The massacre was a life-changing gut punch to liberals like me, many of whom were once sympathetic to the Palestinian cause

Before Oct. 7, I was a typical ’60s social democrat. Born shortly after the Holocaust, I grew up with Israel as a fact, not a dream, and considered ongoing Zionism an extremist project and the chief obstacle to peace in the Middle East.

Surely, Israel could return the territories it won during the Six-Day War in 1967. Surely, the Palestinians’ homemade rocket attacks and recurring intefadehs (infinitadas?) were a legally authorized resistance to occupation. And surely, the grotesquely disproportionate civilian death tolls when Israel struck back were a stain on the conscience of humanity.

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Oct. 7 changed that. It is a day and demarcation as seismic as 9/11. It wasn’t just the gleeful depravity of the Hamas murders, rapes and burnings that changed the world. Or Hamas’s barbarous use of Palestinian women and children as human shields and corpse propaganda. It was also the celebration of savagery by far-left intersectional apologists.

Anyone who doubts the Jewish need for Israel, and the elimination of the death cult on its doorstep, is delusional. Look at the mobs attacking Canada’s Jews, along with their gathering places and businesses. Listen to the words of union leaders, academics and politicians. Imagine being a Jew in a Canadian university, union or NGO, much less one wearing a yarmulke or a Star of David.

These aren’t Israelis being targeted — they’re Canadians. If Jews can’t feel safe in a country as diverse........

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