[Note from DB: On our lawprof trip to Israel, we were offered the opportunity to watch a compilation of Hamas atrocities on October 7th. I declined. I saw just a bit of this footage back in October, and it was sufficiently searing that I did not want to revisit the experience, and I certainly needed no persuading that Hamas is a theocratic death cult that should be erased from the earth. But my colleague Adam Mossoff did watch the footage, and here is his report.]
On the third day of the law professor’s visit to Israel (July 11), we had the opportunity to watch a 45-minute video of Hamas atrocities shot on October 7, which was mainly produced with GoPro cameras worn by Hamas soldiers. But it also includes security camera and CCTV footage. During the attack, Hamas soldiers uploaded their GoPro videos online and posted them on social media to hundreds of thousands of Israeli social media accounts on October 7. Thousands of such videos were removed from the web.
I won’t describe or detail any of the horrors of this movie, so you can read this knowing you won’t be ambushed by a nightmare that will haunt you for the rest of your life. I will say this movie is terrible. In fact, it’s beyond scary. But if one is to bear witness to evil in order to better defend good (Israel) and speak out against evil (genocidal anti-Semitism and proponents of this nihilism in the West), one must know the evil of which he is talking. So I think it’s important for me to see this movie, but given the shocking and disgusting content of this movie, I don’t begrudge anyone not to see it.
Here is some background and general information about the film: The Israel Defense Forces produced this film in November 2023 in light of worldwide denial of the atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7. Similar to Holocaust denial to this day, the despicable atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7 began on October 8 and continue to this day. This is not just about denying the murder of children and babies and other war crimes as “Israeli propaganda.” Additionally, Hamas soldiers denied the rape and sexual violence committed on October 7, prompting Sheryl Sandberg to make her first documentary as her own testimony of October 7 Behavior.
Due to its content, the film was strictly controlled by the Israel Defense Forces. I had an opportunity to watch it last November, which I already knew, but I declined at the time. Films can only be viewed by request, by special invitation, or by being invited to screenings targeted at a specific audience, such as political leaders or media industry representatives who have been invited to attend. We saw it last week as we were in Israel on a fact-finding mission around October 7th. detail. We were also not allowed to bring any electronic devices in the room and we had to store our phones in special lockers outside the room.
We later learned that not all IDF spokesmen had even seen it because its security clearance was rated “need to know.” It appears that the main reason for such extreme restrictions on the film is compliance with the religious rules of Judaism and Israeli social norms about respecting the dignity of the deceased, which I described in my previous post about October 7, and How Hamas deliberately sought to violate these rules and norms on October 7 through explicit acts of desecration and destruction of its victims. One of its best services is the unrestricted release of films like “Night and Fog,” documentaries about the Holocaust that feature pits full of corpses from Nazi films, as well as other body parts or scenes of death. Israel is currently in the midst of an existential war on multiple fronts, and in this emergency, the conventional rules or norms that apply in normal life should be relaxed to accommodate the emergency.
As I mentioned, I won’t describe anything I saw in the movie, but I still want to share some general observations about it. First, the Hamas soldiers showed pure joy. Throughout the film, Hamas soldiers chant and express joy and excitement about what they have done to their victims. They were not torture or murder out of necessity, nor were they the job of soldiers simply defending territory from invasion. It’s obvious from the first few moments of the film that they’re happy with what they’re doing. They celebrated this day during and after October 7th. Hamas soldiers are equally passionate and elated about the horrific atrocities they deliberately committed on October 7, a fact they proudly spread by making GoPro videos and sharing them with the world.
Second, the GoPro video makes it very clear that Hamas is the theocratic autocratic regime in Gaza, not just a dictatorship or an independent terrorist organization like Hezbollah or the Houthis. Hamas soldiers expressed their joy and joy by repeatedly shouting “Glory to Allah”. (“Allah Akbar!”). People have heard this more times than I can count, although I was so stunned by the horror I witnessed that I couldn’t count at the time. Hamas is a dictatorship Islamic theocratic state that rules Gaza (elected to power when Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2006 and then occupied it) Therefore, Hamas is like Iran, the Taliban (Afghanistan), the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt from 2011 to 2013, and the Muslim Brotherhood in 2011 Islamic State in Syria and Iraq from 2013 to 2013.
It is important to understand and fully appreciate this: October 7th is not about any grievance over land or the Israeli government’s abuses of Palestinians. Hamas seeks genocide against the Jewish people and Israel, as does its financial and military Iran, which reportedly played a direct role in the planning and approval of the October 7 atrocities. This best explains the atrocities and war crimes of October 7.
Third, and finally, Palestinian culture views dogs as disgusting filth, which is also conveyed in the film. I had read some articles and some videos before about how many stray dogs in Gaza are considered nuisances and vermin, and how Palestinians often kill or torture these dogs. They kill or torture dogs because they think dogs don’t even respect life. It doesn’t have to be a “dog lover” like me to find this deeply disturbing. There is truth to the famous saying that dogs are “man’s best friend”.
I say this because the Palestinians’ horrific view of dogs is on full display in a GoPro video made by a Hamas soldier. The most common insult one hears in the film is second only to the cry of “Allahu Akbar,” as Hamas soldiers repeatedly scream at the Jews they shoot: “You are dogs!”
It is a well-known fact in human history that those who commit mass murder explicitly dehumanize the people they kill. For example, the Nazis labeled Jews as rats, vermin, and a subspecies separate from the Aryans. Hamas is now doing this by labeling Jews dogs, which may seem strange to Westerners who are unaware that dogs apparently have a rat-like status in Palestinian culture. (Another example can be found in this video (https://x.com/LizaRosen0000/status/1811955884966203632…), in which an old Palestinian woman is interviewed and she says: “Jews are dogs.”)
For all of these reasons, the film is particularly terrifying and searing, both psychologically and emotionally. Hamas sent 3,000 soldiers to invade Israel with the intention of murdering, torturing, raping and kidnapping innocent people (approximately 1,450 infants, children and adults). This fact is bad enough in itself, but these soldiers did not commit war crimes dispassionately or out of a sense of military duty. They committed atrocities willingly, joyfully, and with a look of glory on their faces. This movie is a window into humanity’s capacity for evil, which I only knew abstractly from historical research on the Holocaust or the Khmer Rouge killing fields, but to my knowledge no Nazis or Khmer Rouge soldiers Didn’t realize this. Hamas soldiers did it.
By the end of the movie, I was psychologically shaken. I cried and continue to cry. My hands were shaking and my body felt almost numb. I also felt a sense of detachment from my body and surroundings. I still vividly remember holding my right hand flat in front of my face and watching it shake like I’d just overexerted myself while working out at the gym, even though I was sitting motionless in an air-conditioned room. After a break we met with IDF lawyers and then continued the mission with lunch and more meetings with lawyers from NGOs and other organizations, but it took me a few hours to recover from the shock.
This was a week ago and the shock has long worn off, but this movie will stay with me for the rest of my life. I hope I can now use my writing and speaking skills as a professor and advocate to help in my own way with the vicious lies and propaganda of pro-Hamas activists in the United States and the West. Let no one misunderstand the true meaning of the slogans “From River to Sea” and “Intifada”, as well as the meaning of the flags of Hamas and Hezbollah that are now regularly flying at protests in the United States and Europe. These represent a pure nihilism that many of us in the West find difficult to fully comprehend. This is not just anti-Semitism, and it doesn’t end with Jews or Israel. I hope the United States wakes up to this fact before it continues to appease Iran leading to Iran acquiring a nuclear weapon, because after watching the film of the October 7th atrocity, I think I know what will happen when it happens.