TAKING A PAGE FROM JOSEPH GOEBBELS

The world’s big October 7 lies

The strategy of repeating a lie until people believe it has proven to be a bonanza for Hamas. 

 

By Rabbi Abraham Cooper and Dr. Deborah Soffen

 

JNS

Jul 17, 2024 

 

 

Much has been made of the fact that the murderous Iranian regime was behind the Oct. 7 invasion of southern Israel. That day is the single largest massacre and brutalization of Jews since the World War II Nazi Holocaust; it has changed Israel and the Diaspora forever. The long-term planning, funding, weapons and training, and the unspeakable brutalities that targeted innocent civilians were all products of Tehran’s tried and true manual of evil.

But nine months, later we must add another vital “contribution” that the terrorist godfathers in Tehran have also contributed: The Big Lie. They have taken a page from Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Soviets: Repeat a lie, however outrageous, and eventually the people will come to believe it. 

For years, the Iranian regime has incorporated the denial of the Nazi Holocaust as part of its official state policy. It is promoted by state media, Iran’s Ministry of Culture and senior officials, including former President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. But denying the Holocaust wasn’t enough; so even as it repeated the screed that the Holocaust never happened, Tehran accused Israel of being latter-day Nazis.

Iran took note that the world didn’t much care. Business and economic concerns led Germany, France, the U.K. and—for the most part—the U.S. to keep their eyes on the prizes of oil contracts and false dawns of Iranian promises of moderation in pursuit of nuclearization and regional stability.

The bottom line is that the ayatollah’s policy advisers believe that if you can get away with lying about the Nazi Holocaust—despite the mountains of evidence, including footage taken by the perpetrators—you can probably get away with lying about anything.

How right Iran has proven to be. Tehran has shown the way to weaponize denial against the enemy, not only as a tool of state but as a powerful front in a war. 

In the immediate aftermath of Oct. 7, the world recoiled in horror at the evidence that was provided by gleeful Hamas murderers, rapists and kidnappers. But with the nation of Israel reeling from the massive pogrom and thrown into shock and mourning, Hamas and its allies across Europe and the Americas unleashed a mega lie at protests in world capitals and across the internet: Israel, not Hamas, was guilty of mass murder and crimes against humanity.

The strategy has proven to be a bonanza for Hamas. Antisemitic hate crimes continue to soar with Zionists as the new enemy of civilization.

With a boost from networks like Al Jazeera, Israel and the Jewish people worldwide continue to be demonized like never before. 

Here are the five top big lies: 

1. Hamas is the victim and Israel the perpetrator.
   
2. Israel is guilty of genocide.
3. Israeli women and girls were not raped, dismembered and murdered by Palestinians on Oct. 7. 
4. Hamas-provided statistics are swallowed whole by the media and governments with no independent verification provided; even though Hamas admits it never differentiates between terrorists and civilian casualties.
5.  Israel purposely tries to starve the people of Gaza.

Here are only a few examples of how quickly and thoughtlessly much of the world embraces these lies:

Before the dismembered remains of raped Israeli women were recovered, U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres declared that the Hamas barbarities “didn’t happen in a vacuum.” Guterres should have known that those words would open the floodgates of deflection and denial of Hamas’s responsibility for the suffering and death of those innocents; as well as legitimize Hamas’s right to attack Israelis.

Various U.N. officials questioned the veracity of the survivors of the rapes and massacres for months until one U.N. official traveled to Israel to hear directly from the victims. The Simon Wiesenthal Center’s plea for help from 50 top women’s NGOs went unanswered. 

Hamas’s repeated assertions that they will repeat Oct. 7 over and over again until the Jewish state is destroyed fell on deaf ears.

From the beginning, it was brutally clear that the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) wouldn’t even give lip service when it came to the hostages taken by Hamas on Oct. 7. The ICRC has responsibilities under international law to seek visits with hostages and work for their release. Other than serving as an Uber service for the first Israel hostage exchange, the ICRC has maintained a stoic if immoral silence.

Virtually nothing was heard from UNICEF about the suffering of displaced Israeli children, but a drumbeat of concern over the suffering of Palestinians was broadcast day in and day out. So were untrue reports that Gazans were starving. There were further false reports that Israel was blocking critically needed food and fuel from reaching civilians in Gaza. In fact, it was Hamas that hijacked much of the aid and netted over $500 million reselling that aid to Gaza civilians. 

Meanwhile, every allegation made by Hamas that Israel wantonly and indiscriminately attacked mosques, hospitals and UNRWA schools was carried without question by the media. Israel’s explanations that these sites had been coopted by terrorists barely made a dent in the tower of lies constructed so carefully by Hamas and its supporters.

This led both the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court to rush in to weaponize the judicial arena against Israel. Only allegations were needed by the likes of South Africa to open a case against the Jewish state at the ICJ and prosecutors like the ICC’s Karim Khan to issue an arrest warrant against Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which European democracies have said they will honor if the prime minister dares to arrive in their capitals.

This is where we stand nine months after Oct. 7. No justice, no peace, no end to the violent Jew-hatred infecting Europe and North America on our streets and our elite campuses.