For Jews everywhere, there was an eery familiarity about the terrible violence unleashed on Israel during Saturday’s attack by Hamas. This was no simple act of terrorism. It was a pogrom.
Pogroms were violent attacks against Jews living in the Russian empire in the 19th and early 20th century. They, much like the atrocity this weekend, included homes being torched, the abuse and execution of civilians and the rape of women. In the kibbutz of Kfar Aza, close to the Gaza border and scene of the most depraved Hamas violence, no-one was spared, whether they were female, young or old. All suffered the same fate. All were targeted for being Jewish.
Hamas’s pogroms included bodies being set alight and the casual, sadistic murder of children. This is reminiscent of Isis, or the Nazis. Decades of dehumanising not only Israelis, but Jews in general, opened the door for Hamas’s savage indiscriminate violence.
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