October 7 denial is the progressive version of Trumpism - opinion

Those questioning the investigations of the mass rapes on October 7 instead of questioning the rapists are agents of “alternative facts” and cannot be considered serious journalists.

For many, recent events are difficult to swallow, contain, or comprehend. How does one react to horrific accounts of mass rape, mutilation, and savage sexual violence? Some would rather not know about it in order to protect themselves, and some prefer to treat it with disbelief.

Still, it happened. It all happened massively on October 7. Those who invest their energy in attempts to blur the incidents should not be referred to as serious journalists.

Israel found itself dumbfounded by the trauma twice: first, when details of the unimaginable massacre were slowly revealed along the weeks following the attacks; and then once more, by the hateful accusations, lack of belief that amounted to complete denial, silence from international women’s organizations, and finally the doubt of “progressive” journalists who keep requesting “more proof”.

It took more than two weeks to even identify all the bodies

What many of the proof demanders fail to understand five months after the horrendous massacre is how overwhelmed Israel was on October 7. People were in a state of shock, including the security forces and emergency teams. It took more than two weeks to even identify all the bodies, configure the number of casualties, and inform the families, let alone understand the magnitude of the horror.

Some of the soldiers that had to deal with the aftermath of the attack in the southern Israeli communities became physically blind for a few days because their brain could not endure the sights they were exposed to. No one was functioning regularly or thinking how he could “prove” the catastrophe to skeptics - people were making an effort to survive the moment and merely digest.

The barbaric sexual violence was trickled to the public slowly. The victims and their families’ privacy was taken into account, and the amount of cases was massive. So the information was carefully hinted or bypassed through Telegram channels here and there, for those who could stomach it. The massacre was a disaster zone, and simply too much for the authorities or the public to handle.

Come November, things were already quite clear. The fact that there were countless incidents of rape, gang rape, and mutilation of male and female sexual organs as a way of warfare became well known. Once some of the hostages returned during the short ceasefire at the end of November, more evidence of sexual violence emerged. Israelis had no choice but to deal with the news, whereas some Western media outlets and anti-Israeli social media influencers found quite a despicable way to deal with the horrors: Denial.

True and evident stories were ignored or labeled as “debunked” or “unconfirmed” by those who did not want to believe them. Many news outlets did not want to frustrate potential audiences, especially young and angry ones, and decided to play safe and report “both sides” equally - the Israeli reports of the horrors right next to the Hamas denials.

Israel has had to work incredibly hard just in order to get the attention of the UN, who failed to even condemn the inconceivable crimes of Hamas on October 7, and had to be hard-pressed in order to eventually set an investigation of the massive sexual crimes.

Finally, media channels began to expose the Western public to the sexual horrors. The most comprehensive investigation was conducted and published by the New York Times, which was surprising, seeing that the Times is considered very anti-Israeli by many Jews.

But now it seems that so-called progressive journalists, inside and outside of the Times, have the audacity to question not the barbaric conduct of Hamas, or what it could mean about the Palestinian ability to self-govern, but rather how the Times investigation was conducted and by whom, attempting to show it isn’t credible enough.