Propagandists are trying to punish those who stand with Palestine by sharing what they said about 7 October 2023, implying their posts 'celebrated' Hamas' bloodshed, writes Tom Tanuki.
IT REMAINS A common practice to share what people posted about 7 October 2023 on or around the day itself. You can find regular tweets from Zionists informing each other how to input a search string that locates what someone said on 7 October.
This point-scoring practice is chiefly undertaken by raving propagandists who often, by now, have a negative net reputation of their own after almost a year of cheering on a genocide. However, mainstream media still takes up these efforts from time to time. On occasion, it still results in reputational damage or sackings.
Most recently, the Australian Jewish Association has attempted it again, "exposing" Greens MP Max Chandler-Mather’s partner. On 7 October last year, she retweeted a post lauding the “heroism of the Palestinian people”. The act of sharing this as a gotcha is meant to imply that she was fully aware of the goriest details of 7 October as they unfolded — and was absolutely delighted about them.
I’ve had enough, so I want to discuss what we all did or said on 7 October 2023.
I am reminded first of several attacks on Norman Finkelstein. The veteran Israel-Palestine academic and activist made early blog posts, written on 7 and 8, in which he expressed joy and support for what he saw as an internment camp break from the militarised borders of Gaza. He was widely condemned for this in the weeks and months that followed.
I have watched him defend himself against English broadcaster Piers Morgan over this and later patiently explain a timeline of his published sentiments in an unedifying debate with a gaggle of inferiors.
His timeline is that of many like him: in the first days following 7 October 2023, he didn’t know about the brutal specifics surrounding the escape of some Gazans, some Hamas, some not. He was celebrating the little that he knew: that there had been an armed prison break from out of Gaza. It was an extraordinary development. This fact was a cause for joy for people who don’t want Gaza to be a prison anymore. It remains so.
The imputation being made here is that Finkelstein's excuses were lies and that secretly, like Chandler-Mather’s partner, he knew exactly what was happening on the ground in Israel and loved every bit of it. He was delighting in all the amateur-recorded videos of civilian blood and gore you see, and was celebrating them on his blog. This is the imputation being made about anyone whose 7 October 2023 tweets are resurrected to punish them.
The UN’s Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967, Francesca Albanese, tweeted on 7 October that 'today’s violence must be put in context', referencing 'over six decades of hostile military rule' as the context for the prison break. For that, she continues to be excoriated by Zionists.
Australian-born Zionist propagandist David Lange of Israellycool continues to attack activists in his country of origin in this way.
He dug through the liked tweets of (Australia Palestine Advocacy Network) APAN president Nasser Mashni before Elon Musk ended that practice. Mashni liked tweets saying that Palestine will be free (it will), that Gaza had had enough (it had) and that armed struggle against an occupier is legal under international law (it is). Lange’s implication is that these liked tweets uncover a hidden bloodthirst from Mashni about all the bloody specifics of 7 October.
I will be plain speaking: it is completely just to have recognised the Gaza prison break of 7 October on 7 October. Finkelstein has since observed that in the days that followed, he, like many, came to uncover information that made him dial his enthusiasm back and temper it with weightier reflections. He needed to wait for more legitimate sources than the blue-tick Twitter cesspool to verify the details of the conflict.
On the other hand, some of us who are more tapped into the extremities of the internet than Finkelstein could confirm we were across this information on the day. Researcher comrades of mine saw gruesome things bandied about on Twitter and on Telegram as the prison camp break was occurring. We saw bloody bodies of grandmothers at bus stops and the dead body of a Thai migrant worker, and many other brutal, unspeakable things.
There was enough weaponised disinformation to completely discount the notion that you, I or anybody knew exactly what was happening on the ground.
I can see what we said at the time in research spaces that were filled with chatter about it.
A comrade, on 7 October 2023, said:
"Some of it is just the same [poor quality] clips posted over and over, though I have seen some really horrific photos and videos up close. I’m seeing footage posted by random ‘OSINT’ [Open-source intelligence] accounts that hasn’t said where, or how they verified. Don’t discount Israel’s mammoth hasbara operations."
A case in point. Zionist hasbara accounts shared photos and videos of what they described as Israeli women raped on 7 October 2023. They weren’t — the media was actually that of Yazidi women who had been raped by ISIS.
BBC Verify journalist Shayan Sardarizadeh went to work, as he continues to do, diligently correcting misinformation pertaining to the post-7 October conflict.
Look at his account in the days following the prison camp break — it’s eye-opening. Clips from video games were being shared as evidence of Hamas attacks. Israeli soldiers were being misrepresented as Hamas. Pre-7 October clips were being repackaged as new for propagandist purposes. There was enough weaponised disinformation to completely discount the notion that you, I or anybody knew exactly what was happening on the ground.
Israel’s hasbara operations have gone on to render legitimate retrospective discussion of 7 October almost impossible.
They were not content to wait for rumours of sexual assault to be proven in the aftermath of the prison camp break. Instead, we saw a coordinated campaign by Israel – and later the New York Times – to buff these claims up into outright allegations of coordinated, mass rape. These claims have been largely debunked as an organised hoax.
Looking at my own Twitter account, it seems I shut my mouth until 9 October, before posting:
'People demanding in my DMs that I perform "condemnations" of Hamas... I will not sit there celebrating anyone's bloodshed, but politically in this house, we stand with Palestine always and forever.'
This remains my position.
Armed resistance should be duly acknowledged not only for Palestinians' moral right to it but as a legal act of defence as it is under international law. (Just as Nasser Mashni’s "evil" liked tweets suggested).
Again: Armed resistance is not only legitimate, but it is legal. The occupation of Palestine is not only illegitimate, but it is illegal, as the highest court in the world has now authoritatively confirmed.
To again speak very plainly: that does not mean I like dead civilians on 7 October 2023. I do not. I abhor the loss of civilian life. I abhor brutality. I repeat again what I said above on 9 October 2023, 'I will not sit there celebrating anyone’s bloodshed'.
Back then, I also said on Twitter:
'I can't think of a more coddled Western perspective than sitting there critiquing the politics of the militant fringe of a people who've experienced occupation for decades.'
This also remains my position. More than legitimate armed resistance, what I ultimately demand is a free, autonomous, peaceful and secure nation-state for the Palestinian people.
Many of the people studiously digging through your 7 October 2023 to see what evil thoughts you had on the day were themselves busily spamming brutal, callous statements.
Right-wing propagandist Avi Yemini said on 7 October, 'This is Israel’s chance to finally finish the job'.
On 8 October, former Wentworth Liberal Daniel Lewkovitz said that Palestinians 'will be getting lit up shortly, too. Don’t worry'.
I gather that neither of them has any gainful employment to terminate as a result of all the offensive shit they’ve said, but it should still be noted.
Those of us who stand with Palestine don’t celebrate any of the actual horrors we saw on 7 October 2023. But we do demand a cessation of the far greater evil which persists: the genocide visited upon Gazans in retaliation.
Hundreds of thousands have died. Expressions of support or solidarity with resistance made last year will not muddy the waters of our clear, urgent purpose: autonomy and freedom from death and oppression for all Palestinians.
Precisely because we value all human life.
Tom Tanuki is a writer, satirist and anti-fascist activist. Tom posts weekly videos on YouTube commenting on the Australian political fringe. You can follow Tom on Twitter @tom_tanuki.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Australia License
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