https://reason.com/volokh/2024/07/20/hamass-savagery-on-october-7-guest-post-by-adam-mossoff/

Hamas's Savagery on October 7: Guest Post by Adam Mossoff
DAVID BERNSTEIN | 7.20.2024 12:50 PM

[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 Day 3 (July 11) of the law professor mission to Israel, we had the
opportunity to watch the 45-minute film of the Hamas atrocities on
October 7 that was created primarily from the GoPro cameras worn by the
Hamas soldiers, but also includes footage from security cameras and
CCTV. During the attacks, the Hamas soldiers uploaded their GoPro videos
to the internet and blasted them out on social media to hundreds of
thousands of Israelis' social media accounts on October 7. The IDF
spokesperson unit spent two days taking thousands upon thousands of
these videos down from the internet.

I will not describe or detail any of the film's horrors, and so you can
read this post knowing that you will not be ambushed with a nightmare
that will haunt you for the rest of your days. I will say the film is
horrific. In fact, it's beyond horrific. But if one is to bear witness
to evil so that one can better defend the good (Israel) and speak out
against evil (genocidal antisemitism and supporters of this nihilism in
the West), one must know the evil of which one speaks. Thus, I
considered it important for me to see the film, but given the shocking
and sickening content of this film, I don't begrudge anyone not watching it.

Here's some background context and general information about the film:
The IDF created this film in November 2023 given worldwide denials of
the atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7. Similar to the Holocaust
denials that began in 1945 and continue to this day, the denial of the
vile atrocities committed by Hamas on October 7 began on October 8 and
continue to this day. It's not just denial of murders of children and
babies and other war crimes as "Israeli propaganda." There's also the
denial of the rape and sexual violence committed by Hamas soldiers on
October 7, which has prompted Sheryl Sandberg to create her first
documentary as her own act of bearing witness to October 7. It's called,
"Screams Before Silence," and if you have not yet seen it, I recommend
doing so (https://www.screamsbeforesilence.com/).

Given its content, the film is closely controlled by the IDF. I already
knew this from an opportunity I had last November to see it, which I
declined at the time. One can only see the film through an application,
a special invitation, or to be invited to a showing for specific
audiences, such as political leaders or media industry representatives
who have been invited to watch it. We saw it last week given that we
were in Israel as a fact-finding mission about October 7. Before we saw
it, we had to sign a special agreement not to share any images nor
specific details that could be traced back to specific victims. We were
also prohibited from having any electronic devices in the room and we
had to store our phones in special lockers outside the room.

We later learned that not even all of the IDF spokespeople have seen it,
as it has a security clearance rating of "need to know." It appears that
the primary reason for this extreme restriction on the film is the
observance of the religious rules in Judaism and social norms in Israel
about respecting the dignity of the deceased, which I described in my
last post about October 7 and how Hamas deliberately sought to violate
these rules and norms through explicit acts of desecration and
destruction of its victims on October 7. Among those of us on the
mission who were speaking with the IDF spokespeople about this, we were
of one mind in telling them that Israel would be best served by
releasing the film without restrictions, like documentaries about the
Holocaust like "Night and Fog" that contain Nazi films of pits filled
with bodies, as well as other scenes of body parts or death. Israel is
in an existential war on multiple fronts right now, and in such
emergency conditions, regular rules or norms that apply during normal
life should be relaxed to accommodate the exigent circumstances.

As I mentioned, I won't describe anything I saw in the film, but I would
still like to share a few general observations about it. First, the pure
glee expressed by the Hamas soldiers. Throughout the film, the Hamas
soldiers are constantly shouting expressions of joy and excitement in
what they are doing to their victims. They are not torturing or
murdering out of necessity, nor is this the work of soldiers who are
merely defending territory from an invasion. It was very clear from the
first few moments of the film that they took pleasure in what they did.
They celebrated it – during and after October 7. Many of us have seen
the videos shared on the internet of civilians in Gaza who rushed to the
trucks or SUVs to take pictures and beat the dead bodies or living
hostages, shouting with glee and celebration. The Hamas soldiers were
equally effusive and jubilant about the ghastly atrocities they
deliberately committed on October 7 – and they proudly broadcast this by
creating and sharing their GoPro videos with the whole world.

Second, the film of the GoPro videos makes it very clear that Hamas is a
theocratic authoritarian regime in Gaza, not merely a dictatorship or a
freestanding terrorist organization like Hezbollah or the Houthis. The
Hamas soldiers expressed their glee and joy by constantly proclaiming
"Glory to God!" ("Allah Ackbar!). One hears this more times than I could
count, although I was frozen by the horrors of what I was witnessing and
so I was not capable of counting at the time. Hamas is an authoritarian
Islamic theocracy that rules over Gaza (it was elected into power when
Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2006 and then it took). Thus, Hamas is like
Iran, the Taliban (Afghanistan), the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt from
2011-2013, and ISIS in Syria and Iraq from 2014-2019. There have been
non-ideological dictatorships in the Middle East, such as Saddam Hussein
in Iraq and Bashar Al-Assad in Syria, but that is not Hamas.

This is important to understand and fully appreciate: October 7 was not
about any grievances over land or alleged abuses by the Israeli
government over the Palestinians. Hamas seeks the genocidal destruction
of both Jews and Israel, just as its financial and military Iran, which
is reported to have had a direct role in the planning and approval of
the October 7 atrocities. This explains more than anything the
atrocities and war crimes of October 7. Hamas is dedicated to the
genocidal evil of the death of all Jews and the destruction of all of
Israel.

Third, and last, the Palestinian culture considers dogs to be disgusting
filth, and this is conveyed in the film as well. I had previously read
articles and seen a few videos about how the many stray dogs in Gaza are
viewed as nuisances and pests, and that Palestinians regularly kill or
torture these dogs. They kill or torture dogs because they view dogs as
not even befitting any respect for life. One does not have to be a "dog
person" like I am to think this is deeply disturbing. There is valid
reason for the famous dictum that dogs are "man's best friend."

I say this because the Palestinian's horrible view of dogs is on full
display in the film of the GoPro videos made by the Hamas soldiers. The
most common insult one hears in the film, it is a refrain that is second
only to the shouts of "Allah Ackbar," is the one that the Hamas soldiers
constantly scream at the Jews they are shooting and slaughtering: "You
are dogs!"

It is a well-known fact in human history that people who commit mass
murder explicitly dehumanize the people they are killing. The Nazis did
this, for example, by labeling Jews as rats, vermin, and as a subspecies
separate from Aryan humans. Hamas now does it by labeling Jews as dogs,
which may seem strange to someone in the West who is unaware of the
rat-like status that dogs apparently have in Palestinian culture.
(Another example of this is found in this video
(https://x.com/LizaRosen0000/status/1811955884966203632…) of an
interview with an old Palestinian woman who says, "Jews are dogs.")

For all these reasons, the film is especially horrific and searing
psychologically and emotionally. Hamas sent 3000 soldiers to invade
Israel for the purpose of murder, torture, rape, and kidnapping of
innocent people (about 1,450 babies, children, and adults). This fact is
bad enough by itself, but these soldiers did not commit their war crimes
dispassionately or out of a sense of military duty. They committed their
atrocities willingly, happily, and with effusive expressions of glory.
The film is a window into a human capacity for evil that I knew only in
the abstract from my historical study of the Holocaust or the Killing
Fields of the Khmer Rouge, but, based on what I know, the Nazi or Khmer
Rouge soldiers did not revel in and enthusiastically celebrate their
murders and atrocities. The Hamas soldiers did.

When the film concluded, I was in psychological shock. I had been and
continued to cry. My hands were shaking, and I felt almost physically
numb. I also felt a sense of detachment from my body and my
surroundings. I still vividly remember holding my right hand out flat in
front of me and watching it tremble and shake, as if I had just
over-exerted myself in a workout at the gym, despite my having sat still
in an air-conditioned room for the past hour. After a break, we met with
IDF lawyers and then continued the mission with lunch and more meetings
with lawyers from NGOs and others, but it took me several hours to
recover from the shock.

This was all a week ago, and the shock has long since worn off, but that
film will be with me for the rest of my life. I hope that I can now use
my writing and speaking skills as a professor and advocate to help in my
own way by speaking truth to the vicious lies and propaganda of the
pro-Hamas activists in the U.S. and the West. Let no one be mistaken
what the slogans "from the river to the sea" and "intifada" truly mean,
and what the flags of Hamas and Hezbollah that are now regularly flown
at the protests in the U.S. and Europe mean. These all represent a pure
and unadulterated nihilism that many of us in the West have a hard time
fully understanding. This is not just antisemitism, and will not end
with Jews or Israel. I hope the U.S. wakes up to this fact before its
continuing appeasement of Iran results in Iran obtaining a nuclear
weapon, because after watching the film of the October 7 atrocities, I
think I know what will happen when it does.