One Year After Oct. 7: We’re Not Going Back

I’m writing these words late at night, after returning from an unbelievable event at the beautiful Beacon Theater on Broadway. I didn’t go to watch a concert or comedian, but to hear from one of the great defenders of the Jewish people who has emerged since the awful events of Oct. 7, one year ago, the great British independent journalist Douglas Murray.

Murray has spent much of his time in the past year covering the war live from Israel and Gaza. Tonight, he joined us to share some footage of his time in Israel after the attacks. 

While Murray is certainly a talented and witty presenter, the presentation itself was grisly and macabre. We saw images of blood-streaked floors in the village of Kfar Aza, burned out homes and incinerated cars from the Nova Festival where dozens met their death. One particularly horrifying scene was Murray’s entrance into a bedroom in which 11 Thai workers who had been hiding were gunned down together by militants and another five were taken hostage. Blood was everywhere.

The sights were shocking, and they reawakened something within me. I remember, as I’m sure most YU students do, the shock and horror of turning on our phones after that Simchat Torah. I remember the indescribable emotion I felt, scrolling, for what must have been hours through video after video of unspeakable horrors. This must have been an experience shared by so many. What emotion can encapsulate the outrage, the sadness, the pain of watching partygoers chased down and shot, corpses being paraded through the streets of Gaza as trophies, women and children being dragged into trucks and taken away? 

There’s none.

The outrage was truly global, and like the 9/11 of the generation before ours, there was a sense that everything had changed. We could never go back to how things were. Never. Our world had been irreparably shattered; and what was left was plunged into war. 

The feelings of Oct. 8, however, fade swiftly. The sympathy and good will of the international community certainly fades in just hours or days. Even for supporters of Israel, the emotions of the moment quickly dissipate, and it is left to us to remember them, to remember why things can never return to how they were. Watching Murray present the film he took in those blood-spattered apartments reminded me of the horrors of that day. 

The student body at YU reacted quickly after Oct. 7. Several of our fellow students are IDF veterans who cut their semester short to fight in Gaza, at risk of life and limb. The majority of us who remained in school also tried to make our voices heard, to tell the world that what had happened was not acceptable. Whether through attending multiple rallies, creating a global day of loving kindness, hearing from those affected, meeting elected officials, going on many visits to Israel and, of course, praying, YU students can truly be said to have made raising awareness their primary focus for months over the past year.

Over the last two weeks, we have seen examples of the deeply changed world we live in. The Mossad and Israeli Air Force have struck Hezbollah — the strongest of the Iranian-backed militias — and hard. After months of raining down missiles on Jewish and Arab towns in the Galilee, thousands of Hezbollah militants were injured in a highly targeted attack when their pagers and then walkie talkies suddenly exploded. These were followed by airstrikes that decimated Hezbollah’s leadership, killing founding members of the terror group and other high ranking officials who have evaded justice for years. On Friday, an Israeli airstrike destroyed Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah who had for so long hoped to destroy Israel.

Israel has faced much criticism in the West for its actions, but the critics fail to understand the fundamental changes that have taken place since a year ago. Israel can no longer accept terrorists controlling territory mere yards away from its borders, terrorizing its citizens day and night.

Just last week, a close friend of mine was talking to me about his participation in a demonstration outside the United Nations. “You know,” he told me, “the world has moved past Oct. 7. If we want to stay in the past we have to explain it to them.” 

Indeed it’s on us to remind other Americans, and the world, why we can’t “move past” Oct. 7, to remind them of the shock all of us felt that day. It is on us to remind the world that there are still hostages in grave danger that have yet to be returned, that there are still tens of thousands of families who can’t return to their homes due to Hezbollah rocket fire, that we can never return to having the sword of Damocles constantly hovering over Israel in the form of Hamas and Hezbollah, able to strike on any day and wreak untold destruction. 

Even if we should want to, it would be impossible for us to return to a pre-Oct. 7 world. The safety of our friends and families in Israel and the brave efforts of the IDF’s soldiers in the past months forbid it. 

We can not, we are not, going back.