For Israel, ‘never again’ is now

Three weeks after the most deadly attacks on Jews since the Holocaust, Israel’s fighting spirit and ingenuity are resurfacing. Its military has devised a way to block many of Hamas’s tunnels under Gaza by firing sponge bombs – a chemical compound that forms a rapidly hardening foam. The network would be a serious obstacle in a ground offensive. And the Israeli Defence Forces killed the deputy head of Hamas’s Intelligence Directorate, Shadi Baroud, in a strike on Gaza. Baroud was an architect of the October 7 barbarity. More broadly, as Israelis grieve 1400 victims and fear for more than 220 hostages, from babies to Holocaust survivors, dragged away by Hamas, the war has crystallised into a fight for liberal values. The scope of what is at stake – the future of the free world as well as the survival of the Jewish homeland – is poorly understood.

Ignorant, blinkered media and universities are part of the problem. In the US, students at UC Berkeley were offered extra credit for attending a pro-Palestine walkout. On Australian campuses, Jewish students fear for their safety. And a growing number of Jewish academics, Stephen Rice wrote in Friday’s paper, have quit the National Tertiary Education Union over its demand for “unwavering solidarity with Palestine and … an immediate end to occupation and apartheid”. The Jewish academics’ stand is morally right. Sections of the media have much to answer for. Since the slaughter, rape and kidnapping of innocent Israelis on October 7 triggered the war, The Sydney Morning Herald, for example, has failed to put imagery of the terror attack, or faces of the hostages, on its front pages. The explosion near a packed Gaza hospital was reported as a blame game between Israel and its opponents, even after Joe Biden accepted intelligence that Islamic Jihad was responsible. Anguished reports over lack of fuel for hospitals in Gaza ignore evidence of Hamas’s stockpiles. On Friday, Workplace Relations Minister Tony Burke should have done better responding to a loaded question from the ABC’s Patricia Karvelas as to whether he considered the treatment of Palestinians in Gaza an act of genocide. Mr Burke, whose southwestern Sydney seat of Watson has been the site of vigorous pro-Palestinian demonstrations, did not unequivocally reject the question. He sidestepped it. As Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council executive director Colin Rubenstein said: “Israel has no intention to destroy the Palestinians in whole or in part – unlike Hamas, which openly declares such intent against Jews in its charter and whose October 7 attacks match that intent.’’ Dr Rubenstein is correct. The war is about the security of the Jewish people and survival of their homeland, the creation of which, in 1948, should have ensured they would never again suffer a Holocaust or other persecutions. The terror attacks have brought Israel’s existential battle to the surface. But the hostility was evident long before, through the destructive Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement and among virtue-signalling green-lefties chanting “from the river to the sea Palestine will be free’’. That phrase is a euphemism for wiping Israel off the map, as Iran’s brutal regime, which is intolerant of any form of protest, has long advocated. Former foreign minister Alexander Downer put the situation in context when he wrote: “There are 56 Muslim nations, 103 so-called Christian nations and one Jewish state. If you think one is too many … yes, exactly. I don’t need to spell it out.’’

Iran’s role in expanding the war is clear. About 500 Islamist group fighters received combat training in Iran in September, The Wall Street Journal has revealed. The fighters, from Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, were trained by the Quds, an arm of Tehran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard. A Hamas delegation visited Iran’s ally, Russia, on Thursday. US forces have come under attack 17 times in Iraq, Syria and the Red Sea in the past 10 days, by militants funded by Iran. About 3000 US troops are in Iraq and Syria to prevent a resurgence of Islamic State. Hezbollah, backed by Iran, its paymaster, is stepping up attacks across Israel’s northern border. Writing from the Golan Heights, Yoni Bashan reports Israelis are stockpiling food for their bomb shelters in anticipation of a second front, including guided missiles, unleashed by Iran’s proxy.

Experience is a potent teacher and amid the threat to the civilised world, 100 major German companies, including VW, BMW, Audi, Deutsche Bank and Lufthansa, have shown they have learned from the past. In full-page newspaper ads this week, they acknowledged Germany’s “historical responsibility’’ and insisted “there is no place for hatred against Jews in Germany’’. Or anywhere. “Never again,” they declared, is the obligation of every individual. “Never again” is now.