Yesterday marked 1,000 days since the massacre of October 7. Yes, a massacre, because the Hamas terrorists' invasion of the border kibbutzim (most of which, incidentally, are very left-wing) and the Supernova music festival in Re'im was simply a massacre, regardless of what anyone thinks about the events of the subsequent weeks and months (my own views are for display here).
Facts: At dawn on October 7, 2023, following an intense rocket barrage from Gaza, a group of several thousand trained and heavily armed terrorists stormed into Israel (after destroying the fortifications along the border with the Gaza Strip). Due to the Simchat Torah holiday (Rejoicing of the Torah) and the scandalous disregard for some of the earlier warnings—mainly from female soldiers serving as observers at the Nahal Oz base—Israeli forces were unprepared for the attack. Due to the breakdown of the chain of command (resulting from an attack on the main command centers in southern Israel), the response was delayed. As a result, armed, radicalized, and—in some cases—drug-dazed terrorists massacred the civilian population within a few hours, killing over 1,200 civilians, wounding many others, taking 250 hostages, and using organized sexual violence as a tool of torture and warfare.
These sad “1,000 days later” are linked to two events—one in Israel and one outside Israel. Both are incredibly painful for me.
In Israel, where the ruling coalition—the same one that was in power when the October 7 attack took place, and which consists of Netanyahu’s opportunistic faction (which will do anything to stay in power) and two extreme religious parties—has for years been blocking the formation of a commission to investigate how the October 7 massacre came about. On Thursday, thousands of protesting Israelis gathered in Tel Aviv to demand the establishment of an investigative commission. Some of the former hostages took an active part in the protest. Rom Braslavski, one of the rescued hostages, says that for him, those 1,000 days were like 1,000 lives lived.
In Jerusalem, protesters demanded the establishment of an independent investigative commission outside the Knesset and then outside Netanyahu’s home. Police removed the protesters, who are demanding that the government take political responsibility.
The Netanyahu government has long refused to establish such an independent commission of inquiry, similar to those previously established in Israel when the state failed to meet security expectations (e.g., after the Yom Kippur War).
At least seven protesters were arrested.
At the same time, many European, American, and Middle Eastern media outlets reported on the 1,000 days since the “genocide in Gaza.” If that’s possible, it’s even sadder.
Some papers wrote articles with leads like "Today, Thursday, July 2, marks 1,000 days since the start of the Israeli offensive in the Gaza strip". One thousand days ago, there was no Israeli offensive in Gaza. One thousand days ago, Hamas carried out a massacre, and even in the late afternoon of October 7 and October 8 (and, if I recall correctly, on the morning of October 9), fighting with terrorists took place not in Gaza, but in Israel. And where the fighting ended, the bodies of murdered Israelis: men, women and children - began to be collected. Hamas terrorists broadcasted some of the murders on the victims' own social media channels after taking forcibly their phones. Facebook did not block these posts, as reported at the time among others by some mainstream American media.
To write today, 1,000 days after the massacre, that it was the day the genocide in Gaza began is, for the victims of that massacre, like rubbing salt into their wounds. Their own government let them down; the world let them down. They are protesting, demanding an independent investigation into how these events came to pass, while the global media report that the killings began at that very moment—when they were busy dying and being murdered.
Here are links to some such pseudo news including written by humanitarian organizations. Not that they were rushing to help Israelis. I’ve already written about the heated reactions to October 7 here. The blood of the Israeli victims hadn’t even had time to soak into the ground, and accusations against the victims had already begun.
And one more thing. This war has brought terrible suffering to civilians—both Israeli and Palestinian. It was brutal. But we must never forget who started it (in many wars that are widely considered necessary and just today, civilians on both sides have suffered, which does not change how those wars are judged). Nor should we forget that if the scale of killing in Israel’s retaliatory war had been even comparable to what Hamas has committed in Gaza today, at least half the population (and Gaza has a population of about 2 million) would be dead. It took Hamas just a few hours to murder 1,200 innocent civilians, and these were by no means random victims or people the IDF was using as human shields.
Here is a clip from today's protests by Euronews
