Remembering 7th October

It felt like the end of a golden era.

For decades after the Holocaust, mainstream discourse across the Western world treated Jew-hatred as the morally debased evil that underpinned the vow of “never again.” In the Islamic world, of course, antisemitism remained commonplace. Islamists—especially Wahhabists and Salafists—have long harboured genocidal intent toward Jews (and toward anyone who blasphemes the Prophet). Even mainstream opinion there often echoed the attitudes that once prevailed in the West until the industrialised genocide was fully revealed. Jews never expected much from that quarter, nor from the anti-Western axis of tyranny centred on Russia, the People’s Republic of China and their satellites.

But at least the world’s liberal democracies still knew evil when they saw it. Islamist and tankie cranks could be safely ignored.

Then came 7 October 2023. Everything changed. 

The hatred that had been contained erupted and has festered ever since—day by day, week by week. We have watched it surface again and again: the storming of Makhachkala Airport in Dagestan by mobs hunting Jews off flights from Israel; the Manchester synagogue attack on 2 October 2025; Bondi on 14 December 2025; Golders Green on 23 March 2026 and again on 29 April 2026.

What some call the world’s oldest hatred is still very much with us. It has been fuelled by radical imams given platforms in Western countries. The baying crowds in Sydney shouting “Where’s the Jews?” or “Gas the Jews” (the former being the official, scarcely less chilling version) just two days after the Hamas attack were an early warning.

More chilling still are the Western academics only too eager to justify Hamas’s actions, and the politicians and activists who dismiss the sadism and brutality because of “context.” Context for the worst mass murder of Jews since the Holocaust.

That context is not that Gaza was under full Egyptian control from 1948 to 1967 and was never turned into a Palestinian state. It is not that Israel demolished every settlement and deported every settler from Gaza in 2005 to grant full autonomy. It is not the repeated Israeli offers of land-for-peace and a Palestinian state alongside Israel—offers rejected time and again by Fatah. And it is certainly not that Hamas’s founding documents explicitly call for the eradication of Israel and death to the Jews.

Palestinians in Gaza have lived under Hamas tyranny since mid-2007: no freedom of speech, no elections, no free press. Yet Western media, academics and politicians have swallowed every report from Hamas-approved sources as objective reality. Compare this with Israel, which permits protests, maintains a free press, holds elections and tolerates constant criticism of its governments. Stupidity or hatred—or both—has chosen to ignore the difference.

I have lost count of the vile statements by politicians, academics, celebrities and others who justify or even deny the slaughter. Jews are accustomed to haters denying what is done to them. Holocaust denial and minimisation have returned as standard features of “pro-Palestinian” discourse—a discourse that never demands elections, a free press or the right to protest for Palestinians themselves, but one scripted by Hamas, whose leaders sit safely in Qatar enjoying the martyrdom of their own people.

The UK’s 7 October Parliamentary Commission Report (PDF) is an excellent summary of what happened. What remains particularly astonishing is that the perpetrators recorded and broadcast their crimes in real time. Even the Nazis were ashamed enough to try to cover up the Holocaust. Not Hamas:

The perpetrators documented their actions on the day, through GoPro body cameras and mobile phones. They live-streamed and recorded their actions, uploading them to social media sites like Telegram. Many attackers used GoPro body cameras, mobile phones, and even the phones of their victims to livestream their actions. Videos and images were uploaded in real-time by Hamas and other groups to platforms like Telegram and sometimes directly to victims’ accounts. This footage showcased graphic killings, abductions, and desecration of bodies, often accompanied by celebratory captions. Footage depicted hostages being mistreated, corpses desecrated, and victims in their final moments. (pg.10)

...

Civilians were targeted with calculated and unreserved precision. Victims, spanning all ages from infants to the elderly, were often shot at point-blank range, burned alive, or killed by grenades. The systematic destruction included the deliberate annihilation of entire families in Kibbutzim. Elsewhere, children were

orphaned as their parents were killed in front of them as they hid.

The attackers abducted 251 hostages, including civilians, soldiers, and corpses from various locations. Hostages endured abuse during this process including binding and beatings. Children as young as 9 months and elderly people were forcibly removed from their families.

Women and girls were particularly vulnerable during the attacks. Reports detailed gang rapes, sexual

mutilation, and assaults on both living and deceased victims. There was a pattern across various locations

attacked on 7 October of “fully naked or partially naked bodies from the waist down [that] were recovered – mostly women – with hands tied and shot multiple times, often in the head.” This was particularly prevalent at the Nova Festival.

The attackers looted homes, destroyed property, and set buildings ablaze, compounding the suffering of survivors. Kibbutzim and neighbourhoods were left in ruins, with fires burning for days. Forensic evidence highlighted the widespread use of incendiary weapons and flame accelerants, leaving many homes unrecognisable and further hindering the identification of the dead.

In Kibbutz Holit, Hamas gunmen broke into the home of Adi Vital-Kaploun who was looking after her 4-year old son and 3 month old baby. After killing Kaploun, the gunmen filmed themselves putting shoes on

the infant boy and rocking the baby in its crib, later posted online by Hamas. They then took the children

hostage and booby-trapped their mother’s body.

In audio captured during an attack on the Mefalsim Bend, a Hamas militant used the phone of a dead women to contact his father and tell him how many Jews he had killed. He says: “Hello Baba, I am speaking with you from Mefalsim. Open your WhatsApp, tell Wiam. Look at all the dead bodies. See how many I killed myself, Baba. Your son killed Jews! Here, I’m inside Mefalsim, Baba. I am speaking to you from a Jewish lady’s phone. I killed her and I killed her husband. I killed ten myself, Baba. Ten!. Ten with my owns hands. Baba, open your WhatsApp and see how many I killed”. Footage captured throughout the day frequently showed Hamas militants and other attacking groups celebrating the killings.

There is much more in that report and here.  

It's hard to understate the vileness of this. 

Hamas had—and still has—genocidal intent. It killed Jews because of what they are, not who they are. It glorified the death of Jews. Far more were murdered than taken hostage; many hostages were later killed or died in captivity.These are not the actions of “liberators” or the “oppressed,” except in the warped minds of those who embrace critical theory and radical post-modern structuralism. It is closer to the Khmer Rouge, who murdered teachers, business owners and the educated as “oppressors,” grooming young illiterate peasants to become the killers.

Yet the whole narrative was skewed, even before Israel responded.  

It was, ironically, to use a term by communications academic, mouthpiece for Hamas propaganda, Mohan Dutta, a communicative inversion. The genocidal terrorist group that seeks to wipe out an entire people, wipe out a nation-state and implement an intolerant tyranny theocracy is suddenly the victim, and it is a "liberation" movement backed by people who declare themselves for peace, tolerance, diversity and against racism, misogyny and homophobia (despite that very group being more fascist and intolerant than almost any other on earth).

The Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa (PSNA) group led by veteran hard-left activist John Minto has been at the forefront of providing succour for Hamas and its actions through double-speak that would make Orwell blush. It opposed Hamas being designated as a terrorist group claiming "it is for Palestinians to decide the groups they support for the liberation of Palestine". This is like saying it is for Germans to decide who they support for the liberation of the German people, to appease the Nazis. It being particularly precious to claim Palestinians in Gaza have any genuine means of expressing support or opposition to Hamas. Of course PSNA likes bringing up the Nazis...

Furthermore, PSNA said "It’s important to point out that under international law Palestinian resistance groups have the right to take up arms against their colonial occupier, Israel, in the same way the French resistance had the right to take up arms against the Nazi occupiers of their country during WWII"

In short, PSNA justified the attack, furthermore equating Hamas to the "French resistance". France, having been an independent republic, attacked unprovoked by Nazi Germany is somehow akin to Gaza under the rule of an Islamist eliminationist terror group. Hamas having been allowed to take control of Gaza from the Palestinian Authority, which itself was handed control from Israel. 

Of course equating Israel to Nazi Germany is quite the exercise in Jew hatred.

PSNA of course opposes the very existence of Israel in saying "Today Israel is responsible for the longest military occupation in modern history – 76 years so far and counting". In short, Israel shouldn't exist. Gaza was under Egyptian control for 19 of those years, and the West Bank under Jordanian control, so PSNA doesn't want a two-state solution, it wants a one-state solution and it is "for Palestinians to decide" who runs it. If you think either Hamas, which openly spreads Jew hatred, or Fatah, which is led by a Holocaust denier  is going to led Jews live peacefully under a state either leads, you're an idiot or hiding what you really think. PSNA goes on to quote from the Hamas Charter (which of course it is at pains to say it doesn't support) which says it "Hamas rejects the persecution of people or the undermining of their rights on nationalist, religious or sectarian ground".

If you believe that then you probably also believe the Constitution of the People's Republic of China, Article 37, "The personal freedom of citizens of the People’s Republic of China shall not be violated."

Jew haters do deny facts (except of course when live streaming their murders to their families). They deny the Holocaust happened because it hurts Jews more to pretend that those who were slaughtered never existed in the first place. Now they deny that Jews would be harmed by Palestinian militant groups if Israel were abolished, because it hurts Jews more to deny them indigenous status or a homeland.

Both the Green Party and TPM have fully embraced PSNA, so take from that what you will. 

Even former Prime Minister Chris Hipkins talked of "genocide" in Gaza to describe Israel's military response. Nor can we forget how many have said attacks against Jews are "their own fault" for not opposing Israel, including Helen Clark's husband. There's no shortage of Australian artists and commentators who have said the same about the Bondi attack.

Think for a moment how you'd feel if your community had been attacked by blood-thirsty sadists who were gleefully proud of murdering unarmed civilians, ranging from babies to the elderly, and celebrated it with their family. 

This isn't just the periodic rocket attacks Hamas lobbed into Israel proper. It isn't attacks on IDF soldiers in the West Bank, or confronted Jewish settlers in the West Bank. The "resistance" was a pogrom, by attacking a music festival and a kibbutz.

The aftermath of this evil is now a much smaller world for Jews.  The Green Party of England and Wales only days ago passed a resolution saying "Zionism is Racism" (the UN General Assembly in the 1970s, when dominated by tinpot Marxist dictatorships did the same), with a motion calling for protection of Jews who attend "Zionist synagogues" defeated.

Imagine if a mainstream political party in Parliament passed a resolution saying "Palestinianism is racism" and was nonchalant about Muslims being unsafe attending Mosques deemed to be Islamist. 

So today, think of those who were murdered for doing nothing wrong. For attending a music festival, for living in Israel - not occupied territory - not settlements in the territories - but Israel. 

You may debate about the scale and nature of Israel's response, but the mere idea that one should be neutral about Hamas, that one should lie explicitly about the state of the conflict, that one should side with those who want Israel wiped off the map ("from the river to the sea") and just use talking points from one side is both stupid and evil.

The evil Hamas embodies is palpable, and there will only be peace in this part of the world when Hamas is no more.

However, what is most distressing is not so much the boiler-plate, tankie, Soviet-style support for Hamas and unique hatred of Israel (no other country receives protests or gets called for its destruction by the self-styled "peace" movement), but how this has all percolated into generalised hatred for Jews.  You can see it here in the PSNA.  Jews across the world are fearing violence. Jewish schoolchildren in the UK are being told to cover up signs of their "Jewishness" because they risk being attacked. 

The irony being that politicians who claim to be "anti-racist" are only too willing to give a free pass to Jew hatred. The latest incarnation of pro-Palestinian terror is the Palestine Forum which chooses today to magnify its cause.  That's not just bad taste, it is deliberately designed to blank out the Hamas attacks, minimise and ignore the victims and discredit the facts of the Hamas attack instigating the current round of conflict.

So today just take a breath, pause to reflect on the victims and the horror they faced by sadistic men wanted them dead, wanted them tortured and mutilated their bodies, even the bodies of their pets. Reflect on how you might have coped had you faced anyone who videoed the slaughter of your loved ones - much like the Christchurch mosque murderer videod his slaughter. Reflect on how you would want to treat the survivors and the grieving, and how much you would want the organisation and the ideology behind them to be wiped off the face of the earth.

The odds of peace in Israel are not great at present, and part of that is the fault of Israel. Yet it is difficult to imagine a peace and mutual co-existence when the cancer of sadistic Jew hatred remains at the heart of part of Palestinian politics. A hatred fed by men who live luxurious lives in another country, and frankly whose power and authority would evaporate if there was peaceful co-existence.

Most of all, if you know a Jew, give them your support. Reject the snide comments made by so many, that they are somehow powerful and money-grabbing. The language that talks of rats, that talks of "going on" about the world's only industrialised genocide, and being suspicious of a people that, mostly, just want to live in peace in the land of their ancestors, or the lands their ancestors settled in.

Maybe also think twice about voting for parties and candidates who reject this, who throw about propaganda about genocide and give succour to groups that seek to blank out what happened on 7th October and use it as a rallying point for what they want - which is the abolition of the state of Israel and expulsion of its non-Arab population. 

Also think twice about those who think Jews are "white supremacists", when the world's most aggressive white supremacist did his best to wipe them out.  That's the ideological source for the current trend on the far-left to dismiss racism against Jews. Even though around a third of Jews are not ethnically European.

After all, find another ethnicity which united hatred from white-supremacists on the far-right, Islamic fascists and far-left critical theory proponents?

The world used to be pretty safe for Jews, especially in liberal democracies. It's about time that we returned to that.

(Footnote: I was going to write more about Mohan Dutta, but he's not worth it. He's ignorant about the history of Israel, and engages in Orwellian doublespeak to slither out of accountability for his own solidarity towards Hamas and the entire Palestinian movement, including parroting its propaganda.  It is the lives of those sacrificed by the sadistic monsters on this day that deserve to be in lights).