How October 7 has changed us all — and what it signals for our struggle
JVL Introduction
One month after 7 October, writing in the Israeli magazine +972, Haggai Matar takes stock.
He reminds us of the traumatic shock Hamas provided that day, with the brutality of its attack and its shattering of the Israeli sense of security.
“The false notion that Israelis can live in safety while Palestinians are routinely killed under a brutal system of occupation, siege, and apartheid … came crumbling down.”
But Israel has gone into vengeful, genocidal mode in response, the exact opposite of what is needed.
It is, to put it mildly,
“a trying time for those of us who are committed to opposing apartheid and promoting a solution grounded in justice and equality for all…. Thousands of lives have been lost, thousands more still may perish, and the collective traumas we carry are intensifying by the day.”
And yet he finds room for hope. There will have to be a reckoning within Israeli society, a recognition that the situation cannot be allowed to continue.
For now, he says, the immediate calls must be for freeing civilian hostages, and an immediate ceasefire.
This article was originally published by +972 Magazine on Wed 8 Nov 2023. Read the original here.
How October 7 has changed us all — and what it signals for our struggle
It can be hard to recognize a historic moment while living through it, but this time in Israel-Palestine, it’s plain for all to see. Here’s what we know, and what we can surmise, one month on.
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“Israel has characterized the attack carried out by Hamas on the various Israeli military bases and militarized settlements, or Kibbutz, which in their totality comprised an important part of the Gaza barrier system, as a massive act of terrorism, likening it to the September 11, 2001 terror attacks against the United States. Israel supports this characterization by citing the number of persons killed (some 1,200, a downward revision issued by Israel after realizing that 200 of the dead were Palestinian fighters) and detailing a wide variety of atrocities it claims were perpetrated by Hamas, including mass rape, the beheading of children, and the wonton murder of unarmed Israeli civilians.
The problem with the Israeli claims is that they are demonstrably false or misleading. Nearly a third of the Israeli casualties consisted of military, security, and police officers. Moreover, it turns out that the number one killer of Israelis on October 7 wasn’t Hamas or other Palestinian factions, but the Israeli military itself. Recently released video shows Israeli Apache helicopters indiscriminately firing on Israeli civilians trying to flee the Supernova Sukkot Gathering held in the open desert near Kibbutz Re’im, the pilots unable to distinguish between the civilians and the Hamas fighters”
The above is a citation from “The October 7 assault on Israel: the most successful military raid of the is century” by Scott Ritter on scottritter.com, 13/11/23. See also “Why I no longer stand with Israel and never will again” from the same source dated 13/11/23.
Note what Scott Ritter is saying : Hamas planned the assault as, according to the American miltary’s own definitions, a military NOT a terrorist attack. Thus, they are most definitely not mindless thugs or the religious fanatics they are too often dismissed as. He also served as a weapons inspector in what then…
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This is a very good article from which I learned a lot. I liked the analysis about the three possible ‘blocs’ as possible futures, positive or negative as the case might be. The ‘end of the occupation’ and the ‘right of return’ scenarios, if they are achievable, seem to me to lead towards a fourth outcome, that is, a democratic, one-state solution, however unlikely that may seem at the moment. One of the underlying problems, of course, is that there are wider geopolitical considerations which go beyond ‘simply’ reconciling Israelis and Palestinians, namely the role of the USA and how far it will relinquish its own neo-colonial role in the region, with Israel as its agent.
This is a strange piece, in my opinion.
Social movements don’t arise in a vacuum; they are a response to a situation that existing arrangements leave untouched. Hamas won an election in the whole of the Palestinian territory in 2006 because the Fatah leadership, having surrendered so much in Oslo, deteriorated ever further into well-understood nepotism and corruption so that the people voted for the only other organised force – the Islamic Resistance.
The Western media suggest that Hamas then staged a coup but it was Fatah that failed with an attempt to overturn the elected Party. Obviously, the US, the EU (remember “the quartet”? and Blair’s role?)
and Israel did all they could to undermine the new government and soon afterwards, a blockade was started that lasts to this day.
What has the “Israeli Left” (surely an oxymoron?) done in the meantime.
What are the “achievements hard won over decades of shared struggle (that) have been erased by Hamas massacres”?
With the help of the Arab plutocracies, the Palestinians were being written out of history and wiped out of existence.
What would it have been permissible for Hamas to do in these circumstances?
We recognise that the native Americans were wiped out by Western settler colonials. We romanticise their story with reference to their cultural artefacts and historic traditions, but actually, the Comanche were fierce fighters who defended their territory by attacking the European invaders widely – not just the bluecoats. Once they had the horses the Spanish introduced they were feared throughout the southern half of what is now the United states.
What had Haggai and friends achieved to deter the indigenous people of Gaza from carrying out their “massacre”? How many massacres had the people of Gaza to endure before a response in kind was expected?
The many facts and opinions being shared here, including conflicting ones, help us to understand the complexity of what has happened and is happening. But the fact that the Israeli state is committing genocide against the entire Palestinian population of Gaza and also punishing Palestinians in the West Bank, destroying lives, homes, schools, hospitals and refugee camps, denying access to food, water, fuel and medicines, must be kept front and centre in the list of demands about what must happen. The first is an unconditional and permanent ceasefire without delay. The second is the return of everyone taken hostage and captured and imprisoned from all sides. The third is immediate and sufficient humanitarian aid to the entire population of Gaza. And the fourth is for the International Criminal Court to do its job in holding the Israeli state and its leaders responsible for committing genocide. And equally urgently, a peace and reconciliation process will be needed. Justice must be done and must be seen to be done. The role of the international human rights experts who recently spoke out and of the United Nations and its agencies is crucial in leading these processes. The failure of US and European leaders to wholeheartedly condemn the crimes against humanity being committed by Israel must also be addressed in the UN. And the right of the Palestinian people to their own state and land must finally be ensured. Without fail. Anything less will only lead to a breakdown of international law and justice, which no one can afford.