JUSTIN AMLER: Wounds will heal, but scars remain as Israel marks two years since Hamas massacre

Two years ago today, on October 7, 2023, Israel lived through its darkest day. It was a day that shattered illusions, broke lives, and seared itself into the soul of the Jewish people.

That morning, thousands of Hamas terrorists — joined by Gazan civilians — stormed across the border in an orgy of violence.

They savagely murdered, raped, tortured, and mutilated, leaving 1200 men, women, and children dead and many others injured, traumatised or disabled. And they kidnapped 251 more. These were not acts of rage but of joy.

Terrorists laughed, taunted their victims, and filmed their atrocities with GoPro cameras to revel in later.

It was the largest murder of Jews in a single day since the Holocaust.

The horrors unfolding were far away from us in Australia, yet I, like the rest of the Jewish community, felt their impact so personally, leaving us with a sickening, helpless feeling of dread. This was not, after all, some foreign place of which I knew little.

This was Israel — the Jewish homeland, a place I knew well, a place where I had family and friends and a deep emotional connection. Seeing the pain and fear of my people being live-streamed across our screens was a sickening, maddening feeling.

But rather than uniting all decent people in empathy and horror, the world revealed something darker. Rallies erupted — not in condemnation, but in celebration. Crowds in Sydney, New York, and London cheered the slaughter of Jews, even as the massacre was still happening.

It was a dagger blow to our already-grieving Jewish hearts.

Within days, Jewish communities around the world felt the shockwave. Synagogues were vandalised, businesses attacked, and Jews attacked for simply being Jews.

Images of a baying crowd celebrating the massacre at the Sydney Opera House went global, shattering Australia’s image of a once-tolerant society.

Two years on, anti-Semitism has become so normalised that attacks, arson, and abuse barely make the news anymore. October 7 was a war on Israel, but it was also a war on Jews everywhere, stripping away the illusion that we were safe and secure in the great Western democracies like Australia that value peace, tolerance and coexistence.

In a chilling echo of the past, Jews were reminded once again why the oldest hatred on earth remained as toxic as it ever was. For many Jews, it was the first time they felt so utterly alone and abandoned.

And yet, in the face all this darkness something stirred, a kind of reawakening swept through the Jewish world. Jews who had never lit Shabbat candles began to do so. Jews who had hidden their identity before now began to wear Star of David necklaces openly.

A renewed pride was fuelled by seeing the world’s only Jewish state fighting virtually alone — against the combined might of Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, militias in Syria and Iraq, and the regime in Iran. Israel faced not only ballistic missiles, terror attacks and rockets but also diplomatic warfare in the UN, the ICC, and the ICJ, and a tidal wave of lies across social media. Even then Jews across the world saw something familiar: a tiny country, 0.3 per cent of the Middle East, standing defiant against those who wished to erase it.

David vs Goliath once again.

Disappointingly, many Western democracies — Canada, Britain, France, Australia — who should have stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Israel, chose instead to isolate and chastise it, even as it fought for the very values they claim to defend.

In a moment to choose strength and moral clarity, they chose weakness and moral confusion. In a time to choose honour, they chose dishonour.

Now, on the verge of a possible peace deal, there is cautious hope that the war in Gaza may end, saving lives on both sides. But above all else we cannot forget that 48 hostages still remain in the dungeons of Gaza.

Yet even if the current terrible conflict is finally brought to a close as everyone hopes, for Jews, the world itself has changed. Something broke on October 7 — not only the security of Israel’s border communities, but the trust of Jews everywhere regarding the societies we live in.

A horrible lesson of the past was rediscovered — when Jews are massacred, too many celebrate, too many make excuses, too many stay silent.

This is not a new phenomenon in Jewish history but a tragic repetition of too many tragedies from the past that we thought we had left behind.

The aftermath of this conflict will leave deep wounds that will take many years to heal. Yet heal they will, leaving behind scars that will fade in time, but never truly disappear.

Those scars will remind us of a truth we can never forget: Jewish survival will always depend on eternal vigilance, resilience, and pride.

But the heroics of both Israel’s citizen-soldiers and the national homefront in the face of their enemies means Israel will emerge stronger from this conflict than before. And we in the Jewish diaspora too will emerge with a stronger-than-ever sense of self-identity and pride.

Justin Amler is a policy analyst at the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council