Glenn Greenwald Shares His Thoughts on the October 7 Attack and the Wider Israel-Palestine Conflict
Many words have been written and spoken in the wake of the gruesome terror attack that took the lives of more than 1,400 Israelis on October 7.
Filmed two days after the sirens first sounded in Israel, journalist
offered some of the most thoughtful commentary I’ve heard over the past week via observations that address the reflexive, tribal attempts at moral intimidation that generally dominate this deeply divisive issue.While Greenwald repeatedly denounces the violence and the horror that unfolded on the streets of Israel, he also confronts the uncomfortable reality that history doesn’t start simply when you’d like it to begin.
He discusses the occupation of Gaza, the continued imprisonment of the Palestinian people, and the devastating conditions they’ve endured while living under Israeli control. Once again, he doesn’t use these acknowledgements to justify the criminality that took place because no justification is possible.
Rather, Greenwald balances grief with context, opting to ask the questions many people have spent the last two weeks avoiding. Instead of oversimplifying the matter, Greenwald examines the full scope of the circumstances that contributed to the breakout of this latest war, without coddling his audience or resorting to trite buzz phrases and cliches.
He begins by recounting the emotions he’d felt while living in New York City in the wake of 9/11.
“I remember like it was yesterday the sensations of watching those two buildings in southern Manhattan crumble to the ground on top of 3,000 American citizens. The Pentagon was attacked. For weeks in New York you could smell the burning of the rubble, of the bodies, of the chemicals…” Greenwald notes during this two-hour episode of his show, System Update. “The emotions that everyone I knew felt, that I felt as well, was extreme amounts of rage and shock and trauma and desire for vengeance.”
In his commentary, Greenwald recalls how our collective anger made examining the root causes of September 11th virtually impossible, and reminds viewers of the criminal, offensive, and absolutely brutal wars that the US government insisted were justified as a result of the attacks.
The parallels Greenwald draws between the political climate during the fall of 2001 and the temperature of the rhetoric following this month’s attack on Israel are valuable given the devastation Gaza faces today. Israel’s pursuit of collective punishment against the Palestinian people is unbearably cruel and is a violation of international law, specifically Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.
“The idea that the minute you question Israel, the minute that you question US policy toward Israel, that somehow means that you are supportive of everything Hamas did on Saturday is obviously grotesque, but this is the tactic that’s used to force everybody on one side or the other,” Greenwald notes in this video.
As the Israeli government ignores international calls for a ceasefire and continues its siege and bombardment of Gaza, Greenwald’s words add value to the conversation and serve as a counterweight to the limited analysis being deployed by many mainstream voices.
“I think more than any other policy, what most bothered me at the time and what ultimately propelled me into journalism was the fact that the climate that had been created in the wake of 9/11 was so repressive that anybody who was at all off-note, who was at all questioning of government policy done in the name of fighting terrorists was immediately accused of being an apologist for terrorism or supporting terrorism or being on the side of the terrorists… an incredibly toxic and unhealthy environment that destroyed the ability to engage in reason and to ask, “okay, even if you’re horrified by these attacks, even if you find them completely lacking in anything human and you’re enraged by them… even if that’s true, you still have to question what was the best course of action as well as whether or not we played any role in creating the climate that caused so many people to want to come do harm to the United States,” Greenwald points out during another section of the clip.
“You can be as supportive of or as empathetic toward the desire of the Palestinians to be free of occupation in the West Bank, to be free of that blockade in Gaza, as much as you want. But if you’re a healthy person, psychologically and emotionally healthy person, you’re going to see those videos of young dead people on the ground, or families being terrorized in their homes by people with guns who are arbitrarily shooting part of the family or kidnapping other parts in front of them… you’re going to feel anger, you’re going to feel rage, we all are. And the important thing is to safeguard against having those emotions either mislead us or let others exploit them for their own ends,” he further states.
As you read these words, thousands of Israeli families mourn the death of their loved ones. More than 200 hostages remain unaccounted for. It’s impossible to read about the atrocities committed by Hamas without being deeply affected by them.
However, it is absolutely critical not to allow grief and anger to affect morality and reason during a moment like this.
More than two million Palestinians – half of whom are children – face what the United Nations has called an “unprecedented catastrophe.”
“It is absolutely life or death at this point,” Avril Benoit, executive director for Doctors Without Borders, also known as Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF), told CNN earlier today.
More than 4,100 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli airstrikes. In the absence of an immediate ceasefire, thousands more people who had absolutely nothing to do with October 7, those who have nothing to do with the Israeli hostages still being held, will be killed as well.
At the 42-minute mark, Greenwald plays back the words he’d told his audience on the day the Ukraine war began: “There’s no question that a week from now, a month from now, a year from now, we’re going to be thinking about these events differently than we’re able to think about them right now.”
This is just as applicable today as it was in February 2022.
The complete video can be viewed here.