October 7 – Between Solidarity and Stutter in Germany

On October 7, 2023 at 6.28 AM, the world in Israel was alright. Despite regular Hamas rockets on the cities and kibbutzim in the south, the terrorist attacks in Jerusalem and the daily threats from Hezbollah and the mullahs in Iran.

At 6.29 this absurd Middle East order and everyday life in Israel shattered. We Jews experienced the worst massacre since the Holocaust. When I said this sentence for the first time days later in an interview with German TV, I broke a principle. Because there is no comparison with the Holocaust. But the horror on my cell phone, the images of decapitated babies, of raped, mutilated women, of burned families, the horror of this sight, was the horror that struck me again and again in my youth in Munich as the grandchild of Holocaust survivors.

With the horror came clarity. Several clarities.

The first: the bestiality of the Palestinian Jihadists has no bounds. Hamas is ISIS. It is part of the diabolical alliance that Iran commands, equips and finances. In close brotherhood in arms with Russia and North Korea.

The second: Israel is not only fighting for Israel. But for the entire Free World.

Another clarity? Solidarity is a precious currency, but one that is at risk of inflation and devaluation.

In the first weeks after 7 October, its value rose to where it belonged in the civilized world: to the top. Solidarity was the consensus, the raided Nova Festival became a symbol of a free and joyful world.

Then Israel defended itself. It attacked the Gaza Strip to free the hostages and destroy the murderous Hamas regime. Never again should a child in Israel be torn from their bed, murdered, tortured or abducted by bloodthirsty terrorists.

And solidarity immediately lost its value. With each passing day. Instead, “experts” and presenters in the media spread equidistant comments. After that, calls for the release of the Israeli hostages became less and less loud. And finally, vulgar anti-Semitic and anti-Israel rants dominated Instagram, X and Co. The public broadcasters gave plenty of space to Hamas supporters and endless advice boiling down to the demand for Israel to refrain from defending itself.

During this time, the Palestinian propaganda machine was revving at full speed, plunging the value of solidarity with Israel to an all-time low. The Tiktok Intifada turned the loud silence into shrill shouting. It became hip to shout hate slogans at pro-Palestinian demonstrations, from the river to the see became the mantra of indoctrinated students wallowing in their new identity as bigots. They turned bloodthirsty terrorists into freedom fighters. Dancing victims of the Nova Festival became occupiers who got what they deserved. Hostages, including women and small children, became prisoners, equivalent to captured Hamas terrorists.

Israel defended itself. And suddenly it became quiet. And it remained quiet as Hezbollah rockets pounded Israel’s north day after day. When a mother and her son were murdered by a rocket in their living room. When 12 children playing on the soccer field were crushed by a rocket. When over 60,000 families had to be evacuated from their homes to escape the rockets and the danger of a Hezbollah massacre October 7-style in the north. Israel waited eleven months for diplomatic efforts to persuade Hezbollah to implement UN Resolution 1701. In vain. Almost 50 Israeli civilians were murdered by Hezbollah rockets during this time. They paid the price for the international community’s naivety in believing that an Islamist terrorist organization could be called to reason in diplomatic talks.

Israel defended itself. It liquidated the butcher who fired tens of thousands of Hezbollah rockets at Israel. And reflexively, criticism came from Germany and other democracies. Sometimes absurd to the point of unbearable banality: Israel was harming its security, according to the Foreign Office. A few weeks after Berlin’s military support for Israel began to stutter and Germany abstained from voting in an outrageously anti-Israeli UN vote. Nolens volens, the question arose: Where is it, the famous raison d’état? Or rather, does it exist? Between heart-warming expressions of solidarity, open arms and hearts for the relatives of the hostages, which I experienced on countless trips over the past year, the paradoxical stuttering was there again and again. The distorted view of the darkest year for Israel since its foundation. The subtext that if Netanyahu only wanted to, the hostages would be at home and the Middle East would be stable and serene. The fact that neither Putin’s attack on Ukraine nor October 7 transformed the dangerously naive wishful-thinking lens into a razor-sharp magnifying glass, is reason for serious concern.

The dangers that Israel is now fighting with the blood of its soldiers, the brilliance of its security apparatus and the incredible resilience of its home front are the dangers that are knocking at Germany’s and Europe’s door. The extremists celebrating the Hamas massacre and the ayatollahs’ ballistic missiles against the Jewish state on the streets of Berlin are listening to the statements of the German government. They laugh up their sleeves at the record-breaking number of calls for a ceasefire, also under conditions calling for Israel’s suicide. They rejoice at the pressure on Israel to do more to free the hostages, while the executioner Sinwar kept them in his terror tunnels as human shields. They can hardly believe their luck as calls for more and more humanitarian aid for Gaza remount. Meanwhile, Hamas cadres fill their bellies and pockets by looting the supplies and selling them at markets, flanked by the benevolence of the Red Cross, which has not said a word about the starving, tortured hostages for months.

A devastating learning experience for the fanatics whose eyes are on Germany and the entire free world.

With October 7 came darkness. With darkness came clarity.

On October 7, 2024, at 6:29 a.m., the sirens that ripped our children from their beds a year ago, began to wail. This time they wailed at the “Square of the Hamas hostages” in Berlin. At the historic Bebelplatz, where Nazis burned books by Jewish authors in 1933. Here, we exposed the remains of Carmel Gat’s books, which were rescued from her parents’ burnt house in Kibbutz Be’eri. Next to a reconstructed Hamas tunnel, the oversized hourglass and a reconstructed burnt living room. Carmel was a wonderful young woman who was abducted to Gaza by Hamas terrorists on October 7 and executed by Hamas a few weeks ago. The story of Carmel’s family, the terror that her brother Alon Gat survived with his three-year-old daughter, symbolizes the darkness we have been living through for the past year. At the same time, this very family shows us how to transform grief and pain into strength and action. For 11 months, Alon fought like a lion for the release of his sister. Now he is fighting for the remaining 101 hostages.

I will never forget how President Steinmeier cried with Alon’s family and other relatives of the hostages during our visit to Bellevue Palace. How thousands of people cheered when we symbolically renamed Bebelplatz “Square of the Hamas Hostages”. How they thanked us for creating this space for solidarity with the hostages and with Israel. How the Lord Mayor showed a clear stance when he had extremist university squatters evicted, answered a pro-Palestinian activist that the Israeli flag would hang outside his City Hall until all hostages were freed, and how he helped me ensure that there would be a hostages square in Berlin again on October 7. How Berlin’s Senator for Culture chose to stand on the right side in the face of fiercest hostility. The real and acute joint dangers force us to unite. The solidarity of the decent gives us courage.

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A German version of this article was published in Germany’s “Tagesspiegel” on October 7th, 2024