The 10/7 Attack on Israel in Perspective * WorldNetDaily * by Lt. Col. James Zumwalt

How would the US respond to a major terrorist attack that killed 41,000 Americans?

We have already seen how we responded to a much smaller loss of life – the nearly 3,000 caused by the al-Qaeda attack on 9/11. But that number represents only one-thirteenth of the 41,000 total. It did lead to us sending military forces abroad to destroy the group and locate its founder, Osama bin Laden, and his number 2, Ayman al-Zawahiri.

It took nearly a decade, but on May 1, 2011, bin Laden was located and killed in a safe house in Abbottabad, Pakistan, by U.S. Navy SEALs conducting a rapid in-and-out helicopter raid. It would take another 11 years to locate al-Zawahiri, found in a safe house in Kabul, Afghanistan, where he was killed on July 21, 2022, by a remotely piloted vehicle firing two Hellfire missiles.

The fact that we devoted more than two decades to tracking down these two killers was a testament to our commitment to sending a message to future potential terrorists that we would hunt them down and kill them, no matter how long it took. It is a policy of accountability that Israel is known for, as it tracked down every Islamic terrorist involved in the 1972 Munich Olympics bombing that killed 11 Israeli athletes.

But what if there were another terrorist attack—by a group that has been regularly infiltrating our borders for years to kill our citizens—in a city like Albany, New York, for example, killing 41,000 of its citizens? That toll would instantly be equivalent to 40% of Albany’s population.

Such an attack would undoubtedly trigger a wave of anger among our people, demanding that we eradicate this threat once and for all.

What the West fails to understand about the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, which killed 1,200 innocent civilians, is that, based on Israel’s current population compared to ours, it was the equivalent of the U.S. losing 41,000 of its citizens. Any country that suffers such a dramatic loss of its citizens—made all the more enraged by the fact that the attackers not only tortured and abused their victims but also took more than 200 of them hostage as they retreated—has a license to take whatever action it deems necessary to prevent the terrorists from ever posing a threat again.

In the October 7 attack, Hamas acted to fulfill its stated mission to wipe out Israel. It is so committed to that mission that negotiations to cease hostilities have no other purpose than one: to buy time to heal its wounds, as it did after the 2014 war with Israel, only to launch future attacks on Israel. And Hamas is not alone in seeking to wipe out Israel, as it is now known that at least 7,000 Gazans accompanied the terrorist group in its assault to rape, pillage and plunder the Jewish state.

Hamas’s mentality toward Israel is no different than Iran’s mentality toward the United States. Looking back at the nuclear arms deal that President Barack Obama negotiated with the mullahs of Tehran in 2015—a deal he assured us would never give Iran such weapons—we see that it was an abject failure. Iran is now on the verge of developing those weapons. Meanwhile, having turned its back on Iran and allowed it to play us like a fiddle to further its own goals, we expect Israel to negotiate a ceasefire with a terrorist group that wants to do the same to it.

We naively ignore the fact that Iran—by supplying weapons to terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah—is allowing them to do their bidding against Israeli and American interests. While the Biden/Harris administration is pressuring Israel to reach a ceasefire with Hamas—which will only ensure it survives to fight another day—we are doing what Iran wants. We are not only preventing Israel from achieving its goal of eliminating a threat, but in doing so, we are also preventing it from protecting American interests in the Middle East.

The bodies of six Israeli hostages – kidnapped by Hamas on October 7 and held captive ever since – were recently found, shot at multiple points at close range just 48-72 hours earlier. In an act of utter Western stupidity, the UK ended some of its arms sales to Israel two days later due to “a clear risk that they (British weapons) might be used to commit or facilitate a serious breach of international humanitarian law.” With Hamas blatantly violating humanitarian law, it is Israel – fighting to save the lives of every remaining hostage – that is under scrutiny.

This is especially shocking because Hamas announced that after Israel rescued four hostages alive in June, the Israeli hostage guards had been ordered to kill their protégés if Israeli army soldiers approached.

An outraged Israeli Knesset member criticized the British act as a betrayal of the free world, adding:

“On October 7, Hamas brutally slaughtered babies in their cribs, burned entire families alive, and murdered children and parents in their homes. IDF soldiers fight and sacrifice their lives not only for Israel, but to defend the entire free world. If Israel does not defeat this terror, you will be next. It is time for the world to wake up.”

When Democratic vice presidential candidate Tim Walz was asked about the six hostages killed by Hamas, he, unbelievably, dodged an answer.

In urging Israel to negotiate with Hamas, it is vital that we put the losses of October 7 into context. The loss of 1,200 lives may seem insignificant for a country with a population of 330 million, but it is highly significant for a country with a population of only 9.5 million. Considering that Hamas also has a long history of indiscriminate killings on its own soil, Israel deserves the right to respond as it sees fit to eradicate the threat once and for all.

It is despicable that President Joe Biden, eager to impose a Gaza peace deal on Israel before he leaves office, is supporting Hamas by claiming the Jewish state is “not doing enough.” Now that Israel has suffered a devastating loss equivalent to the murder of 41,000 Americans, it has no choice but to destroy the terrorist group once and for all.