The Nassau County Police Department sent a message to all school districts and municipalities last week that it was providing increased police and security, which was both reassuring and frightening.
County Police Commissioner Patrick Ryder said local, state and federal partners were actively collaborating to safeguard Nassau after former Hamas leader Khaled Mashal called for a “Global Day of Jihad” or Day of Rage.
Ryder said county police were not aware of any planned attacks but called for increased vigilance from everyone.
“You are also an integral part of the process to prevent violence,” Ryder said in a press release. “Please take a moment to review your emergency response plan. Pay particular attention to arrival and departure as well as any outdoor activities and consider enhancing security at these vulnerable times. Be alert for suspicious activity and always call 911 to report it. Together we will sustain the security. Prepared is protected.”
County Executive Bruce Blakeman said Friday Nassau was bolstering its efforts by using surveillance drones, deploying an additional 20 patrol cars and stationing specialized police teams within the community among a host of other steps.
The county officials’ message, which was echoed by Gov. Kathy Hochul and other officials around the state, was a sensible if jarring response to a Hamas leader whose forces in Gaza had launched a barbarous attack on Israel the week before in which 1,300 people were killed, 199 taken hostage and many more injured.
An alumnus of the Solomon Schechter School of Long Island in Williston Park is among those being held hostage.
The attack included the murder of 260 mostly young people at a music festival, the beheading of infants and toddlers, the burning of whole families, the murder of parents in front of children and children in front of their parents and the rape of women.
President Biden rightly called it “pure evil.”
Israel began its response with air strikes that killed 2,000 Palestinians in a country of 2 million and a call for more than 1 million residents of northern Gaza to evacuate their homes and head to the south in advance of an assault on Hamas by land, seat and air.
The warnings from state and county officials were also frightening. They reminded us that the war in Mideast posed a threat in places as far away as Nassau County.
They were also a terrible reminder to many in Nassau County of Al-Quada’s attack on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 9/11.
Many who responded and many who worked and died in the World Trade Center that day were Nassau residents.
The attack also stirred memories for many in Nassau of the Holocaust – Nazi Germany’s murder of more than 6 million Jews during World War II. Among them are survivors or the children of those who lived and those who died.
Many accounts of the Jews massacred by Hamas noted that the 1,300 who died on the day of the attack were the most Jews killed in a single day since the Holocaust.
Thousands attended events last week at the Sid Jacobson JCC, Eisenhower Park and Great Neck Village Green Park to show their solidarity with the people of Israel.
But many Jews in Nassau and beyond still felt isolated by protests at elite universities and demonstrations that either justified Hamas’ atrocities or celebrated them outright. No doubt some of this opposition is based on antisemitism.
Some attended a pro-Palestinian event in Mineola in which they condemned the violence of Hamas, but said their attendance was part of their resistance to Israel’s occupation of Gaza and the West Bank and what they called decades of human rights abuses.
We believe, like many Israelis, there is much to criticize about Israel’s policy toward Palestinians, especially by Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right government.
But whatever the failings of Israel’s government, there is no justification for the vicious murders and kidnappings of infants, children, teenagers, the elderly, the infirm people and entire families.
These are war crimes. They are never acceptable.
Unfortunately, the criticism is likely to get worse if as expected Israel invades Gaza with the goal of putting an end to a party whose stated goal is to kill Jews and destroy Israel.
Some have denounced Israel for invading Gaza.
But after a barbaric terrorist attack on civilians and members of the military, what else could we expect Israel to do?
Can you imagine the United States doing nothing after the 9/11 attacks? Or any other country in a similar situation.
The 9/11 attacks do offer a warning to Israel.
The United States rightfully attacked Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan after 9/11. But driven by fear, anger and outrage, we went on to fight an unnecessary war in Iraq and ended up staying in Afghanistan too long. We hope Israel and its allies have learned this lesson.
Israel’s leaders must wage this war with an eye toward what comes the day after and as Biden has stated follow the rules of warfare.
This means doing everything it can do to minimize the death of civilians who are not part of Hamas and are not responsible for the attack that started the fighting.
That will not be easy given Hamas’ decision to station its military forces among residents, using them as human shields in a cynical strategy to turn world opinion against Israel. We hope the world recognizes that Hamas is no friend of Palestinians in Gaza or anywhere else.
Israel must press the attack in a way that minimizes the inevitable casualties among civilians – more than half of whom are women and people under 18.
They will hope people remember that all the casualties – in Israel and Gaza – would not be happening were it not for Hamas.
In this context, Israel’s demand for the evacuation of 1 million Gazans makes sense as the best of two bad options.
Yes, there also needs to be a plan for how Gaza will be governed after Hamas is defeated.
This hopefully will include a peace plan for the West Bank and the involvement of neighboring Arab nations, such as Saudi Arabia, to ensure Palestinians get to live with the same security and rights of others.
But even the best efforts by Israel are unlikely to stop the ongoing threat to Jews in Nassau County.
Even before Hamas attacked, Jews were already being subjected to rising antisemitism in Nassau County and around the country. This is likely to increase now.
“What happens in Israel happens in America,” Rabbi Jaimee Shalhevet of North Shore Synagogue said. “What happens in Israel happens all over the world because this is not an argument about land. This is not a disagreement about who owns what, this is antisemitism. This is people wanting Jews to cease to exist. And it’s not the first time that Jews have experienced this. Sadly, I don’t think it will be the last.”
Shalhevet said the answer to fighting hate is kindness and love.
We agree with the rabbi. But we also agree with law enforcement and their call for increased vigilance.
There is too much history to do otherwise.