Bitter lessons from the massacre

The fact that Israeli intelligence had no information on the attack is the country's greatest intelligence failure since the Yom Kippur War, 50 years ago almost to the day. It may also be an indication that the wedge that Prime Minister Netanyahu has driven into society with his judicial reform has indeed compromised Israel's security, as many Israeli experts had predicted it would.

The massacre in southern Israel offers some bitter lessons. First: Israel continues to be surrounded by bloodthirsty barbarians, whether Hamas and Islamic Jihad in the south, Hezbollah in the north or Palestinian terrorists in the West Bank. They continue to take every opportunity to kill as many Jews as possible and would commit genocide against the Israeli people if they had the means to do so.

This is precisely why Israel's blockade of Gaza was, and continues to be, justified. It's hard to imagine what could happen if Iran or Hezbollah were to supply Hamas with even better weapons.

For all its technological superiority, the Jewish state remains a highly vulnerable community.

In fact, a new “axis of evil” is currently emerging, which includes Hamas, Hezbollah, Syria, Iran and Russia. The members of this axis commit systematic war crimes against civilians, in total disregard of all international law.

Russia's slaughters in Bucha and elsewhere in Ukraine (and before that, in Syria), together with Hamas's massacres in southern Israel, spring from the same nihilism that holds people and norms in utter contempt, and with which there is no possibility of a compromise.

Israel cannot afford to be weak

Many in the West have become accustomed to seeing Israel as a kind of "Middle Eastern superpower." But for all its technological superiority, the Jewish state remains a highly vulnerable community that cannot afford any strategic mistakes in its hostile neighborhood, where negligence can have dire consequences. And where every sign of weakness (like the ongoing demonstrations against Netanyahu's judicial reforms) is interpreted by Israel's enemies as an opportunity to strike.

Israel cannot continue to simply stand by and watch.

However, it is entirely possible that this time Hamas has made a fatal strategic error. We can already see how the unprecedented terrorist attack is likely to bring Israeli society together against a common enemy.

Despite his reputation as a hawk, Netanyahu has historically shied away from responding to Hamas's cyclical escalations in Gaza with all-out war. But it is now clear that Israel cannot continue to simply stand by and watch as Hamas builds up ever more destructive potential against Israel's civilian population.

It is also clear that the precarious ceasefires of the past are being met by increasingly bloody terrorist attacks. Both the Israelis in the south of the country and the Palestinians in Gaza have been taken hostage by Hamas's nihilistic ideology. It is time to put an end to this reign of terror.