In the world of journalism if it happened yesterday it’s old news. And if it happened a month ago it’s ancient history.
So it’s no surprise that what happened on October 7 in Israel, as horrible as it was, has already become a dot in journalism’s rearview mirror. It’s time to move on, time to cover the new story — the one about supposed “war crimes,” and “genocide.” And if what we’re witnessing now were a movie instead of a real life horror story, the writer, producer, and the director would come from the ranks of Hamas.
For openers, why did Hamas launch such a horrific attack on October 7? What was its goal, besides, obviously, to kill as many Jews as possible?
Retaliation was its goal — furious, lethal retaliation.
Jews had suffered pogroms before, but this was different. And so if what happened on October 7 was different, Israel’s response would also be different. It would be overwhelming. And that’s precisely what the Hamas plot called for: death, lots of death, civilian deaths — the more the better.
Images have power, and dead bodies, Hamas understands, make for a powerful story.
Hamas’ storyline was ambitious, if not downright absurd. It was, crazy as it sounds, to turn Hamas, the perpetrators of mass murder … into the victims. But here’s what Hamas knew even as it planned the October 7 massacre: that its story would actually take hold — and not only in the Arab world. Hamas knew that its story would turn much of the world against Israel, and much of the world against Jews in general.
