"One hundred days ago, the world changed. October 7 has proven to be many things: the opening salvo in a brutal war between Israel and Hamas; an attack that could precipitate a broader, regional war; the beginning of a global, ongoing orgy of antisemitism; a moral test that many in the West have failed; a wake-up call regarding the rot inside the West’s once-great sensemaking institutions; a possible realignment of our politics.
"Here at The Free Press, we’ve worked hard to capture the many threads of the story of October 7 and its aftermath, from life in wartime Israel and the reality on the ground in Gaza to the spillover effects in our newsrooms, classrooms, and lecture halls here in America. We’ve investigated the roots of the attackers’ hatred and their apologists’ moral relativism. We’ve looked at an unstable world through a wide-angle lens.
"We’ve also tried not to lose sight of the acts of unspeakable barbarity that set all of this in motion. The Hamas terrorists who crossed into Israel killed 1,200 people and kidnapped 240 more. It was a day of mass murder, mass abduction, and mass rape, and we’ve spoken to families whose lives turned into horror stories 100 days ago today.
"For many families, that nightmare still isn’t over. There are still 136 hostages in Gaza. Hamas has used the hundred-day milestone as an opportunity for macabre PR: yesterday they released proof-of-life videos of three hostages and announced that their fate will be revealed today.
"Across the rest of the West, if not in Israel, the hostages have faded from view. And when it comes to the fate of the many young women abducted by Hamas and taken to Gaza, the silence from some corners has been deafening.
"As Bari argues in a new monologue, the groups you would expect to care about these women and hostages—the prominent women’s organizations who protested loudly when it came to #MeToo, or Donald Trump, or Brett Kavanaugh—have said and done next to nothing about the murder, kidnap, and rape of Israeli girls.
"What explains their silence—or worse, their downplaying and denial?
"What We've Learned in 100 Days
"Some of the most thought-provoking essays we’ve published over the last 100 days have been from people whose opinions we value explaining how the events of October 7—and the reaction to those events—have changed the way they understand the world.
"Contributors like Konstantin Kisin, who wrote in The Free Press that October 7 was “The Day the Delusions Died.” Or Axel Springer CEO Mattias Döpfner, who listed for us “The Things I Never Thought Possible—Until October 7.” Or Ilan Benjamin, who explained: “Once, I Was a Peace Advocate. Now, I Have No Idealism Left.” Or Matti Friedman, who explained the sobering “Wisdom of Hamas.”
"And so we asked six other people—voices from across the political spectrum —to answer a single question: What have you learned since October 7?
"Here are their replies.".
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