In an op-ed for AJN and InfoBae, B’nai B’rith Special Advisor for Latin American and U.N. Affairs Adriana Camisar highlights the ferocious anti-Semitism that rose to the surface after the Oct. 7 massacre, and underscores how these anti-Jewish prejudices prevented – and still prevent – so many from realizing what we are confronting: a fundamentalist, totalitarian, murderous ideology, which threatens our civilization.

What happened on October 7 in Israel should be a wake-up call for the whole world.

The barbarism of Hamas terrorists crossed all possible moral limits, exposing their bloody and dangerous ideology.

What happened is frightening and heartbreaking. But even more heartbreaking is the fierce anti-Semitism that we saw resurface strongly in different corners of the planet, even before the defense action of the Israeli army began.

We have witnessed marches around the world in support of Hamas, with anti-Semitic slogans such as: “Jews to the gas chambers” or “globalizes the intifada” (which is nothing more than a call for the free slaughter of Jews).

There were countless attacks against synagogues and Jewish individuals, and many universities in the West became unsafe places for their Jewish students.

In addition to these openly anti-Semitic manifestations, there were others even more dangerous, because they came from organizations normally considered respectable. News agencies such as CNN or MSNBC gave credibility to false reports from Hamas about the actions of the Israeli army; the International Red Cross did not initially care about the kidnapped Israelis; UNICEF did not demand the release of Israeli children and babies cruelly separated from their families; and UN Women (the UN organization that must ensure women’s rights) did not say a word about Israeli women raped, tortured, kidnapped and burned alive.

So it is impossible not to ask the following: is there anything that can make the world stand in solidarity with Israel and the Jews? If something like this, which is the most finished manifestation of evil, does not make people moved by Jewish victims, perhaps nothing will.

But beyond the threat to Jewish communities around the world, if history has taught us anything, it is that something very serious happens in those societies in which anti-Semitism is allowed to flourish. These are sick societies that lose the ability to distinguish between good and evil, which ultimately reverberates against themselves.

In fact, the anti-Semitic prejudices that came to the surface clouded the vision of many, preventing a correct diagnosis of the evil we face. These prejudices also prevented (and still prevent) a correct evaluation of the actions of the Israeli army, which is demonized, even without having all the necessary information to make a correct evaluation; and which is subjected to a different standard than that which would be subjected to any other army, in similar circumstances. In practice, this implies denying Israelis the right to defend themselves.

These days, expressions that seek to “contextualize” what happened, and even justify it, proliferate, with arguments that do not resist a serious analysis.

It is true that the October 7 massacre did not occur in “a void,” as the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, recently stated in a very unfortunate comment. But his conclusions about the primary causes of what happened are profoundly erroneous. And being him, the “world’s leading diplomat,” his misdiagnosis is extremely serious.

No Israeli policy can justify what happened. In fact, Israel has not had any presence in the Gaza Strip since 2005. And the enclave receives millions of dollars in humanitarian aid every year from the international community, aid that instead of being used to develop Gaza, was used to build missiles, tunnels and other terror infrastructure. It is true that Israel maintained a blockade to prevent the ingress of materials that can be used to build that infrastructure. But if the massacre proved anything, it is that the blockade should have been even stricter.

The real cause of this barbarism is the hate ideology with which generations of Palestinians have been indoctrinated for years. In schools, which incidentally are administered by a UN agency (the Agency for Palestinian Refugees or UNRWA), textbooks glorify the “martyrs” who murder Jews; demonize the State of Israel; and replicate conspiracy theories of a net anti-Semitic court. Many of the teachers have connections with terrorist organizations. And both schools, mosques and hospitals, are used to hide weapons and barracks of terror.

The UN, therefore, has an enormous responsibility in sustaining and promoting this hate ideology.

Since childhood, the inhabitants of both Gaza and the West Bank are taught that the State of Israel has no right to exist, that Jews are impostors in that land (despite the 4,000 years of uninterrupted Jewish presence in that region), and that the reason for the existence of each of them is to fight, not for the construction of a Palestinian state, but for the destruction of Israel. And to do it violently.

Becoming a “martyr” is the greatest pride that these children can aspire to, in open violation of the rights of the child. The families of terrorists who murder Jews receive high salaries for life, which works as an excellent incentive. This is known as the “pay to kill” policy. All in the name of the most radical and fundamentalist interpretation of Islam.

Understanding this reality is important because when the war ends, it will be necessary to make the right decisions, so that something like this never happens again.

Even if Israel manages to eliminate Hamas terrorists and their war capacity, the underlying ideology will sadly continue to reign among the Palestinians. And at any moment a similar group will emerge, with another name, but with the same extreme ideology.

So, what must begin to be analyzed from now on, is how to combat that ideology, through an enormous work of re-education that involves the absolute rejection of extremism. This will not be an easy task, and it will take generations. But it is an absolutely necessary and urgent task. Some analysts rightly indicate that the examples of Germany and Japan, after the Second World War, could be good role models.

Radical Islam is not only a problem for Israel and the Jewish world. It is a threat to Western society as a whole, since its ultimate purpose is the establishment of a global caliphate, and the elimination of all “infidels.” If the international community does not wake up and stop the advance of this atrocious form of totalitarianism, it will sooner or later suffer terrible consequences.

Adriana Camisar is special advisor for Latin American and U.N. Affairs at B’nai B’rith International, the oldest Jewish organization in the world, based in Washington, D.C. She is also the deputy director of the American-Jewish Institute of International Relations (AJIRI-BBI), an affiliate of B’nai B’rith.