October 7 – Two Years On

We cannot and must not forget this day of diabolical hatred and murder:

Two years ago today the unthinkable happened with 1200 people – including 80 foreign nationals – slaughtered by Hamas terrorists, and 250 taken hostage. Some 50 remain, of whom around 20 are still alive. What should be a day of global mourning for this diabolical jihadist massacre is of course being celebrated by radical leftists and the Israel haters.

Throughout the West protest marches are planned for this day to continue denouncing Israel and the Jews and to proclaim solidarity with the Hamas murderers. Plenty of this is also happening here in Australia. This morning we awoke to media reports about a large billboard atop a Fitzroy shop with the words “Glory to Hamas”.

And it is not just the usual suspects pushing this vile antisemitism and ugly Jew hate. I have seen far too many folks who claim to be conservatives and Christians who are really in the same camp. They talk about Israel and Jews a lot, but only to attack them, criticise them, and blame them for all the world’s problems, including their recent flat tire and burnt toast.

They NEVER say anything good about Israel and the Jews, and I never hear them condemning 1400 years of Islamic rage and bloodshed, Hamas and other terror groups, and what took place two years ago. In my book, they are NOT conservatives or Christians.  

But thankfully many sensible and moral individuals have been speaking out about jihadist terror and the right of Israel to exist and defend itself. Here are just some posts and comments from Australians and others discussing this tragic anniversary day:

Lyle Shelton

It’s two years since October 7. Release the hostages, disavow Islamic terrorism. Love the West. Live in peace.

The Jerusalem Post 

October 7 changed the world, both by the shock from the brutality of the attack and from the moral inversion in Western civil society that celebrated it. Antisemitism, the world’s oldest hatred, rose again because of it.

Adam Fisher on X

Oct 7 was the single deadliest day in the history of the conflict. The Japanese don’t mark Pearl Harbor as a holiday. The Germans don’t celebrate the day they invaded Poland. Only the Palestinians turn a day of mass murder, abduction & self-destruction into a day of honor.

Susan Hall AM (UK)

Vile, vile, vile! What ghastly people would think that in any way it was acceptable to have a pro Gaza demonstration on October 7th ….Answer … that dreadful demonstrating Gaza lot! They should be ashamed of themselves!

Nyunggai Warren Mundine AO

I stand with the hostages and victims of the 7th October. The savagery unleashed that day is incomprehensible. HAMAS!! Release the hostages now!!!

Josh Frydenberg 

On this day, the second anniversary of Hamas’ horrific October 7 attack, we have Australians openly supporting terrorism on Melbourne’s streets. These extremists do it because they are allowed to get away with it. Prime Minister and Premier, do something now! Whatever you think you have done, it’s not enough and it’s clearly not working. Stop the violence. Stop the hate. Save our state and save our country from this descent into darkness. We, Victorians and Australians, deserve better.

Former Labor minister Mike Kelly

On October 7, Hamas didn’t just massacre civilians—they filmed it. 5,000 photographs and 50 hours of video, much of it captured on their own GoPros and phones, document the horror. Far from denying their actions, they glorified them.

Pramila Patten, the UN Special Representative on Sexual Violence in Conflict, reviewed this evidence firsthand. Her conclusion: “scenes of unspeakable violence perpetrated with shocking brutality… a catalog of the most extreme and inhumane forms of killing, torture, and other horrors, including sexual violence.”

These were not accidents of war. They were deliberate, sadistic acts meant to terrorize, to brutalize, and to destroy Israel, directly by slaughter and indirectly through depopulation. The evidence makes clear: October 7 was a war crime of the most grotesque kind, carried out with pride by Hamas.

American Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee

I came to visit @Israel not long after Oct 7 to show solidarity. I had no idea two years later this nightmare for the hostage families would still exist and certainly did not expect that I would be sent by @realdonaldtrump to be U.S. Ambassador to Israel and be living in Jerusalem. The resolve and resilience of the Israeli people have been inspiring.

Bernie Finn, Family First 

Today marks the second anniversary of the evil Hamas October 7 attack on innocent Israeli civilians. We remember those who were slaughtered on that day and those murdered since by terrorists. We pray for those hostages who remain in captivity. May they return home to their loved ones soon. We condemn terrorism and live in hope that terrorists will see the error of their ways and stop living a life of violence. We ask the Almighty to allow peace to reign in the Middle East and all people – Muslim, Jew and Christian – to live together with mutual respect and human dignity.

Bring Them Home Now 

It’s been an unimaginable two years since October 7, or one long day that never ended since that dark, hellish morning. With both hope and dread in the air surrounding the outcome of President Trump’s peace plan, tens of thousands are rallying across the world in support of the families, and to Bring Them Home. From France, Italy, England, and Japan to the USA, Germany, Australia, Spain, and Canada, we are overwhelmed by the support you’ve shown for the 48 Israeli hostages still trapped in hell, who must be brought home NOW.

Israel’s Ambassador to Australia Amir Maimon

We are still in a state of trauma. It’s still very sad and difficult for me to talk about. I lost, like many other Israelis, family members, friends, students and children of some of my friends…. We are not war-lovers. We want to live peacefully in security in our own country. What do you think would have been the international community reaction if it hadn’t been Israel? There is a double standard. The root cause is not the conflict. The root cause is antisemitism.

John Anderson AC 

Two years ago, over 1,200 Israelis were brutally slaughtered by Hamas. Yet in the two years since, the seeds of antisemitism have only been further watered in Australia. Jewish Australians should not have to live in fear or see their schools and synagogues face hostile threats daily.

Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price 

Rallies where some protesters seek to justify hate speech as free speech and legitimise antisemitism as anti-Zionism. No Australian of Jewish faith – or any faith – should live in fear in this country. But too many Australians of Jewish faith are today. And the fact they are living in fear is because these hate rallies encourage and embolden acts of antisemitism. The antisemitsim that has infected Australia is nothing short of a national disgrace and a failure of political leadership. On the 2nd Anniversary of October 7, may every Australian of common sense and decency have the courage to condemn these hate rallies and to stand in solidarity with Australians of Jewish faith – our fellow countrymen.

Maryka Groenewald MLC for Western Australia

While peace negotiations are underway, I stop to remember October 7. One of the darkest days in recent memory — so many innocent lives taken in an act of unimaginable evil in Israel, and so many families still waiting for loved ones to come home. I’m praying for healing, for the hostages to be freed, and for this terrible conflict to finally end— may all people in this region experience peace, true freedom a life free from the destruction of Hamas.

Human rights lawyer Arsen Ostrovsky

Just days after the horrific terrorist attack on a synagogue in Manchester, which left two Jews dead, a group of pro-Palestinian protestors plan to descend on the Sydney Opera House — in the same week that marks the second anniversary of the October 7 Hamas massacre, no less.

Let that sink in for a moment. A “protest” scheduled around the anniversary of the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, at the very site where, within 48 hours of those attacks, the same mob gathered chanting “Where are the Jews!”, in one of the ugliest scenes witnessed on Australian soil.

Now they are salivating to return — not to call on Hamas to accept President Donald Trump’s peace plan to end the war or release the hostages — but to express more unbridled hatred and whitewashing of Hamas atrocities.

AIJAC Executive Director Dr Colin Rubenstein

After two years, the shock of that terrible day, when the first news reports came in about the mass murder, torture, rape and abduction inflicted upon innocent men, women and children across the communities of southern Israel by thousands of Hamas terrorists and other Gazans, has somewhat faded. However, the heartache, the sense of horror, and the feeling of determination it engendered never has.

And the last two years have been different from any that came before for other reasons as well – especially as this atrocity led, not to greater understanding of the Jewish plight and experience, but to a global explosion of antisemitism, including here in Australia. What’s more, we have witnessed our political leaders, law enforcement and other public institutions often left flat-footed or falling short in responding to this crisis.

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