Death of a fascist
For Israel’s righteous slaying of Yahya Sinwar is more than justice for 7 October. It is more than a brilliant and targeted strike in a now year-long war on terrorism. It is also a message to the world. It says this: you cannot kill Jews with impunity anymore. It reminds us that those days are gone. It reminds us it isn’t the Middle Ages anymore, when the Church would reward your Jew-hunting, or the 20th century, when pogroms had the blessing of governments. No, there are consequences now to singling out Jews for special opprobrium and wicked violence. Do that today and you might very well die. Do that now and you might get your head caved in, as Sinwar did.
And here’s the chilling thing, the thing that should truly unsettle those of us who live in the West: we needed this message. Our nations needed this reminder. Our young in particular needed to be told that fascist violence is intolerable and killing Jews will be rightfully avenged. For across America and Europe in the aftermath of 7 October, unreason reigned. On our campuses, our streets, in our art world and media world, the sympathies of the privileged went not to the victims of Hamas’s pogrom, but to Hamas. Israel was offered not support but condemnation – and the most shrill, hypocritical and borderline bigoted condemnation you could imagine. ‘You had it coming’ was the subtext of the Israelophobic insanity that swept our cities after the pogrom.