The free world cannot let the frontline of the West be defeated

The editorial board of The Wall Street Journal calls for total victory over Iran and its terror network.

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris have felt obliged to chastise Israel. Picture: AFP

Hamas’s massacre last October 7 was a catastrophe for Israelis, but a year later it has also taught the West forgotten lessons about deterrence, political will and the illusions of a liberal, peaceful world.

The October 7 attack took Israel by surprise, and the Jewish state has recognized its mistake of underestimating its enemies.

Its response since is an unanswerable argument for the necessity of military readiness, and not only for Israel.

The world should never forget the videos of Hamas’s atrocities. The terrorists livestreamed as they slaughtered the defenceless. They killed some 1200 people and took 251 hostages, 101 of whom remain in captivity, assuming they are still alive.

Hamas is proud of this handiwork and would repeat it if it could. As Hamas politburo member Ghazi Hamad put it on Lebanese TV, the terror group would like to repeat October 7 “again and again.” Since Palestinians are victims of Israel, he says, “Nobody should blame us for the things we do. On October 7, on October 10, on October one-millionth, everything we do is justified.”

Another ugly surprise has been the support for Hamas’s argument in the West, especially on elite college campuses.

The intellectual case for murderous terror made by Frantz Fanon and taught without cavil for two generations has poisoned the young against their own civilisation. Students for Justice in Palestine called October 7 “a historic win for Palestinian resistance,” and anti-Semitism was tolerated by university presidents as free speech.

This has been a shocking revelation, especially since this view has become a major influence in the Democratic Party. President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris have felt obliged to chastise Israel for its response to the massacre as much as they do Hamas for hiding behind innocent children.

Israel has fought on despite its international critics, who have underestimated Israeli public support for a powerful military response.

Israel has shown more political resolve and military strength than its enemies anticipated.

The reply of respectable liberalism has been to urge de-escalation, ceasefires and a two-state solution, and to blame Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu when they don’t materialise. It’s as if Hamas, Hezbollah and their patron in Iran don’t exist.

Hamas has refused to engage with mediators for weeks, and a Palestinian state at peace with Israel has never been its objective or Iran’s. They want Israel destroyed and the Jews expelled or ­murdered.

As long as Iran pursues war, ­Israel must defend itself aggressively to survive. Mr Biden has supported Israel, but he has also tried to cut short its defence. He withheld weapons from Israel even while Hamas ruled Rafah and its brigades controlled Gaza’s smuggling routes to Egypt.

Hezbollah fired on Israel for 11 months. After a week of Israeli success in response, Mr Biden called for a ceasefire there too.

But if Hezbollah remains entrenched in southern Lebanon, how can there be peace? Even if diplomacy could return the region to its October 6 status quo ante, that would prepare the ground for another October 7.

French President Emmanuel Macron now calls for an arms embargo on Israel. Charles de Gaulle cut off Israel three days before the 1967 war with the Arabs. It is an old delusion that disarming Israel will buy peace from the fanatics who attack it.

As long as the West handcuffs Israel but refuses to deter Iran, the flames will spread across the ­Middle East. Israel’s best option is to degrade the Iranian axis’s capabilities and deny it safe havens. Israel will have a better chance at a durable cease-fire when its enemies know they will suffer more than Israel does when they attack.

Israel has made substantial progress to that end, weakening Iran’s proxies and putting its military and nuclear assets at risk. Yet Iran remains the centre of Middle Eastern mayhem, and it is building an alliance with Russia and China. It is bent on obtaining a nuclear weapon, and October 7 shows where a nuclear Iran would lead. The only path to a ceasefire, and a broader Middle East peace, is an Israel victory over Iran and its terror network.

As for the US, October 7 is a reminder that Americans can’t withdraw from the Middle East and assume we can avoid its menace. Iran is bent on America’s destruction as much as it is on Israel’s. The Jewish state is the frontline of the West, and we can’t let it lose.