Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):
One thing October 7 did accomplish was getting Israel and its allies to show the world their true face. Getting them to stand before all of humanity to say, “If you resist us, we’ll kill your babies. We’ll deliberately shoot your kids in the head. We’ll massacre medical workers. We’ll systematically destroy all your hospitals. We’ll rape you and torture you as a matter of policy. We’ll lay siege to the entire civilian population. We’ll make your entire land uninhabitable and then we’ll kick you all out and take it for ourselves. We’ll assassinate all your journalists and block foreign journalists from entry so that nobody can see what we’re doing to you. We’ll lie about all of these things the entire time, and you’ll know we’re lying, and we’ll know you know we’re lying, and you’ll know we know you know we’re lying. And we’ll get away with it anyway, because we hold all the cards.”
Sometimes I’ll run into people who say “What did Hamas expect to happen? They had to know Israel would do this!” They say this in an effort to lay the blame for Israel’s genocidal atrocities at the feet of Hamas, as though Israel is some kind of wild animal who can’t be held accountable for its actions if someone gets too close to its mouth.
But of course Hamas knew Israel and its allies would react this way. Of course they did. They knew they were dealing with a murderous and tyrannical civilization who is capable of limitless evil and doesn’t see Palestinians as human beings. They knew it because they’d lived under it all their lives. That is the problem they were trying to address with their actions on October 7. https://x.com/Rahmazeinegypt/status/1908895485114413512
You can disagree with the decisions Hamas made on that day. You can say they should have used other means to pursue justice. You can denounce them, hate them, do the whole public ritual necessary for mainstream acceptance in western society. But one thing you can’t do is deny that Israel and its allies have been revealing their true face to the world every day since, at levels they previously were not.
It’s all fully visible now. It’s all right there on the surface. We can try to continue pretending we live in a free society that believes in truth and justice and regards all people as equal, but we’ll all know it’s a lie. What we are, first and foremost, is a civilization that will actively support history’s first live-streamed genocide. That’s the single most relevant fact about the western world at this point in history. It’s staring us right in the face every day.
October 7 certainly didn’t make life any easier for the Palestinians, but one thing it did do was take away our ability to hide from ourselves. Hamas reached thousands of miles around the world and permanently destroyed our ability to avoid the truth about the kind of dystopia we are really living in. Our rulers may succeed in eliminating the Palestinians as a people, but one thing they will never be able to do is put those blinders back on our eyes.
What has been seen cannot be unseen.The last working-class hero in England.
Clio the cat, ? July 1997 - 1 May 2016 Kira the cat, ? ? 2010 - 3 August 2018 Jasper the Ruffian cat ? ? ? - 4 November 2021
Re: Hamas Succeeded In Exposing The True Face Of The Empire
I think she underestimates the capacity of propagandised people to ignore, deny or almost instantly forget the crimes that 'their side' has committed. It doesn't matter that it has been a 'livestreamed genocide' with more evidence immediately available than any other in history. The language & tone of politicians and the media ensure that a large percentage of people will continue to roll their eyes or at best say "It's sad, but it's complicated. Also, Hamas Bad." A few might have the 'blinders taken from their eyes', but the real question is what are they going to do about it, and are they in a position to materially change the outcome? We've seen how anyone who develops a conscience about Gaza or Palestinians gets smeared as an antisemite and immediately hounded out of polite society. Politicians and media hacks know to keep their heads down and do no more than mutter to themselves. This means dissent is safely marginalised, and the genocide-supporting policy of the govt can continue unmolested. People put flags up for Ukraine; they didn't for Palestine.
I don't know what CJ expects will change as a result of this 'success' by Hamas. Something tells me they don't really give two sh!ts about what western publics think any more, and Oct 7th was a last ditch attempt to get some leverage over the zionist entity rather than an attempt to generate widespread sympathy through outrage at the inevitable Israeli response. They already tried that with the Great March of Return among other efforts, and the response to the ensuing slaughter was a collective yawn.
Really, this is a 'hearts and minds' liberal analysis, based on the assumption that state policies are driven by ideas and the public will. In reality this is about naked power, which is the way colonialism and empire have always worked, albeit under various manipulative disguises. It can't be successfully opposed by debate, changing minds, persuasion, appeals to conscience or any of the other liberal tactics. To repeat myself: The empire only responds to force - not necessarily military force, but some form of mobilisation that means it has no option but to concede.
Concerning the present genocide, I know from experience that a hell of a lot of people, well, I'd say 90% of those I have broached this topic with are:
1) Sadly of the opinion that Hamas started it all on 7th October and what did they expect would happen? 2) Hamas could end it in an hour if they just gave back the hostages.
It's these two ignorant responses I always seem to encounter, despite pointing out the constant stream of lies and war crimes committed by the zionazis. Even stuff like the recent murder of the 15 Palestinian medics and the attempted lying cover-up still gets those replies.
No wonder that Tammy Bruce creature at the State Department briefings always returns to "It was Hamas that did it"...it works!
on April 7, 2025, 3:25 am