Caitlin Johnston: No One Gives A Fuck About October 7

Video reading by Tim Foley:

No one cares. They used to, but then Israel spent three years showing the world why October 7 happened in the first place. After witnessing the cruelty and savagery of the state of Israel, people get it now. Everyone understands.

After Hamas launched Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on the morning of October 7, there was an outpouring of love and sympathy for Israel from around the entire world. Every major landmark from the Eiffel Tower to the Sydney Opera House to the Empire State Building were illuminated blue and white in solidarity with the Israeli people. Grown men wept. Bono permanently ruined “Pride (In The Name of Love)” by changing the lyrics to “Early morning, October 7, as the sun is rising in the desert sky, Stars of David, they took your life, but they could not take your priiiiide.”

Anyone who hadn’t been following the Israel-Palestine issue very closely was on Israel’s side that day. And then the bombs started dropping.

And dropping.

And dropping.

And dropping.

And as the bombs dropped, Israel’s approval rating dropped with them.

There are only so many children you can see shredded to bits by Israeli military explosives before you start suspecting that there’s something terribly wrong with the Zionist project.

There are only so many pictures and videos you can see posted by IDF troops dressed in the underwear of dead and displaced Palestinian women before you start wondering if there’s something terribly wrong with the culture of the Israeli military.

There are only so many Israeli polls you can see published showing overwhelming support for the Gaza onslaught before you start believing there is something terribly wrong with Israeli society itself.

There are only so many mainstream humanitarian institutions who can determine that Israel is guilty of genocide before you start recognizing exactly what it is that you are looking at.

There are only so many bombed-out hospitals, so many miles of completely flattened neighborhoods, so many grizzly accounts of Palestinian prisoners being brutally raped and tortured by Israeli soldiers you can see before all the excuses, justifications and spin stop working on you.

And once the hasbara stops working, it’s just you and the unadorned reality of the situation, staring each other right in the eyes.

The propagandists and spinmeisters have been falling all over themselves trying to frame the world’s plummeting support for Israel as an epidemic of “antisemitism”, but that’s not working anymore either. Everyone knows it’s a lie. Nobody’s buying it. It just feels like they’re insulting your intelligence.

The Gaza holocaust was the single worst thing I have ever seen in my entire life. Day after day, month after month, year after bloody year staring right down the barrel of that waking nightmare changed me forever, and there is nothing in me that will ever forget the horrors I witnessed. And the world is full of people who had the exact same experience I had.

Support for Israel is never coming back. When the lights flicker on and you see that the room you’ve been standing in is full of scorpions, you’re not going to forget what you saw when the lights go out again.

All of the events which occurred after October 7 showed the world what life was like for Palestinians before October 7. Israel threw a stone into the air and spent three years crying after the stone came down on its head.

The hasbarists have been flailing all over the place trying to erase everything that happened before October 7 and to justify everything that has happened since, but their words are just words now. They have no power anymore. And now it’s just a matter of time before the world turns against Israel to right the wrongs of the past and set everything back the way it ought to be. From the river to the sea.