Why standing with Israel is defending civilization’s future | Opinion

Last week, I stood on ground soaked with unspeakable evil.

I walked the quiet kibbutz where families were massacred in their homes. I stood at the site of the Nova music festival, once a place of joy, now a graveyard of innocence.

Seeing the aftermath in person was a sobering reminder of the brutality Israel endured on Oct. 7, 2023, and why the world must never forget.

What I witnessed was not war. It was not resistance. It was barbarism. Children butchered. Women brutalized. Families burned alive. Parents shot in front of their children and children slaughtered in front of their parents. And the pain endures: hostages, including women, the elderly and babies, remain in captivity to this day while their families wake each morning to the agony of not knowing if their loved ones are alive.

This is not just Israel’s fight. It is humanity’s. It is ours.

Hamas is not merely targeting Jews or Israelis. Their hatred is aimed at all of us, the free world, the West, Judeo-Christian civilization itself. Their goal is not coexistence but eradication.

And if Israel falls, if the Jewish people are abandoned yet again, every democracy that cherishes freedom, faith and human dignity will be next in their sights.

That is why the rising tide of antisemitism here in America should alarm every single one of us. College campuses chant in support of Hamas. Social media influencers downplay or deny the atrocities. Public officials hesitate to call evil by its name. The same lies and hatred that fueled centuries of pogroms and the Holocaust are resurfacing, dressed up in the language of “justice” or “resistance.”

Because of Oct. 7, I have also begun a deeply personal spiritual journey. Witnessing such evil made me look inward in a way I never had before

I found myself asking hard questions about faith, about purpose and about the world we are called to defend. That search has reminded me that Israel is protecting not only its right to exist but the very values that underpin our way of life: freedom of speech, freedom of religion and equality before the law. When we defend Israel, we defend ourselves.

As Americans and especially as Judeo-Christians, we are called to stand in solidarity with our brothers and sisters in Israel. We do not have to agree on every policy but we must unite on this truth: terrorism is evil, antisemitism is poison and silence in the face of hatred is complicity.

On Oct. 7, Hamas thought it could break the spirit of a people. Instead, they revealed why Israel’s survival is non-negotiable. The Jewish people have endured evil before. They will endure Hamas, too.

The question is, will we, the free world, stand beside them?

Now is the time for courage, for moral clarity, for solidarity. Because in defending Israel, we defend the very future of civilization itself.

Rene Garcia is a Miami-Dade commissioner, representing District 13.