HeartDoc Andrew wrote:
> Michael Ejercito wrote:
>
>> 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.
>
> The only godly way to win the war against bigotry and terrorism is by
> lifting up our Messiah as our #1 Example of living
> http://WonderfullyHungry.org (Luke 24:42-3) which we do when we
> http://go.WDJW.net/ConvinceItForward (John 15:12) to be
> http://bit.ly/Wonderfully_Hungrier more blessed by GOD right now (Luke
> 6:21a).
>
> Indeed, I am wonderfully hungry for food right now (Luke 6:21a) and
> hope you, Michael, and others reading this, also have a healthy
> appetite for food right now too.
>
> So how are you ?
>
I am wonderfully hungry!

Michael