Israel Must Not React Stupidly

If 10/7 was Israel’s 9/11, as many of the country’s leaders have said, the meaning of the comparison is not self-evident. Its implications still have to be worked out, and they might lead to unexpected places.

The horror is comparable, but the scale isn’t. The 1,000 or more civilians butchered on Saturday by Hamas are, relative to Israel’s population, many more than the 3,000 killed in the United States by al-Qaeda; a proportionate number of dead on 9/11 would have been close to 40,000. Al-Qaeda, a transnational group based in the deserts and mountains of Afghanistan, had set out in its founding manifesto and subsequent statements, and also in practice, as an arm or ally of the more powerful entities in the region that share its aims: Hezbollah, Syria, and the Islamic Republic of Iran. Facts like these suggest that the analogy has no more value than most historical comparisons.