Archive link: https://archive.ph/M3WBw
In the clips and in a full video of the event, audience members in the Palo Alto City Council chambers are seen interrupting the proceedings and making false statements. The event mirrored other public meetings in the Bay Area since Oct. 7 where pro-Palestinian activists have vilified Israel and either defended Hamas as a "resistance" movement or denied its brutality on that day.
Julie Lythcott-Haims, a candidate who is currently a member of the Palo Alto City Council, faced more of the vitriol.
"I deplore the actions of Hamas on October 7th," she said, to one loud "boo!" from a female audience member.
"Really? Really?" Lythcott-Haims said. "They butchered people, murdered people, raped people and took hostages."
At mention of the word "raped," the audience exploded with anger. Amid the swell of noise, a boy draped in a Palestinian flag yelled about Hamas: "They did not murder anyone!"
When organizers regained control of the room, Lythcott-Haims said: "I did not know that that would be a controversial statement."
(video of the exchange is in the original paywalled article but archive.today turns embedded videos into screenshots, so for those who want to see it but can't open the paywalled article here's the direct link: https://www.instagram.com/danielleyablonka/reel/C2yyfi9sRMx/)
MBFC rating: https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/haaretz/
While I'm not denying the atrocities committed on October 7th, the word "massacre" is very misleading. A lot of bad things happened on October 7th, but the evidence increasingly points to massacres not being one of them.
Over a thousand people died, unless you want to try to argue that everyone in Israeli territory died to a single digit number of tactical missile strikes, it was a massacre.
1-You're including military personnel.
2-The IDF killed their fair share of people during the attack.
3-Many people died in the crossfire due to the IDF prioritizing killing Hamas soldiers over protecting civilians.
Let's assume that, in an optimistic estimate, 1/4 of civilians who died on October 7th were killed by the IDF (that's less than 200 people). That means the number of civilians Hamas killed is 50% of the total, and there's no way that can be counted as a massacre.
1-even if it was 100% that doesn't make it not a massacre
2-that also does not make it not a massacre, in fact all that makes it is a double massacre presuming the IDF killed a similar number of people
3-see point 2, but then add the fact that had they not attacked that day those people would not have been caught in a crossfire to begin with
4-once again, just because they're soldiers does not mean they do not count towards the total when determining what is or isn't a massacre.
The US directly killed only a few thousand civilians in Iraq, and yet it is still fair to blame them for the deaths of hundreds of thousands because their engagement in the Iraq war is what directly led to those hundreds of thousands dying. Same applies to Hamas' choice to raid over the border.
And before you even try to show your whole ass and talk shit about how they're freedom fighters like Nat Turner or whatever anti colonial freedom fighter you want to fetishize, Nat Turner didn't kill more of their own people than the cited enemy, nor did they create such an oppressive police state that it led to the Arabic translation of "I can't Breathe" Bedna Na3iish.
You ain't Palestinian, you probably don't even know the difference between a ع and a غ, so how about sit down and fucking listen when one of us tells you, yes, they are also horrible people, they are the equal partner of Israel in Gaza's oppression.
The logical conclusion of this is that any resistance against Israel is bad because it will inevitably harm unrelated people.
No??? A massacre implies either civilians or otherwise defenseless people. Otherwise every war would be a massacre.
By that logic nobody should take any acts of resistance, because Israel is able and willing to use anything as an excuse to oppress Palestinians.
Yeah Hamas are horrible people. They're also freedom fighters. Both of these things can be true at once. Whether you're a freedom fighting depends more on your opponent than your internal policies, and doesn't excuse Hamas from a good number of their leadership needing to be in prison or hanged.
ISTG if this is one of those "Avoiding civilian casualties is white privilege" arguments I will find you and hang you with my Kufiyah for thinking my people are uncontrollable animals who can't help doing war crimes.
Also, Massacre is a large number of people being killed specifically and individually, Cannae was a massacre, one of the largest in human history actually, and yet not a one of the involved parties was defenseless or a civilian.
Ok yeah so you do actually just see us stinky brown people as incapable of doing resistance without killing indiscriminately, choke on your fake woke shit and die.
BAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
OH MY GOD YOU ACTUALLY ARE THAT STUPID! HOLY MOTHER OF GOD!
That is some "the Nazis are anti-colonial allies because they fought the British and the French!" tier idiocy you just pulled out of your stank ass.
Hey moghafil, guess where they get the money to buy those Iranian rockets, from Israel itself, they were literally a sock puppet enemy stood up by Bibi to be easier to justify war crimes against than Fatah.
They're not freedom fighters, they're the rez boss family, and fetishizers like you are their useful idiots.
No, it's that any and all acts of violent (and peaceful given that Israel is... Israel but let's set that aside) resistance will generate harm to civilians one way or another. That comes with the whole package of war.
What the fuck? Bruh I'm also "brown" (Egyptian to be specific), and that's not at all what I'm trying to say here. I never at any point defended the indiscriminate killing. I'm saying that the moment you have a large group of people shooting at each other harm will come to bystanders. Especially when you have nonsense like the Hannibal directive at play.
To use a more accurate analogy, the IRA were and are terrorists who have a decent amount of blood on their hands. They still were freedom fighters.
Bruh just drop the ad hominem. Also Israel supports Hamas financially, that's true. But that's more of a case of Israel abusing an existent movement for its goals rather than any actual cooperation.
Okay I get that this is an emotionally charged subject (and that Hamas is a horrible governing body) but I think your understanding of the relationship between Hamas and Israel is flawed. There's no conspiracy where Hamas is oppressing the Palestinian people for Israel's benefit. Not denying they're oppressing Gaza, but that has nothing to do with Israel; they're oppressing Gazans because they want to. Israel wants Hamas and other resistance/terror organizations to dominate in Gaza and that's it, really.
I've read reports about woman being raped to death.
That counts
First: A lot of these are turning out to be made up Israeli propaganda.
Second: You'd need that as a large scale to call it a massacre. And the evidence so far doesn't towards that as a possibility.
Provide source, otherwise false.
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-palestine-war-personnel-false-information-7-october-attack
They link a Haaretz article as their primary source but it's in Hebrew.
Edit: More recent source: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2024-01-31/ty-article-magazine/.premium/death-and-donations-did-the-volunteer-group-handling-the-october-7-dead-exploit-its-role/0000018d-5a73-d997-adff-df7bdb670000
You'll specifically find that they "spread news of atrocities that never happened".
Jesus fucking Christ.