How soon we forget. While the vast majority of Americans alive today were born years after the liberation of Nazi death camps, the horrors of the Holocaust are a hellish reality that none of us can choose to ignore. And they’re a fact that no one, especially our elected leaders, have an excuse to forget.
Nevertheless, in the wake of the deadliest attack on Jews since Adolf Hitler’s gas chambers, some elected officials — from Springfield to Washington — have responded as if the Nazis’ attempt at Jewish genocide may have somehow been forgotten. And as if the atrocities carried out by Hamas should somehow be forgiven.
No matter your gender or your race, your age, your politics or your religion, one common thread that unites nearly all of us is the recognition that while war is hell on both its combatants and its unintended victims, warfare that’s intentionally targeted on civilians is not warfare at all. It is genocide. And that is what Hamas, as a terrorist puppet of Iran, attempted to ignite on Oct. 7 in Israel. That must never be forgotten, and it cannot be forgiven.
Yet — just hours after Hamas engaged in a targeted slaughter of everyone from infants to the elderly while raping and kidnapping countless young women — 16 Illinois elected officials issued statements decrying the violence while simultaneously placing the blame for it squarely on the Jewish victims themselves, echoing the words of those who decry not the existence of violence but the existence of Israel itself.
To be crystal clear, Hamas is a terrorist organization, and Hamas does not truly represent the Palestinian people as a whole. They are an Iranian-funded terror organization that has endlessly engaged in indiscriminate killing, maiming and kidnapping of Israeli Jews. Their goal is simple and one both they and their puppet masters in Iran publicly admit. Their stated goal is to wipe Israel and its Jewish people from the map.
On a planet consisting of nearly 8 billion people, about 2 billion are Muslims, and nearly 2.4 billion are Christians. In contrast, there are approximately only 14 million Jews in the entire world. Jews account for just 0.2% of the world’s population. And the sole Jewish state, the state of Israel is about the size of the state of New Jersey. According to Hamas, Iran and their backers, however, 14 million Jews are apparently 14 million too many. According to Hamas, any homeland at all, no matter how small, is one homeland too many.
It’s beyond debate that Israel has every right to defend itself. Hamas has not only taken countless Israeli lives and hostages, but they’ve also put the Palestinian people — the same people they claim to fight for — squarely between themselves and the Israeli Defense Forces.
Those are not the actions of “freedom fighters.” Those are actions of terrorists fueled by the mission of genocide. And as Americans whose history includes liberating the death camps in World War II, our actions must be driven by a resolve to support Israel and defend the Jewish people from yet another attempt to wipe them from this planet. It’s not just the right thing to do. It’s the only thing worthy of a nation like ours to do.
This is not a partisan issue. America must stand with Israel. And I hope every leader, in Illinois and beyond, who has blamed Israel or excused Hamas and Iran for their assault on the Jewish people recognizes that we can’t forget the atrocities the Jewish people faced in the past. And must never allow to be repeated in the future.
Bob Dold, a Republican, is a former congressman who represented Illinois’ 10th Congressional District from 2011 to 2013 and again from 2015 to 2017.