*
This article contains graphic descriptions of violence*
What could justify the actions committed on Oct. 7, 2023 in Israel? Without any context for the Israel-Palestine conflict and only seeing the videos Hamas published all over the internet, what would it take to justify the following actions?
These actions included the public demonstration of kidnapping and torturing children, intentional ambushes targeting elderly communities, women hogtied and punched in the face, evidence of mass rape and dead bodies jumped on by children, while onlookers laughed and shot their guns in the air. Hamas paraded the heads of innocent Israelis down the streets as if they were trophies and posted videos of children tortured and killed in front of their mothers.
Furthermore, reports claim that Hamas brutalized and murdered a grandmother just to log into her phone and post pictures of her mutilated body where her friends and family would see it. And, infamously, they murdered hundreds of young people attending a music festival who were trapped by a barrier of armed terrorists in an unprecedented ambush. All of this was recorded and posted across all forms of media.
Seven hundred people died in one day; almost exclusively civilians. What could ever warrant this?
I ask from a place of genuine curiosity because communities all across the world are actively glorifying these actions and blaming Israel for their occurrence.
I cannot fathom how the actions of Hamas remotely resemble the narrative of resistance. Do these videos not demonstrate a motivation that is entirely contrary to freedom fighting? Military targets were not the objective of this mission. Destabilizing the Israeli government, military or economy was not the goal. Reclaiming land was not the goal. If the mass publishing of these videos means anything at all, it is that the goal of this operation is to record and publish death, terror and trauma.
Kidnapping grandparents from retirement homes is not resistance. Allowing young Palestinian children to take part in the torture and humiliation of captured Israeli children is not resistance. Mass rape will never be a form of resisting oppression. These actions illustrate the true motivations behind the actions of Oct. 7: a hatred of Jews.
Jews are not unaccustomed to this subjugation; they have been publicly massacred and the victims of genocide time and time again and the narrative repeatedly blames the Jews. Mistakes are only mistakes if they are not lessons. International indifference towards genocidal acts against the Jewish people is a trend that is a recurring mistake. Instead, it must be a lesson.
What would you do if it was your sister, your cousin, your community or your child in these videos? Would you hide in terror, or fight in rage? Would you sympathize with terrorists’ oppression? What would you do if it was you?
