By Joshua Arnold

Exactly 365 days ago, armed terrorists swarmed into Israel on a Sabbath morning, burning villages, raping women, murdering babies, and kidnapping innocent civilians. These bands of militants, affiliated with Hamas and other Islamist extremist groups, cut through Israel’s border fence with Gaza, or parachuted over it, or boated around it. They killed, stole, and abused however they pleased, accompanied by cheering Gazan auxiliaries and U.N. employees, before whisking back to Gaza as anti-Semites the world over crowed immediately for a “ceasefire now!”

Was Israel supposed to merely swallow their outrage? The terrorists massacred 1,200 people and kidnapped 251. “Compared to our population size, that’s like 20 9/11s in one day,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu later reflected. Worse, the massacre was indiscriminate, targeting not only Israeli citizens but the citizens of 41 countries.

Such calls for ceasefire were as inappropriate then as they are now. Israel has had to face not only Hamas in Gaza, but also the Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah in Lebanon, various smaller terrorist groups in Judea and Samaria, Syria, and Iraq, plus two direct barrages by Iran itself.

The truth is, the war has “widened” over the past 12 months because Iran steers a regional network of non-state actors devoted to the singular goal of Israel’s “annihilation.” Israel has merely pulled the connecting wires out of the desert sand.

These non-state actors have exhibited conspicuous disregard for the laws of war, the lives of civilians in either Israel or their own country, and even their own lives — so long as they can kill Israelis. As soon as Israel dispatches one foe, a new enemy takes its place. Radical jihadists have declared their determination to fight to the death, which means there will be no true end to the conflict until only one group of combatants remains.

In contrast to Iran’s genocidal patchwork of militias, Israel’s professional, Western-style army has exercised great restraint in combat, seeking to minimize civilian casualties while rooting out non-state terror outfits that hide behind civilians or inside and under civilian infrastructure. Over a 12-month period, Israel has largely dismantled Hamas’s military capabilities in Gaza, pushed Hezbollah forces in Lebanon away from its northern border, and simultaneously responded to ongoing threats along other fronts.

Israel’s most discriminating stroke was the recent pager attack, a coup of spy-craft so incredible it could only ever happen in real life. The highly successful operation targeted Hezbollah operatives and only Hezbollah operatives, practically without exception. The pager attack began an intensified phase of conflict in Lebanon, in which Israel has wiped out the organization’s entire leadership structure — even more effectively than they have done against Hamas — with a few other terrorist assassinations thrown in for good measure.

For all the Biden administration’s pearl-clutching and arm-twisting about Israel’s war aims and operations, Israel is doing the United States a massive favor. Every terrorist Israel kills is an enemy of the U.S., as well as of Israel. One Hezbollah operative was responsible for killing U.S. Marines in Lebanon more than 40 years ago, and the U.S. government had offered a $7 million reward for information about his whereabouts. Every terrorist network Israel dismantles is also one less weapon Iran has to use — against Israel, against the U.S., and against peace in the Middle East.

Yet, for all Israel’s military success, the fight is far from over. While Israel’s past military operations resolved swiftly (such as the aptly titled “Six Day War”), at least two factors have caused this war to become the nation of Israel’s longest war since Josephus. First, the devastating nature of the October 7 terror attack have steeled Israeli resolve not to accept a premature ceasefire, one which leaves their annihilationist enemies free to attack again at their leisure. Second, the Biden administration has pursued what seems to be a deliberate policy of stalling Israel, calculating that global pressure would force the Israelis to back down. Israel has been slowed, but not dissuaded; they will finish the job.

Indeed, the fight cannot be over until Israel recovers the hostages taken by Hamas on October 7. Nearly 100 hostages remain in captivity (although 34 are believed to be dead). In fact, four out of 12 kidnapped Americans remain alive and in captivity, but the U.S. is exerting precious little pressure on Hamas’s sponsors to obtain their release. For Israel to abandon the remaining hostages to a life of captivity among brutal tormentors, just so the rest of the country could live in peace, would be a cruel betrayal. No one can reasonably expect an independent nation to agree to such a thing.

Yet there is a loud, active, and violent faction in Western nations that have called for a ceasefire since October 8. On Saturday, a coalition of anti-Israel groups gathered at the White House for yet another rally supporting the terrorists’ cause. This commemorates “one year of resistance” against “continued displacement and dispossession by their colonizer.” This euphemism not only excuses all the barbarism of October 7 but also implies the nation of Israel has no right to exist. For these radicals, a two-state solution is unacceptable.

In addition to the provocative, menacing side of these anti-Israel demonstrations, there is also a pitiful, delusional side to them as well. A protestor lit his own arm on fire Saturday, although fortunately he was stopped before inflicting significant damage. The man claimed that the media was lying about the war, that both parties were complicit in an alleged genocide perpetrated by Israel, and that he gave his arm for the children of Gaza.

While there will always be a minority of people who credit implausible conspiracy theories, this man (who reportedly used “they/them” pronouns) should have known better. He graduated from Arizona State University’s Cronkite School of Journalism and then worked as a television journalist before falling down an anti-Semitic rabbit hole. This ideology proved so enticing that even a trained journalist failed to spot the difference between fact and fiction.

Not all engaged Americans side against Israel. As a counter to campus occupations, jihadist flags flown in America’s cities, and whispers about exterminating the Jews, pro-Israel groups organized a rally on Monday to commemorate the great losses suffered by Israel and their heroic, defensive war against it.

In contrast to pro-terrorist rallies, which often flow freely from block to block, marauding their way through the city or rattling the White House fence, this rally was tightly locked down, with anti-scale fencing, heavily armored cops with tripod-mounted long guns, and equestrian and bike police on standby. What a sad commentary that friends of terrorists feel untouchable, while friends of Israel have a justifiable fear that they will be attacked simply for standing with Israel.

The roiling anger against Israel is not fundamentally due to a philosophical disagreement about colonialism or imperialism, a factual disagreement about who started the conflict, or a foreign policy disagreement about what will bring lasting peace to the Middle East.

No, the issue is most fundamentally a spiritual one. Western protests against Israel display the same irrational anti-Semitism that has been seen throughout history, running back through the Nazi concentration camps to Haman’s vengeful plot (Esther 3) to Pharoah’s attempted population control (Exodus 1). It is the same irrational hatred of Jews that motivates Iran and their terrorist proxies to keep fighting against Israel, even as Israel is turning the tide of war, one year after the October 7 massacre.

Joshua Arnold is a senior writer at The Washington Stand.