Two years have passed since October 7, 2023 — the Simchat Torah massacre — when Hamas terrorists stormed southern Israel and unleashed unspeakable horrors on civilians. It was the darkest day in modern Jewish history: 1,200 men, women, and children murdered; hundreds taken hostage; entire families burned alive; women raped and mutilated; babies executed in their cribs. The footage, proudly filmed by the killers themselves, should have been enough to jolt the world into moral clarity.
The World’s Moral Amnesia
In the immediate aftermath, there was outrage, solidarity, and a brief moment of empathy. Then came the pivot. As Israel buried its dead and reeled from trauma, global opinion shifted from shock to suspicion. The victims became the accused. Within weeks, the narrative of Jewish suffering had been replaced by a familiar inversion — the claim that Israel was the aggressor and Gaza the victim.
This inversion was not born of ignorance but of wilful blindness and intentional deception. Hamas invaded Israel, not the other way around. Hamas declared war on peace, not Israel. And yet, across Western capitals and campuses, the world’s moral compass swung wildly off course.
What We Should Have Learned
October 7 should have taught the world that evil still exists — not abstractly, not historically, but vividly and intentionally. It should have reminded us that the security of the Jewish state is not a political choice but a moral imperative. It should have been a turning point in understanding that antisemitism never disappears; it merely changes its disguise.
We should have learned that the deliberate murder of Jews cannot be excused as “resistance.”
We should have learned that a movement seeking Israel’s annihilation cannot be a partner for peace.
We should have learned that “Never Again” is meaningless unless it applies universally and consistently.
Instead, the lesson many chose to learn was the oldest one of all — to blame the Jew.
The New Face of an Ancient Hatred
Since October 7, antisemitism has surged across the world at levels unseen in generations. Synagogues have been defaced, Jewish students harassed, businesses targeted, and even Jewish worshipers murdered. Protesters chant genocidal slogans in Western streets under the guise of “justice.” Universities — once bastions of critical thinking — have become echo chambers of hate, where Jewish identity is treated as a provocation and “Free Palestine” serves as moral camouflage for intimidation.
This is not solidarity with Palestinians; it is scapegoating of Jews. And it reveals something uncomfortable: that beneath the language of social justice, much of today’s activism is animated not by compassion but by contempt — not by the pursuit of peace, but by the desire to see Israel fall.
The Media’s Complicity
Mainstream media have amplified this distortion. With a few exceptions, they have repeated Hamas’s unverifiable casualty numbers, minimised Israel’s humanitarian efforts, and sanitised the atrocities of October 7. Even now, stories of hostage suffering struggle for column space beside sensationalised accusations against the IDF.
The selective outrage is staggering. When Russia bombs Ukraine, it is condemned as barbarism. When Hamas hides behind civilians and those civilians die, it is blamed on Israel. The moral double standard is not a bug — it is the feature.
The Cost of Cowardice
For governments, the temptation to appease the loudest voices has proven irresistible. Instead of demanding Hamas’s unconditional surrender and the release of all hostages, many have pressured Israel to show “restraint” — as though self-defence were a greater sin than terrorism. The recognition of a Palestinian state by some nations, while hostages remain in captivity and Hamas still rules Gaza, sends a chilling message: that terrorism works, provided its victims are Israelis.
Terror’s Immediate Consequence: Manchester, Yom Kippur 2025
Nowhere was the danger of moral confusion clearer than in Britain. Just days after the UK government announced its recognition of a Palestinian state — a move framed as an attempt to “revive the peace process” — horror struck Manchester. On Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, a man drove a car into worshippers outside the Heaton Park Hebrew Congregation and attacked them with a knife. Two Jews were murdered, others wounded, and a community traumatised.
The symbolism could not be more striking. Britain’s gesture of recognition, framed as a diplomatic act, was followed almost immediately by the murder of Jews on British soil. While no government can be held responsible for the actions of a lone extremist, the attack exposed a deeper, insidious reality: that the Jewish diaspora is increasingly treated as collectively responsible for the policies of the State of Israel — a notion that is both false and dangerous.
This is not how peace is built. It is how terror is normalised.
Across Europe, Jewish communities now face the consequences of this conflation. Synagogues operate under armed guard. Jewish schools are fortified. Worshippers hesitate to attend services, particularly on holy days. Antisemitic attacks have surged, fuelled by rhetoric that blames Jews everywhere for the actions of a sovereign state. The pattern is unmistakable: the victims of terror are blamed for its existence, while the extremists who perpetrate violence are excused or celebrated.
Moral consistency matters. You cannot decry antisemitism while empowering the ideology that fuels it. You cannot claim to champion human rights while recognising a state whose de facto rulers glorify murder, deny women’s freedom, and hold hostages underground. And you cannot honour the memory of October 7 while legitimising those who celebrated it.
Until the world learns that peace cannot be brokered through appeasement, the lessons of October 7 — and now Yom Kippur in Manchester — will remain unlearned: that evil must be confronted, not excused; that Jewish lives cannot be treated as collateral; and that the diaspora bears no guilt for the policies of Israel, despite the moral inversion propagated by those who conflate identity with politics.
What Israel Taught the World — Again
Yet amidst this darkness, Israel has shown the world something extraordinary. The unity of a wounded nation. The moral restraint of an army fighting an enemy that glorifies death. The endurance of a people whose survival has always defied the odds. Israelis rebuilt shattered communities, volunteered in hospitals, donated blood, and stood shoulder to shoulder across political divides.
If October 7 revealed the world’s moral confusion, it also reaffirmed Israel’s moral clarity.
The Question That Remains
So what have we — the so-called enlightened world — learned?
That antisemitism remains the world’s most resilient conspiracy theory.
That truth, in the age of viral propaganda, is optional.
That too many people prefer comforting lies to confronting evil.
And that the Jews, once again, are expected to apologise for surviving.
But Israel’s existence is not an apology. It is a declaration — that the Jewish people will never again rely on the world’s conscience for their safety.
Two years after the Simchat Torah massacre, we can only hope the world begins to understand what Israel already knows: that peace is impossible without truth, and that moral clarity is not a luxury — it is the foundation of civilisation itself.
