Monday marks one year since Hamas launched a bloody massacre which deliberately and specifically targeted Israeli civilians: men, women, children and babies all. Twelve hundred people died in the attacks and 251 were taken hostage. According to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Ministry of Health, more than 40,000 Palestinians have been killed by Israel in the name of wiping out Hamas, with many civilian casualties including unequivocally innocent children.
The October 7 attacks and the response from Israel mark a re-escalation in a dispute that is understood by many as primarily territorial. A year on, as the fighting spreads across the Middle East, joined by militant groups from many nations, it should finally be obvious that this conflict was never just about land. This is the oldest war: a war between religions .
A Palestinian woman sits in the rubble of her home in the wake of an Israeli air and ground offensive in Jebaliya, northern Gaza Strip. Credit: AP Photo/Enas Rami Forgive me if this is not news to you; it didn’t hit home for me until I was travelling in the Middle East years ago on my German passport. Discovering my nationality, a sheikh greeted me with a Nazi salute and a confiding “Heil Hitler” witnessed by a cheering bus.
I learnt a quick and shocking lesson. It is not a surprise that many in the increasingly irreligious West fail to grasp the religious dimension. Most of our skirmishes over the past 100 years have been over earthly political utopias rather than.