Attacks on Israel are only the beginning. All democracies are at risk

Hamas's horrifying attack in Israel has global support -- from protests in major cities to college campuses. This is an important reminder that all democracies are at risk.

Such democratic denialism is not new. Most citizens in Western democracies are so peace-loving it’s easier to overlook your enemies than confront them — and it’s easier to assume they are reasonable like you rather than consumed by evil. Throughout the 1930s, for example, most Americans remained isolationist, even as Nazi Germany and totalitarian Japan menaced the world.   Yaakov Katz is a senior fellow at the Jewish People Policy Institute, a former editor of the Jerusalem Post where he remains a columnist, and the author of three books on Israeli military affairs. Follow him on Twitter @yaakovkatz.

Regrettably, much of the world remains ensnared in an illusion we recognize from the early 2000s when Hamas and Islamic Jihad suicide bombers attacked Israeli buses, cafés and restaurants.