Judge Altman: October 7 Exposed West’s Turn Against Jewish Victims

Federal Judge Roy K. Altman has described October 7 as a watershed moment that revealed far more than the brutality of Hamas. In his assessment, the true shock came not only from the massacre itself but from how quickly Western institutions turned against the victims. Hamas murdered Jews, took hostages, tortured civilians, and carried out what Altman and others have called acts of kinocide. Yet within days, many university campuses and major media outlets began framing Jews and Israel as the oppressors.

Altman argues that the real test of Western civilization is not how it responds to distant conflicts, but how its own institutions react when Jews are attacked. On that measure, large parts of the academic and media establishment failed. Instead of clear moral solidarity with the victims of mass slaughter, too many voices rushed to contextualize, excuse, or invert the narrative. The result was a rapid shift in which the murdered and kidnapped were treated as morally suspect while their attackers received sympathy or justification.

This inversion did not occur in isolation. It reflected deeper ideological currents that had been building for years on elite campuses and within certain media circles. October 7 simply forced those currents into the open. When students and professors celebrated or rationalized the killing of Jews, and when major outlets struggled to condemn Hamas without immediately pivoting to criticism of Israel, the moral confusion became impossible to ignore.

For those who still believe in the core values of the West, Altman’s warning is stark. A civilization that cannot defend the most basic distinction between victims and perpetrators when Jews are the targets is a civilization in serious trouble. The response to October 7 exposed that weakness in real time, and the consequences continue to unfold across universities, media, and public life.