Member's statement: Israel: 7 October 2023 Attacks
Member's statement by Dr Steve Aiken OBE on .
- MLA
- Dr Steve Aiken OBE
- Party at the time
- Ulster Unionist Party
- Date
- 6 October 2026
- Type
- Member's statement
- Business
- Members' Statements
- Heading
- Israel: 7 October 2023 Attacks
- Assembly identifier
- Official Report component 5776565
Read the official Assembly record
Text
On 7 October, three years ago, the worst atrocity since the Holocaust was committed on the Jewish people. On Simchat Torah, one of the holiest days in the Jewish calendar, thousands of Hamas terrorists, Palestinian jihadists and so-called Palestinians crossed into southern Israel. They murdered, raped and tortured 1,300 men, women and children — in many cases, the did so in the most barbaric fashion. Particular attention was given to women, many of whom were brutalised whilst being raped; children of all ages, who were burnt alive; the old; the disabled; and the likes of Liel Hetzroni, a young girl who just wanted to go to school the next day. There was one common factor: they were slaughtered by the sectarian mobs because they were Jews. There is no doubt that a terrorist and sectarian mob conducted those atrocities. We know, because they livestreamed their attacks on social media. The beheadings and mutilations were not from someone's sick imagination or scenes from a horror movie: they were crimes against humanity and were proudly recorded by those intent on pure antisemitic evil. To pretend otherwise is to deny reality. While the terror of 7 October was still occurring, the perpetrators' antisemitic fellow travellers were already praising the terror, with "From the river to the sea" and "Long live the intifada" streaming across social media.
This while Tamar, Yonatan, their five-year-old twin daughters Shahar and Arbel and their son, Omer, aged two, were being burnt to death by Hamas.
Nowhere has the stream of vile antisemitism been more prevalent than on this island. Those who parrot the phrase "No alternative to terrorism" have issued streams of outright antisemitic propaganda. The continued parroting of those untruths, packed with vitriol, as so-called facts has resulted in this island's being rightly called out as one of the most antisemitic places in Europe. Judging by the intolerance shown on the field of sport, in our legislative Chambers and in biased reporting, even including conspiracy theories when commenting about a hijacking that was thwarted by brave Israeli passengers and an Indian pilot, it very clearly is. As we reflect on happened on 7 October 2023, we need to be asking much deeper questions about the psyche that exists on this island, because it never starts with antisemitism or ends with it. I stand, as I always do, with our embattled Jewish community and all the innocent victims of terror. Am Yisrael chai.
405 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.
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