And maybe it took US President Biden, watching from afar, to put into words — for Americans, for the world, but, yes, most importantly for us — the scale of the catastrophe and the inhumanity of our enemy.

Horrified but resolute in cataloging what has befallen our nation and its people, he made the awful truth unavoidable:

“More than 1,000 civilians slaughtered… Parents butchered using their bodies to try to protect their children. Stomach-turning reports of being — babies being killed. Entire families slain. Young people massacred while attending a musical festival to celebrate peace… Women raped, assaulted, paraded as trophies… Infants in their mothers’ arms, grandparents in wheelchairs, Holocaust survivors, abducted and held hostage…”

He left no room for any who identify with Hamas, its partners and backers, to claim any pretense of morality. “Hamas does not stand for the Palestinian people’s right to dignity and self-determination. Its stated purpose is the annihilation of the State of Israel and the murder of Jewish people. They use Palestinian civilians as human shields. Hamas offers nothing but terror and bloodshed with no regard to who pays the price.”

But he also brought home, for any of us still grappling with the dimensions of the challenge, that what began on Saturday morning was not, in all its “unadulterated evil,” a tactical Hamas attack that fooled a complacent leadership and burst through a farcically inadequate border. It was, rather, the opening salvo in a thoroughly planned strategic effort to destroy the country.

Most every word of his address — a combination of straight talk, wisdom, solidarity (with us) and indictment (of our murderers and anybody who supports them) — was well-chosen. But his speech crucially underlined that this is a battle for survival that has only just begun.