Look Back in Anger: The October 7 Commission Report – The American Spectator | USA News and PoliticsThe American Spectator

I wrote my first article about the October 7 pogrom that very afternoon, as the first reports were coming in. Even these first reports spoke of the unspeakable — horrors that have no place in a civilized world. Since then I’ve written again and again about the monstrous behavior of Hamas, of its Iranian backers, and of the legions of Hamas supporters who’ve spread their hatred of Jews across the Western world.

I’ve also called, repeatedly for unambiguous American support for a full-throated Israeli response to cleaning out the Gaza strongholds of Hamas, to taming the threat from Hezbollah, and to punishing Iran. And I’ve called, again repeatedly, to punish those who’ve turned college campuses into anti-Semitic hellholes.

So I’d like to think that I’ve said my piece. I certainly have no desire to revisit any of this, not the heartbreaking events, not the outrageous leftist support for Hamas, not the weak-willed response of the Biden administration.

I’m delighted that Donald Trump has signaled a full-throated report for Israel, that the U.S. Navy and Air Force have been unleashed against the Houthis, that universities such as Columbia are being held to account for their failure to police antisemitism on their campuses, and that the leadership of Hamas continues to be eliminated. These are good things, needful things, things that many of us have been calling for, things that might offer a moment of contented reflection — sometimes the good guys win, sometimes righteous fury is righteously released.

But while I’d like to step back from all this, events this past week compel me to what I’d love to think of as one last look, a “look back in anger,” to borrow a phrase. In the U.K., the 7 October Parliamentary Commission Report has just been published, a thorough and thoroughly documented examination of the events of October 7, 2023. The report does credit to its authors, the “All-Parliamentary Group for UK-Israel” and the group’s chairman, Lord Roberts of Belgravia.

It’s easy to say, this is a “must-read.” A part of me wants to say that it should be required reading across all of our colleges and universities — it certainly should be required reading in the newsrooms of the legacy media. And it should be also required for all those activist leftist judges who have taken a stand against deporting Hamas supporters here on foreign student visas, insisting that the First Amendment protects their actions. (RELATED: The Arrest of Columbia University’s Mahmoud Khalil: Unmasking Campus Radicalism)

It should be required reading for members of the squad and, indeed, for every Democrat member of Congress, who sits on their hands instead of joining in calls to hold Hamas to account.

It’s the absolute opposite of an easy read because page after page, it relentlessly describes each and every horror perpetrated by Hamas on October 7 and in the following days and weeks. I will refrain here from providing examples; I find it almost impossible to choose the worst, and offering a few examples simply misses what should be the message, namely, that the atrocities were neither isolated, nor incidental, but rather pursued with a dedication that beggars belief. To call the perpetrators “monsters” does a disservice to monsters everywhere. (RELATED: No Woman Left Behind: The Global Feminist Betrayal of Israeli Victims)

I will only pause to note that the victims were overwhelmingly innocent civilians and that any pretense that this was a military operation against military targets borders on the absurd. This should be thrown back in the faces of those pro-Hamas leftists who wail over the deaths of Palestinian “civilians,” particularly when so many such “civilians” loudly cheered the Oct. 7 massacre, or, more recently, cheered the horror shows attendant upon the return of Israeli hostages.

So there it is. The report is online, and I urge The American Spectator readers to take the time to read it. If you’ve followed this story since I wrote my first article so long ago, then you will have seen much of what it contains. For you, then, already sickened, prepare to be sickened again, above all by the cumulative effect of so much horror. For those who’ve not followed the story in detail, now is the time.

In the weeks to come, and, thankfully, with American support, the IDF will be turning its hand once again to cleansing the hellhole of Gaza.

There will be many cries from the usual suspects, and many complaints that the Israelis are going too far. Don’t simply ignore them, but condemn them for the moral reprobates they undoubtedly are. The title of my very first article about the massacre simply read “There is no moral equivalence now.”

Looking back, as I do today, in sadness and in anger, I say this yet again. Hamas and those who support it are evildoers. Israel is justified in its quest to ensure that, this time, once and for all, we can all say, “Never again!”

READ MORE from James H. McGee:

‘Broken Windows’ and the Terrorism of Small Things

‘No, Mr. Bond, I Expect You to Die.’

Suppressing Speech in Germany: 1933 vs. 2025

James H. McGee retired in 2018 after nearly four decades as a national security and counter-terrorism professional, working primarily in the nuclear security field. Since retiring, he’s begun a second career as a thriller writer. His recent novel, Letter of Reprisal, tells the tale of a desperate mission to destroy a Chinese bioweapon facility hidden in the heart of the central African conflict region. A forthcoming sequel finds the Reprisal team fighting against terrorists who’ve infiltrated our southern border in a conspiracy that ranges across the globe. You can find Letter of Reprisal on Amazon in both Kindle and paperback editions, and on Kindle Unlimited.