On Yom Kippur in 1973, I used to be 6 years outdated and dwelling in Petah Tikvah, a metropolis in central Israel. Enjoying a nail-biting recreation of marbles, I initially ignored my mother calling me from our entrance porch. However sensing one thing was fallacious, I gave up my potential winnings and ran dwelling.
I arrived to see my dad emerge from our entrance door sporting an Israel Protection Forces, or IDF, olive-green uniform. He hugged and kissed me goodbye. He then disappeared for practically two weeks.
Each night time, as instructed by the IDF, I switched off my bed room lights to keep away from enemy plane detection. Each day, I heard adults focus on the federal government and navy’s failure to anticipate and intercept the shock Egyptian-Syrian assault that killed 2,656 Israeli troopers.
Fifty years later, on one other Jewish holy day, Simchat Torah, I hopped away from bed in my dwelling in central Pennsylvania at 6 a.m. – an hour earlier than my twin 6-year-olds normally awaken on Saturdays. I am a documentary filmmaker, and I had deliberate to make use of the uninterrupted time to begin scoring my post-Holocaust documentary, “Cojot.”
A barrage of messages from household and buddies stopped me in my tracks. Hamas had launched a shock assault on Israel. Earlier than my mind might course of the information, my abdomen instructed me that this was unprecedented.
Round-the-clock calls, texts and media reviews from Israel have strengthened my feeling that we have by no means seen something like this earlier than. On the identical time, sure facets of the Israel-Hamas warfare are acquainted. They remind me of earlier conflicts, acts of terrorism and retribution in Israel and the encompassing area.
Loads of similarities
Palestinians and Jews have been maligning, menacing and murdering one another for the reason that nineteenth century.
The period of utmost violence started within the Nineteen Twenties, when clashes between Palestinians and Jews slayed a whole bunch of individuals in every group.
Since then, Palestinian terrorism has claimed the lives of greater than 10,000 Jews, principally civilians. Up to now 15 years, IDF assaults have killed greater than 6,000 Palestinians, a lot of them civilians.
On Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas murdered an estimted 1,300 Israelis and kidnapped about 150 individuals, together with civilians ranging in age from infants to the aged, in addition to Israeli troopers and Individuals.
Terrorists have taken hostages on Israeli soil earlier than.
In 1974, a terrorist group referred to as the Democratic Entrance for the Liberation of Palestine, or DFLP, entered Israel by means of Lebanon and took 105 Israeli youngsters and 10 adults hostage within the northern Israeli city of Ma’alot.
The IDF botched its try and rescue the Ma’alot hostages. Its rushed operation spurred the terrorists to kill 22 youngsters and three adults, in addition to injure 68 different hostages.
For a lot of Israelis, Saturday’s assault was additionally paying homage to 2006, when Hamas kidnapped a 19-year-old Israeli soldier named Gilad Shalit.
Hamas exchanged Shalit 5 years later for greater than 1,000 Palestinian prisoners held in Israel.
Not the primary navy misstep
Hamas’ shock assault in October was not the one catastrophe the IDF didn’t foresee. The Israeli navy additionally didn’t foil Egypt and Syria’s Oct. 6, 1973, assault on Israel.
One other similarity between then and now entails Israeli and Palestinian civilians being fired on from outdoors both Israel or Gaza.
Thirty years in the past, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein shot 38 Scud missiles at Israel within the 1991 Gulf Battle, throughout which a U.S.-led coalition pushed Iraqi forces out of Kuwait.
Though most of the Iraqi missiles splashed into the Mediterranean Sea, grazed open fields or triggered little harm, they generated panic all through the nation. The missiles immediately killed two Israelis. However the missiles additionally resulted in the deaths of 12 different individuals, a few of whom succumbed to coronary heart assaults.
Residing in a nation surrounded by enemies means dwelling in worry.
Simply as many variations
For Israelis, probably the most putting variations between from time to time are the Oct. 7 terrorist assault’s unimaginable brutality and destruction. Few pictured Hamas wreaking ISIS-style havoc on 20 cities, raping girls and murdering youngsters.
Hamas murdered many extra Israelis in at some point than Palestinians killed through the entirety of the Second Intifada, a significant West Financial institution and Gaza rebellion that lasted from 2000 by means of 2005.
One other distinction is the unconditional, full-fledged U.S. authorities assist for Israel throughout this present battle.
For the reason that Nineteen Eighties, the U.S. has maintained a strategic alliance with Israel. However the U.S. has tended to supply assist with sure circumstances hooked up. As an example, Israel should spend no less than 75% of the practically $4 billion the U.S. offers it every year on American weapons and merchandise.
Some observers say President Joe Biden has swiftly proven Israel the form of unconditional love that Israelis need.
“The lack of harmless life is heartbreaking,” Biden stated Oct. 10. “Like each nation on the planet, Israel has the precise to reply – certainly has an obligation to reply – to those vicious assaults.”
Israelis are so moved that they’ve put up billboards to thank Biden.
America’s unconditional love could crack as Israel pursues an unprecedented aim: to rid the world of Hamas.
No Israeli prime minister has ever set such a aim, a lot much less formally led such an effort. Through the 1982 Lebanon Battle, Israel’s then-Prime Minister Menachem Start sought to maintain the northern border freed from Palestinian terrorists. However he by no means aimed to eradicate the Palestinian Liberation Group from the face of the earth.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s 2023 kill-them-all goal relating to Hamas has develop into the warfare’s flashpoint. Many individuals in Israel fear about this mission claiming the lives of numerous civilian Gazans. This has already begun, with Israeli airstrikes killing greater than 1,400 Gaza civilians.
These many Palestinian civilian deaths, too, could also be unprecedented.
There’s hope
What do these variations and similarities level to? A brand new day, I hope. This horrendous warfare provides an amazing alternative to lastly resolve the Palestinian-Israeli battle.
I spoke lately with a relative in Israel who’s been adamantly against the creation of a Palestinian nation. Regardless of his anger over the Hamas assault, he stated that if the IDF can take away this “ISIS-like group” from the equation, he’ll favor the two-state resolution.
A number of different right-wing Israelis and Individuals I do know have additionally hinted at such a decision.
To me, this seems like a turning level.
Whereas Hamas has lengthy ready for warfare, it is doable the Palestinian Authority, which governs the West Financial institution and has been working with Israel for years, might put together to finally oversee Gaza.
Creator: Boaz Dvir – Affiliate Professor of Journalism, Penn State 
