October 7th, three years later – a personal reflection

A few days after October 7, 2023, at our first Shabbat service, I made a somber remark that Israel and Jews in the Diaspora were finally being supported globally. Without missing a beat, the rabbi looked at me and said, “Give them a few days, and they will hate us again.” That was three years ago. Although his cynicism did not escape me, he was on point. It did not take long for the global community, starting with the UN, to raise antisemitism and anti-Israel rhetoric to a hyperbole not seen in decades.

The ICBJ, or International Christian Embassy Jerusalem, publishes monthly joint Christian-Israeli news globally. I receive the German version, ²Internationale Christliche Botschaft Jerusalem, better known globally as ICEJ. Prominent Christian and Jewish podcasters, journalists, and researchers opine and report on current global and Israeli news. In April of this year, this periodical interviewed Israeli journalist, analyst, speaker, and influencer ¹Hananya Naftali Rede.

Hananya combats antisemitism and rabid anti-Israel vitriol with facts. Hananya’s interview was titled ²12 Umbequeme Wahrheiten, or, in English, the 12 Uncomfortable Truths. Like a surgeon, Hananya cuts through antisemitic falsehoods with precision to expose the truth. He tackles untruths ranging from the genocide narrative to “fake news” about Israel ²(Fake-News uber Israel) in an educational read about how the world distorts the truth with impunity.

Hananya’s analysis is brilliant, but what happened after October 7 did not happen gradually. Israel has been demonized by the likes of the UN for decades. No protests in major Western cities called for its isolation or destruction. What set the fuse on the sudden, volcanic-like eruption almost overnight of antisemitism and hatred toward Israel and Jews?

Israel had not even woken up from the devastation of that day when an unfettered explosion of pro-Hamas sympathizers filled the streets and Ivy League campuses, harassing Jewish citizens and students without resistance or even condemnation.

I have developed several theories. Having lived in Germany for 41 years through the Cold War and the post-Cold War era, I can attest to the fact that Germany has spent over eight decades trying to come to terms with the Holocaust. It is a mandatory subject in schools, and high school children are compelled to visit concentration camps (Konzentrationslager) in ³Flossenbürg, some 40 kilometers from where I live in Bavaria. Has antisemitism risen in Germany despite these measures?

According to ²ICEJ, antisemitism in Germany has risen by 215% since 2022. Although European countries like Germany and Austria have cracked down on terrorist cells from ISIS to Hezbollah, ³ICEJ admits that these organizations create their own “state” in Europe. However, members of Hezbollah in Austria are labeled merely as a “military faction” ²(Militärische Flügel), whereas in Germany, Hezbollah has been labeled a terrorist organization and legally forbidden since 2020.

The EU, which forced countries like Germany and the UK to admit millions from the Middle East under the guise of “human rights,” is now a bedrock of Islamist fundamentalists who had no wish to assimilate but the compulsion to change the demographics of these European countries, starting with the major cities. Nobody had a clue who they were, whether they were affiliated with any terrorist organization, or where they came from. Hence, the various Hezbollah and ISIS cells that German task forces found in cities like Hamburg, Berlin, and Munich, flourished.

The US, under the Biden administration, admitted millions across the border without vetting.  “Students” on visas from hostile Middle Eastern countries found a niche at major universities. This, combined with the presence of BDS ⁴ (Boycott, Divest, Sanction) organizations on campuses, which in the past were given a nod and a shake, created the perfect recipe for vitriolic anti-Israel and anti-Jewish hatred in the mainstream population. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) strips away the pretense of a human rights narrative that BDS attempts to portray. Its organization’s mission is the delegitimization of Israel and nothing more.

On October 7th, these antisemitic elements, fostered over decades by the UN, human rights groups, and unchecked immigration from hostile countries, ultimately ignited, fully conscious that the timing was favorable. Major cities, albeit too late, ultimately recognized that they had been infiltrated by terrorist sympathizers who had strategically embedded themselves in major urban centers such as London, Berlin, New York, and Toronto in Canada. The massacre served as the catalyst for open antisemitism. A macabre inversion of victimhood from the real victims onto the perpetrators.

These are predominantly leftist movements permitted to function under various justifications, chiefly human rights. European political leaders faced a predicament they instigated and failed to recognize the consequences of unregulated immigration until these “immigrants” and “asylum seekers” demonstrated in opposition to the only Jewish state worldwide. The ball had traveled too far down the road to be retrieved.

The global antisemitic surge did not happen in a vacuum. Antisemitism is not spontaneous. It is nurtured. It is given fertile soil to grow and flourish. It is irrigated with daily doses of disingenuous narratives by political pundits and legacy media that are mainly secular and hostile to traditionalism. They hide behind labels of racism, Islamophobia, and oppression.

Finally, one must also consider the money behind the activism. In October 2023, shortly after the October 7th massacre, the ⁵New York Post published a scathing article about who funds anti-Israel groups and causes. The article appeared as pro-Hamas protests peaked on university campuses and in major cities. The main contributor was a DC-based organization called Arabella Advisors. Do not be fooled by their name. They are the head of a large distribution of funds, approximately ten million, to radical anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian, socialist, and leftist groups. Benign names like New Venture Fund, Hopewell Fund, Sixteen Thirty Fund, North Fund, and Windward Fund may suggest charitable organizations bent on promoting well-being and entrepreneurship. These entities have collectively enabled the proliferation of what we are experiencing today: unchecked antisemitism.

My theory is that when activism is prioritized over truth, distortion becomes acceptable. Once a narrative, no matter how insidious, becomes fact, the activist has nowhere to go but continue forward. There is no retraction, no matter how many interviews Hananya gives. Admitting the truth would mean admitting wrongdoing. Those who dug in against Israel are caught in their own deception and, to some extent, stupidity. Nobody is going to admit that.

The stage has been set, and the mindset of perverted academia and spineless political leaders has enabled the unimaginable. There was no spark of self-righteousness in the abruptness of anti-Israel rhetoric and Jew-harassment in the diaspora. The blinders have been on for decades; October 7th ripped them off.

Am Israel Chai!

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¹Hananya Naftali | Israel News and Middle East Analysis

²Word from Jerusalem – Issue 4/2026 – ICEJ – Deutscher Zweig e.V.

³Quick Guide to Visiting Flossenbürg Concentration Camp

⁴The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Campaign (BDS) | ADL

⁵Liberal dark money network has donated $10 million to anti-Israel causes