Kerry to Republican Presidents George W. Bush and Donald Trump over his 40 years in broadcasting. This column previews the lead story that will drive his radio/ TV show today.
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