The October 7 massacre was not just an Israeli event. It was not just a brutal terrorist attack, nor merely a national tragedy. It was a moral test for the free world, and that test revealed a profound failure, not due to lack of knowledge, but lack of will to know; not due to confusion, but due to choice.
On that day, civilians were deliberately murdered. Children, women, elderly. Not in the course of fighting, not by mistake, but as a declared target. Hamas did not hide its actions, did not deny them, and did not apologize. On the contrary: it documented, broadcast, and celebrated. In a functioning moral world, this should have been a moment of clarity: one where no context, explanations, or balancing is needed.
But clarity did not come. Almost immediately, attempts began to frame, explain, and balance—not the murderers’ actions, but the very shock itself. As if the horror itself requires justification. As if an immediate moral response is dangerous oversimplification. Thus, within days, a massacre became a discussion, and the murder of civilians became a starting point for political analysis.
Here the collapse was exposed. A free world unable to say out loud that there is evil, and that some acts cannot be justified, has lost something essential. When universities, international organizations, and cultural elites struggle to condemn a massacre without asterisks, they are not demonstrating complexity—they are demonstrating moral confusion.
This failure is not accidental. It is the result of years of discourse that prefers structures over people, narratives over actions, and identity over responsibility. In such discourse, the victim is not a person but a function. If they belong to a group perceived as “strong,” their suffering becomes a theoretical problem.
Once again, Israel served as the arena, not because it is perfect, but because it is clear. It forces the world to choose between relativistic morality and a sharp distinction between murder and self-defense. That choice was too difficult for many.
The significance of October 7 extends beyond Israel. If the free world cannot stand against murderous violence without hesitation, it signals to anyone willing to use violence that there is no red line. This is not only an attack on Jews, but an attack on the foundations of a free society.
October 7 revealed an uncomfortable truth: the West struggles to defend its values when they require courage. It knows how to speak of morality, but struggles to bear its price. And that price, in the end, will be paid not only in Israel.
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