Terror in Israel

I've been trying to collect my thoughts into something coherent, but there are just so many of them, and they're so disorganized. Still, I will try.

For the last day, I've been focused almost exclusively on the fact that Israel has been subject to the most gruesome terror activity in its history. Children kidnapped, young people and families murdered while living their normal lives (camping, attending music festivals, sitting at home), naked bodies of dead civilians paraded through towns and spat on. That’s disgusting on its own, but, American friends, I want to help you put it further into perspective:

• Already, over 600 Israeli civilians have been murdered.
• This is the most Jewish civilians to have been killed in a day since the Holocaust.
• Israel is a tiny country, 1/35th the population of the US.
• Adjusted to our US population, that would be like a terror attack with 21,000 Americans killed in a day.

People are describing this as an Israeli or Jewish 9/11, but that doesn't capture it. The proportional death toll already is 7 times 9/11. And that doesn't take into account that basically the whole country is in immediate danger. And almost every American Jew has some number of friends or family who have been affected by this—myself included.

So, if you see your Jewish friends walking around in a daze, or ceaseless fixating on Israel on social media, it’s because they’re carrying this weight right now. They have read things and seen things they cannot unread and unsee.

This terror is a blight on humanity. It doesn't help Palestinians, and it sure as heck doesn't help Israelis. It is unjustifiable, and it will be all of our undoing.