8 | DECEMBER 21 • 2023 

analysis
Private Screening of Hamas Attack 
Video Bears Witness to Atrocities
P

hotographs, films and 
eyewitness accounts 
of Jews being shot 
and toppled into mass graves, 
marched into gas chambers, 
loaded into cattle cars and 
starved to death in work 
camps provide irrefutable 
evidence of the horrors of the 
Holocaust.
Yet despite the 
carefully collect-
ed and preserved 
documentation, 
there are still 
those who vehe-
mently deny 
the systematic 
slaughter of 6 million Jews.
So, I have little hope the 
44-minute film I watched 
depicting the obscenities of 
Oct. 7 will silence claims the 
brutality is exaggerated or 
didn’t happen at all.
“Bearing Witness to the 
October 7th Massacre” was 
presented to a small group 
of Metro Detroiters by the 
Los Angeles-based Simon 
Wiesenthal Center and the 
Israeli Consulate to the 
Midwest. Much of the film 
was compiled from the cell 
phones and body cameras of 
the Hamas terrorists as they 
rampaged through Jewish set-
tlements butchering civilians.
The footage is terrifyingly 
graphic. It is a reminder, as if 
we needed one, of the depths 
of inhumanity to which hatred 
can sink human beings.
What we saw was excru-
ciating to watch, harder still 
to discuss. When it was over, 
most of us walked to our cars 
barely speaking.
Imagine watching the most 

gruesome horror flick, with-
out the benefit of knowing the 
gore on screen is make- 
believe. In this movie, the 
blood is real. The bodies are 
real. The evil is real.
Hamas terrorists move 
through Israeli villages and 
along highways shooting 
down every Jew they see. The 
bloody victims are dragged 
out of their vehicles and 
homes and left lying in the 
street.
Terrorists invade houses 
and shoot Jews hiding under 
tables or frantically trying to 
find shelter from the bullets. 
Jews are burned alive. Dead 
Jewish soldiers are beheaded 
with hoes and knives. Jewish 
parents are killed, and their 
children left alone with their 
bodies.
Two young boys, who 
somehow survived the gre-
nade that killed their father, 
comfort each other while a 
terrorist casually raids their 
refrigerator. One of the boys 
tends to his blinded brother, 
who cries out, “Why am I 
alive?”
More sickening for me 
than the gruesome images is 
the absolute joy with which 
the killers went about their 
sadistic work. I expected 
to see angry, frothing mad 
men. Instead, these killers are 
happy. They looked like glee-
ful young men celebrating a 
soccer win.
The murderers took enor-
mous pride in their accom-
plishments. A terrorist calls 
his parents in the midst of his 
butchery to boast, “I killed 10 
with my bare hands!” accord-

ing to the translation provid-
ed. His voice is high-pitched 
with the excitement of a kid 
who scored the winning goal. 
“Your son is a hero! Kill! Kill! 
Kill!”
A Hamas commander asks 
someone in the field, “How’s 
the morale?” The response: 
“It’s high! I swear!”
And a shooter says of his 
victim, “I killed it,” as if he 
were talking about an animal.
And this, I’m told, is the PG 
version. It doesn’t depict the 
mass rapes and mutilation of 
babies that was reported, but 
nothing in the video suggests 
such depravity is beyond the 
pall for the marauders.
We have tried to draw a 
clear line between the Hamas 
terrorists and the Palestinian 
people, believing the citizens 
of Gaza are also victims of the 
terrorist group. This film blurs 
that line.
Gazans are seen dancing in 
the streets with the return-
ing terrorists and spitting 
on the dead bodies brought 
into Gaza in the back of their 
pickup trucks. A commander 
instructs his men to bring 
back the body of a dead Jew, 
“so the people can play with 
it.” The complicity of the 
people with Hamas can’t be 
excused.
Palestinians and their sup-
porters dismiss the film as 
“atrocity propaganda.” It’s a 
flippant rejoinder that seeks 
to disconnect the horrors 
documented in this film from 
Israel’s purposeful campaign 
in Gaza to destroy Hamas. 
But the atrocities are why 
Israel is in Gaza, and why it 

can’t and won’t be deterred 
in its mission. The snake of 
fanatical jihadism must be 
killed, or it will strike again 
and again.
Reducing this conflict to 
both-sides-ism — Israel did 
this so Hamas is doing that — 
enables the overt expression 
of antisemitism that is grow-
ing here.
It’s why the presidents of 
America’s most elite univer-
sities sit before Congress and 
mouth absurdities about “con-
text” when asked to condemn 
their students’ support for 
Hamas. It’s why our streets are 
filled with protesters urging 
the terrorists to “finish the 
job.” It’s why Jewish students 
and businesses are threatened 
instead of embraced. It’s why 
posters of innocent hostages 
still held by the monsters are 
considered so offensive they 
must be torn down.
And it’s why the devils who 
starred in this film are mor-
phing into freedom fighters in 
the minds of too many.
Hamas doesn’t touch the 
spirit of Bunker Hill; it con-
jures the ghost of Auschwitz. 
I wondered going into the 
screening what emotions I’d 
feel coming out. Revulsion? 
Heartache? Grief?
All of that. But mostly rage, 
an absolute red-hot anger that 
there are people in this world 
capable of such evil and oth-
ers who would excuse their 
wickedness. 

Nolan Finley is editorial page editor 

at the Detroit News. This column was 

printed on Dec. 11 and is reprinted with 

permission.

Nolan Finley
The Detroit 
News

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