As I feel the weight of the loss of our fellow citizens at the hands of terrorists on Sept. 11, 2001, I am both saddened and outraged.

I am pleased that our government is honoring the more than 3,000 who died that day and also for its steady success in pursuit of, and efforts to eliminate, those who planned the attack and those who carried it out. We followed the biblical instruction, “Justice, justice shall you pursue.”

I can’t stop thinking about the more than 1,200 Israeli innocents who were murdered and tortured on Oct. 7, 2023. They included babies who were killed, parents forced to watch their children killed, elderly women viewing their families murdered and entire families burned alive, all by excited terrorists filming the carnage. The United States and the Israeli government followed the biblical instruction, “Justice, justice shall you pursue.”

They are relentless, and their job is not finished. Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and Iran still live and promise gleefully the same carnage again on Israel. Why is the world ignoring these threats and rejecting the biblical call to protect themselves? Does not Israel have the same rightful goal?

These terrorists would do the same thing to us if they could. Just as we pursued the criminals who murdered so many citizens of all countries here in the United States on 9/11, we would do it again as we seek real protection and justice for our citizens and visitors.

We know that if we had a 9/11 event here again, our government would follow “Justice, justice shall you pursue.”

As Israel should do.

STAN KESSLER