My first visceral reaction when I read about Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack on Israel wasn’t what you might expect. In my mind, I immediately compared the mastermind, Yahya Simwar, to a 13th-Century man named Inalchuq. In the intervening 21 months, I kept coming back to this comparison. I’ve thought of sharing the reasons for this a few times, but have always drawn back from the idea because it’s problematic. Essentially, it’s hard to express without giving offense.

In the simplest formulation, there are only a few individuals, like Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar, who have ever lived who can be said to have changed the entire trajectory of history. Perhaps no one has even changed history more than Inalchuq. He did it by inciting Ghenghis Khan to turn his attention from China towards the West.

In 1218, the Mongol leader sent a commercial caravan led by an ambassador to the city of Otrar (modern day Kazakhstan) in the predominantly Muslim Khwarezmian Empire where Inalchuq served as governor. The goal was to establish commercial ties. Inalchuq responded by arresting the caravan and confiscating their goods.

Khan’s initial reaction was restrained. He sent a delegation of two Mongols and one Muslim to the leader of the Khwarezmian Empire, ‘Alā’ al-Din Muhammad II, with demands that Inalchuq be punished. Muhammed II responded by killing the Muslim and shaving the beards of the Mongols before sending them back. He then ordered the execution of the imprisoned caravan.

At that point, Khan changed his plans and invaded the Khwarezmian Empire. What followed has gone down as history’s most merciless sustained onslaught. Cities were leveled, their occupants slaughtered in the tens and hundreds of thousands. The Mongols did not stop their westward march until they were near Vienna. For centuries, Mongols dominated Central Asia, the Middle East and Russia. And it’s quite possible none of it would have happened if Inalchuq had just welcomed Ghenghis Khan’s caravan.

Of course, it’s possible Muhammed II could have mollified Khan, and he bears the bulk of the responsibility for how Khan reacted. In either case, however, the fundamental error was in attacking a much more powerful enemy. It didn’t just cause the destruction of the Khwarezmian Empire, it cost the lives of millions of people spanning half the globe. When I saw what Yahya Simwar had done to Israel, I anticipated a similar kind of trouble.

This reaction was immediate and morally neutral. It came before any thought of assigning relative blame or even of what the proper response might be. It was as simple as a prediction that the Palestinians and the people of Gaza would pay a terrible price. In that first few moments, I wasn’t even thinking of the people in charge of Israel or their particular ideology. I just thought, this attack by Hamas and the way it was carried out, will result in the utter destruction of Gaza.

That impression became stronger in the ensuing days as I looked at how Israel’s defenses had failed and how impossible it seemed to ever create a barrier with Gaza that would protect the neighboring Israel towns and farms. And when I did begin to think about the composition of Israel’s right-wing government, it became clear that they would not react by seeking some kind of settlement with the Palestinians that might provide security. They would seek to remove the people of Gaza and eliminate the threat that way.

My main problem with how the Biden administration handled this crisis is that they did not seem to understand this. They didn’t understand how Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyau’s coalition would react, nor that the only way to stave them off was to find some alternative way to provide a sense of security. All they succeeded in doing is slowing the process down.

Israel has already gone a long way toward defeating their enemies. They smashed Hizhollah in Lebanon, saw the collapse of the Baathist regime in Syria, and destroyed Iran’s air defenses and much of their nuclear infrastructure. If Simwar thought his attack would bring about concessions or the destruction of Israel, he has so far been badly mistaken.

But there’s a problem. Largely because of the Holocaust, the modern world has established international law and human rights. Even when provoked, it is not permissible to unleash Mongol hordes on your enemies. I thought about this when reading Jewish professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Brown University Omer Bartov’s essay in the New York Times in which he accuses Israel of committing genocide.

Personally, I am not very interested in semantic debates over the Israel-Palestine conflict. This was true when former President Jimmy Carter accused Israel of “apartheid,” and it is true of the debate over the term “globalize the intifada” that has become a big story in the New York City mayoral race. It’s true over the word “genocide.” Maybe you prefer something more along the lines of “ethnic cleansing” to describe what Israel is doing in Gaza. It doesn’t matter to me what you call it, so long as you agree that it violates the entire construct humanity erected to protect people in the aftermath of the Holocaust.

I doubt Netanyahu ever thought of Inalchuq or the Mongols when crafting a response to the October 7 attacks, but on October 28 he addressed the Israel people and quoted Deuteronomy: ‘Remember what Amalek did to you.’

Here’s the full passage:

Remember what Amalek did to you by the way, when you came forth out of Egypt; how he met you by the way, and struck at your rear, all who were feeble behind you, when you were faint and weary; and he did not fear God. Therefore it shall be, when the Lord your God has given you rest from all your enemies around, in the land which the Lord your God gives you for an inheritance to possess, that you shall blot out the remembrance of Amalek from under heaven; you shall not forget it.

That’s Old Testament justice. But, again, that kind of justice is no longer permissible. It is now, quite properly, considered an injustice.

Yahya Simwar will go down in history as a very consequential man, but the forces he unleashed are deeply destructive to civilization. The Mongols wiped out cities and their accumulated knowledge. Some of the world’s largest libraries were destroyed. What’s at risk today is an international order that can prevent the wholesale destruction of peoples and cultures.

One of the saddest things about this is that the enemies Israel has been destroying had no moral credibility and were themselves enemies of civilization. Now the International Criminal Court (ICC) has issued a well-deserved arrest warrant for Netanyahu. It’s the modern world trying to impose order and morality on the ancient one. And I doubt the modern world will win out.