UPDATE: On November 6, 2023, Juicy Ecumenism, the blog of the Institute on Religion & Democracy, published my essay, which was originally posted here. Excerpts:
The global irruption of antisemitism is Hamas’s aim. The Go-Pros mounted on assault rifles, the snuff videos, the humiliating images of Jewish bodies paraded across social media—these were not incidental to the massacre. They were the point. They were, as Israeli journalist Haviv Rettig Gur put it, “the essence of the whole enterprise.”
That’s because Hamas and its supporters understand something we don’t, or which we perceive only dimly: that antisemitism is a special kind of hatred….
What Hamas did on October 7 was less like flipping on a light and more like turning on a magnet. The atrocity theater of that day didn’t so much reveal antisemitic hatred as energize it—polarizing world opinion, activating its evil elements, and drawing them to Hamas’s side. That was their gambit, and that is their goal…..
Antisemitism is now the world’s festering wound, and Christians must play a leading role in the healing.
Read more at Juicy Ecumenism.