October 8 (2025) Movie Script

7 Ekim 2023
saat 6:29
SRAL
NEWSCASTER: Right now
a massive barrage of rockets
coming off of the Gaza Strip.
NEWSCASTER 2:
The terrorist group Hamas
launched an unprecedented
air, ground and even sea assault
on Israeli soil.
NEWSCASTER 3:
Palestinian gunmen are inside
Israeli cities and towns.
NEWSCASTER 4:
There are reports that civilians
were barricaded in their homes
with Hamas gunmen going door
to door in one Israeli village.
NEWSCASTER 5:
The single worst incident
of this entire attack
was at a party
just a couple of miles away
from the Gaza border.
NEWSCASTER 6:
They have taken Israelis hostage
back inside of Gaza.
NEWSCASTER 7:
Israelis woke up today to find
their worst nightmares
had come true.
IRIT LAHAV: 6:30 a.m.
we had missile alert.
I quickly jumped out of bed.
We have ten seconds.
Ran to the safe room,
closed the door.
A minute later,
my daughter says,
"I hear shooting."
I said, "No. Come on,
you're imagining."
Another minute later,
my next-door neighbor wrote
in the kibbutz's
messaging system,
"Somebody is shooting
at our house."
SHAI DAVIDAI:
It's Friday night here.
My wife and I are about
to go to bed.
We just look at our phone
for a second
and we see a picture that we get
from my sister-in-law,
her one-year-old boy,
kind of like standing upright,
looking at the TV and we see
missiles shot at Israel.
NOA TISHBY: It was 8:30 p.m.
in the West Coast
and suddenly my phone rings
and it's my sister from Israel.
I had a-a hunch
that something is wrong.
I picked up the phone
and she is there
and there are sirens in
the background and explosions.
Nobody is reporting
in mainstream media.
So I have the Israeli news on
and I'm learning
what's unfolding
as-as it's happening
and I go on Live on Instagram.
The Hamas terrorists have
started launching rockets
into Israel in order to mask
a land infiltration.
They have entered Israel
on trucks
and on air glides, armed,
and are currently
roaming the streets all over
the south of Israel,
looking for Jews to slaughter.
DAVIDAI: Those first images
of Hamas terrorists
driving Toyotas and shooting
indiscriminately into houses.
It's just-- we realized
something big is happening.
LAHAV: Another neighbor
sent us a message saying
that he sees militant people
fully armed.
"Stay in your safe rooms
and lock your doors."
And I knew that these doors
cannot be locked.
Those was endless shooting,
automatic weapon.
We realized that
they are going from
door to door, door to door,
and soon enough
they will come to our house.
Luckily, my brother,
who's an engineer,
he sent me a picture of how
he locked his door
with two broomsticks.
I grabbed an oar,
took apart my vacuum cleaner.
I used the metal hose of
the Dyson vacuum cleaner,
took a leather cord because
I wanted it to be very strong,
and I tied them
to the door handle
and then made an "X."
Orna Pauker was writing:
"My husband was shot.
He's bleeding."
Nir Adar:
"They're in my house."
Michal Itzik:
"They're burning my house."
Efrat Katz: "They're walking
around with knives.
They took Gadi."
Avner Goren:
"They're in my house."
He was shot.
In his bed.
And his dog, too.
And his wife was
in the baby room
and she was shot there.
At around 10:30,
we were still hoping that they
would not come
to our safe room's door,
but eventually they did.
We thought this was our end.
TESSA VEKSLER: I woke up
and my two housemates
were just staring at me.
They said, "Tessa,
there's a war in Israel."
And my response was, "There's
always a war in Israel."
And they looked at me and they
said, "This one's different."
My phone flooded with
all these horrific images
and videos coming out.
LAHAV: 6:00,
we had not been able to drink
or eat for 12 hours.
We heard Hebrew.
Somebody was saying,
"I'm from the Army.
I came to rescue you."
And then
he opened the door wide.
We saw everything broken
in the house.
He walked us to a safer area
where they gathered all
the people from the kibbutz.
And we go, "What? Where is
everybody? Where is everybody?"
And we realized that
so many people are missing.
NEWSCASTER:
The Israeli military
has declared
a state of war alert
and is mobilizing its forces
in response
to an unprecedented
attack today.
Israeli forces are
now going house to house
recovering bodies of... of men,
of-of women, and of children.
Too many to count, too many
so far to give name to,
that they say one word
describes what happened here,
and that is a "massacre."
LIAD DIAMOND:
The second day of the war,
we got nearly 200 journalists
from all over the world
and we just opened the gate.
Wars today are not only
in battlefields
but also on different
media outlets,
on the Internet.
It's a very challenging war,
the war of the narrative
and sometimes even the war
over truth.
MANDANA DAYANI:
When you actually see
the level of devastation,
I don't know how to unsee it.
It was meant to cause
the maximum amount of fear
and suffering in a population
of people
who have inherited some
of the worst generational trauma
you can imagine.
TISHBY: It's all stories
that we've heard
and grew up on,
except this time around
they were also
videotaped.
TAL-OR COHEN:
This is not a terrorist attack
that happened in one place
or period of time.
It happened multiple times
on your most intimate platforms
that you're literally seeing
before you go to bed.
And I think that that's why
this content has penetrated
the psyche of probably
every Jewish person who
felt that this
was a genocidal attack
intended for them.
DEMONSTRATOR:
Free, free Palestine!
Less than 24 hours ago
on the land, from the sea,
and from the air, the people
of the Gaza Strip...
DAN SENOR:
It was October 8th.
There were still Hamas
terrorists in communities
in Southern Israel.
There was still fighting
going on.
DEMONSTRATORS:
Free, free Palestine!
Israel was still counting
the numbers of the dead
and the mutilated
and the raped and the kidnapped,
and there's a protest against
Israel in Times Square.
Fuck Israel! Fuck Israel!
SENOR: Rather than the outrage
being directed against those
slaughtering the Jews,
the outrage was being directed
at the Jews for objecting
to being slaughtered.
LORENZO VIDINO: We were seeing
protests glorifying the actions
of the resistance, which is
sort of code word for Hamas.
How many dead?
How many dead?
VIDINO: So it became apparent,
I would say from the get-go
that there was a core
of individuals nationwide
that were pushing a pro-Hamas
narrative.
DEBRA MESSING:
I just thought
the entire world
turned upside down
and I immediately felt like,
"We're in trouble,"
because Israel
hadn't responded yet.
SHABBOS KESTENBAUM: In
the early hours of October 8th,
34 student groups
really championed
by the Harvard Palestine
Solidarity Committee,
promoted this statement.
The opening line says,
"we hold the Israeli regime
entirely responsible
for all the violence unfolding."
At no point was Hamas
ever condemned or even named.
RABBI DAVID WOLPE: The statement
went viral all over the world.
In a strange way,
Harvard had become,
outside of the Middle East
itself, the single
most important battleground
for forces on both sides
of this continuing struggle.
NEWSCASTER: Hundreds of people
supporting the Palestinians
gathered outside
Cambridge City Hall today.
Dozens supporting Israel held
a counter protest
across the street.
WOLPE:
Once Harvard had set the tone,
it started this
unfathomable chain reaction.
DEMONSTRATORS:
Free, free Palestine!
- Free, free Palestine!
- Free, free Palestine!
- Free, free! Free Palestine!
- Free, free! Free Palestine!
Israel, go to hell!
NOA FAY:
October 12th was the first
anti-Israel and pro-terror rally
that we saw on campus.
I was still consumed by the
ongoing grief of October 7th.
It was incredibly shocking
to see my peers in support
of a terrorist attack.
I personally was starting to
just feel a lot of tension
within my own social circles.
REPORTER: From the quad
of Columbia University,
dual rallies, side by side.
DAVIDAI: This is the first time
since the Vietnam War
that Columbia University
shut its gates to the public.
What I see is about 900 students
shouting "by all means necessary."
And behind me, about 200
Jewish American students
holding the posters
of the kidnapped
in absolute silence.
So it's two quads and I'm
standing there in the middle.
I wasn't seeing an ideological
disagreement between two sides.
I was seeing hatred.
EYAL YAKOBY:
Even before October 11th,
we've been seeing more and more
anti-Semitic incidents
on campus.
"Jews are Nazis"
was spray-painted adjacent
to Penn's main Jewish
fraternity house.
There was a swastika spray-
painted inside of a building.
"90% of pigs are gas chambered"
was written in chalk
in the center of campus.
DEMONSTRATORS: Hey, hey, ho, ho,
the occupation has got to go.
Hey, hey, ho, ho,
the occupation...
CLAUDINE GAY:
Our university embraces
a commitment to free expression.
That commitment extends
even to views that many of us
find objectionable,
even outrageous.
WOLPE:
I got a call from Claudine Gay
and she was deeply emotional.
She'd been in the job for two,
three months
and all of a sudden
it was the biggest crisis
that the university has had.
She talked about creating
an anti-Semitism panel
and I thought, "Okay,
this is gonna be the response
"of the university.
"People can protest
'cause protesting is okay,
but this stuff is gonna stop."
JEWISH STUDENT:
Stop touching me.
PROTESTERS:
Shame! Shame! Shame! Shame!
SENOR:
Protests quickly turned
beyond just rhetorical outbursts
to bullying and pushing
and shoving and then
outright violence.
FAY:
You have students who are being
physically assaulted.
Their Magen Davids
are being ripped off
their neck.
They're being shouted at because
they're visibly Jewish.
DEMONSTRATORS:
Viva, viva Palestina.
TALIA DROR: You had massive
rallies at Cornell.
Students, professors,
and administrators all glorified
the October 7th attacks.
Professor Russell Rickford
announced that
he was exhilarated
and energized
by the Hamas attacks.
A lot of students
called it resistance.
They called it justified.
They began calling
Zionist students racist.
PROTESTOR: All settlers
and all settlements
are legitimate military targets
and they will be targeted
and you can either
live there in peace
or you can go back to Moscow,
and Brooklyn, and Gstaad
and fucking Berlin,
where you came from.
YAKOBY: We started seeing
an explosion of violence.
The Chabad house
was broken into and vandalized.
The Hillel received
bomb threats.
Jewish students are texting
in their group chats
saying, "Is it safe
to walk outside?"
We cannot protect your children
from pro-terror
student organizations
because the president
of Columbia University
will not speak out.
People have
asked me in the past few days,
"Are you not afraid to speak up?
You're putting your job
on the line."
You got it all wrong.
I am not afraid to speak up.
I am speaking up
because I'm afraid!
This is the rawest that
I've ever been. Right?
Like, this is, you know,
this is when--
when you take away
all the-the defense mechanisms
and it's like this is pure pain.
VEKSLER:
UCSB is generally a calm campus.
There were protests
here and there,
but a lot of it
was behind the scenes.
A lot of it
was happening online.
Right after October 7th,
I made a post essentially
saying October 7th
was the largest massacre
against Jews
since the Holocaust.
Standing up for Jewish
human rights is not political.
I stand with
the Jewish community.
And I stand with Israel,
and you should, too.
The hate started flooding in
almost immediately.
And a lot of it was really
tied to the fact
that I'm student body president
of my university.
And people were upset
that I was taking a stance.
It was on every platform
you could imagine.
And also,
they were kind of acting
as if I had emerged
from the Zionist closet,
even though
when I was elected
student body president,
I was the president of
Students Supporting Israel
on my campus when I ran.
My parents
and my brother immigrated
from the former Soviet Union
in 1990,
and I know that
a big reason as to why they left
was anti-Semitism.
They didn't want my brother to
have this life that they had.
The definitely relinquished
their Jewish identities.
I mean, they put my brother
in a Catholic school.
My brother and I
are 20 years apart.
So by the time I was born,
things had changed a bit.
My parents were more open
to the idea of having
a Jewish-raised daughter.
But it was really obvious
that there was a fear
around being
an openly Jewish person.
They didn't have to say it.
It was just clear to me.
I feel a big responsibility
defending my people.
I can't be quiet about this.
I published an op-ed called
"What College Students Can Do
to Support the Jewish People
and Israel."
Imagine if on October 9th,
instead of harassing me
on social media,
that the entire student body
bound together to condemn
what happened on October 7th.
And if every American
college campus did that
and the U.S. government did that
and the international
community did that,
Hamas would've had
no ammunition.
FAY: Everything
that we saw was organized
and directed by SJP.
They took the initiative to
host the rallies,
to provide the chants.
JONATHAN SCHANZER:
SJP, or Students for Justice
in Palestine is probably
the most active network
of students, professors,
administrators, and activists.
Vehemently anti-Israel,
anti-Zionist.
75% of most of the resources
that support Islamophobia
is coming from
pro-Israel sources.
If you don't know...
SCHANZER: Hatem Bazian,
the current chairman
of American Muslims
for Palestine
created the first branch of
Students for Justice
in Palestine
on the campus of Berkeley
in the 1990s.
HATEM BAZIAN:
Well, we've been watching
intifada in Palestine.
We've been watching
an uprising in Iraq
and it's about time that we have
an intifada in this country!
SCHANZER:
And today we believe
that there are about
200 different branches
of SJP operating on campuses
across the United States.
But when I say we believe,
I say that
because they are
an unincorporated association.
It's not a not-for-profit.
It's not a 501[c][3].
They actually don't exist
on paper
in any accountable way.
People think they
are grassroots.
What I don't think
they understand is
a terrorist group is
actually providing them
with marching orders.
DEMONSTRATORS:
Free, free Palestine!
VIDINO:
Back in '93,
a meeting took place
in a hotel in Philadelphia.
25 leaders of Hamas in America--
we're talking about
very senior people--
met and discussed strategy.
This meeting was monitored
by the FBI.
And the main thing they
discussed was how to present
what Hamas was doing and make it
palatable to Americans.
And so in a very efficient,
very precise way, they said,
"Okay, with audience so-and-so--
"so when we meet
with progressives,
"we're gonna frame it
in the terms of apartheid
and racial oppression."
What we're seeing today
is the realization
and the implementation
of that strategy.
These people know very well
what the American political
discourse is and the language
they are repackaging is really
what makes SJP
a very clever organization.
ASAF ROMIROWSKY:
SJP had a toolkit in place
right after October 7th that
was a how-to guide with succinct
and analogous messaging for how
to mobilize their students
and their chapter members
throughout the United States.
And that toolkit came to them
directly
out of Hamas messaging.
Hamas is a terrorist
organization defined
by the U.S. State Department
and designated
as a terror group.
TAL-OR COHEN MONTEMAYOR:
The attack
by Hamas on October 7th
was called
the Al Aqsa Flood.
That's how they referred
to it themselves, Hamas.
And then we saw SJP create
Flood the Streets for Palestine.
So they're literally taking
something that's being used
by a terrorist group to actually
perpetuate violence and now
adapting that into their imagery
and their protest content.
ROMIROWSKY:
From a funding standpoint,
there's a lot of flow of money
that's coming to fund
this kind of activism.
SJP is an affiliate of American
Muslims for Palestine, AMP.
AMP has direct ties to Hamas
and the Muslim Brotherhood.
And so SJP receives direct
funding from groups affiliated
with the Muslim Brotherhood
including Hamas itself.
SCHANZER: The Muslim Brotherhood
is the cornerstone ideology
for every radical group that has
ever attacked America.
But Hamas took their
radical ideology
and put it on steroids.
And that's what is actually
really so troubling
is that you are now watching
students on the streets
of America embracing
the notion of violence.
OTHERS:
I am asking you all to escalate.
OTHERS:
And to disrupt the streets.
OTHERS:
To every single oppressor.
OREN SEGAL: My whole
sort of career is built on
kind of when the hair stands
behind your neck
because you know things
are getting too far.
Well, I'm in that moment
right now,
and that's why I think this is
different than previous protests
that didn't have the blatant
blueprint for violence.
TISHBY: These organizations
are hate groups
that use amazing words
like "freedom" and "justice,"
and they make the students
believe that
that's what they are about.
Here are the words that
they're not using.
They're not
using the word "peace"
and they're not using the word
"two-state solution."
DEMONSTRATOR:
We want all of it!
BARI WEISS: SJP says explicitly,
what they want is one state
and what they're chanting
in Arabic is not,
"From the river to the sea,
Palestine will be free."
It's, "From the water to
the water, Palestine is Arab."
JONATHAN GREENBLATT:
College students didn't
come up with that slogan.
It is enshrined
in the Hamas charter.
When they say that
Palestine will be free
from the river to the sea,
they mean free of Jews.
TISHBY:
SJP is designed
to delegitimize the only
Jewish state in the world.
For example, they'll bring
a vote on campus.
They'll ask the student body
of the university to adopt
the BDS resolution.
SCHANZER:
BDS is the acronym
for Boycott Divestment
and Sanctions.
The engineers of
the BDS movement
look back at the unraveling
of apartheid South Africa
as a template for a way
to destroy Israel,
to turn it into a country
that will be shunned
by the international community.
NEWSCASTER: Protestors
are demanding colleges
divest from companies they say
profit from ties to Israel.
DEMONSTRATOR:
How do you spell justice?
OTHERS:
BDS!
STUDENT:
SBW 24-0-12 passes with...
TISHBY:
All of these campus resolutions
have no actual meaning,
but what it does do
is it trains
the college students
that a resolution
on the legitimacy
of Israel is even a valid
resolution to begin with.
So criticism of the state
of Israel is normal
and is important as one would
be critical of any country
and its government for
any range of policies.
There's a big debate
in this country about what
to do about the policies
of the Chinese Communist Party.
You don't hear anyone saying,
"Does China have a right
to exist?"
Somehow when there's a debate
about Israel, it often gets--
there's a sort of
reductionist approach
where quickly the question is,
"Well, does Israel
have a right to exist?"
We don't have that discussion
about any other country,
and that is the way
anti-Semitism
is expressed today.
BLAKE FLAYTON:
One of the greatest perpetrators
of anti-Semitism on campus is,
if not officially DEI,
then the essence of DEI,
the ideology of DEI.
DEI stands for
Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.
And their mission statement
is to promote diversity.
WOLPE:
DEI was designed
basically to make sure
that people
of color would be protected
on campus.
It was not designed,
first of all,
certainly for Jews,
but also to realize that you
can be vulnerable on campus
for lots and lots of reasons,
not only for reasons
of your race.
SCOTT GALLOWAY:
DEI, like a lot of things,
it started off
with the right intentions
and we've made
tremendous progress,
and that's something
we should celebrate.
The issue is that
we've created this orthodoxy
that's unhealthy,
where we've decided
there are oppressors
and oppressed.
There's not a lot
of nuance here.
We stand here on
the side of Palestine
because that is the side
of the oppressed.
The fastest way to identify
an oppressor is basically
kind of pale and male
and wealth.
People have assigned
this kind of white,
rich oppressiveness to Jews
and Israel.
And this got so kind of overdone
that I think the snake
started eating its own tail
and you've ended up
with racism itself.
SENOR:
If your lens is just on Israel
versus the Palestinians,
Israel is stronger.
So there's your David
and Goliath.
Now, of course,
if you lift the lens
a little bit,
you realize that the story's
more complicated than that.
So you have Hamas,
which is not just a group
of poor Palestinians that have
been oppressed by Israel,
but it is also a military,
which is well-trained
and well-armed by Iran.
And Iran is committed to
Israel's destruction.
Iran is also arming
and training another proxy army
in Israel's north, Hezbollah.
And as we're learning about
these other organizations
like the Houthis and Syria,
which is on Israel's border,
and you start to say,
"Wait a minute,
suddenly who's the David
and who's the Goliath?"
Ethnic cleansing no more!
VIDINO:
We can go back 30 years
and we have seen
these sort of protests,
but they've historically been
confined to small milieus.
It had gotten more brazen
and larger over the years,
but all of a sudden
it really became big.
PROTESTERS:
We demand liberation!
VIDINO:
There has been a growing ability
of that small group
of Hamas sympathizers
and pro-Palestinian advocates
to create synergies
and alliances
with fellow travelers.
FAY: Students for Justice
in Palestine have,
in my view,
manipulated and come
to capitalize on
the very real grievances
of our Black community,
our Indigenous community,
our queer community,
and the rights of other
marginalized identities.
DEMONSTRATORS:
Free, free, free Palestine!
FAY: SJP is showing
our Barnard students
that if you join this movement,
then you're
behaving righteously.
You're doing the correct thing.
ROMIROWSKY: The Palestinian
narrative through the narrative
of intersectionality has
hijacked every underdog cause
in the world.
If you are perceived to be
yourself as an oppressed group,
you also have to support
the Palestinian cause
because they
are the gold standard
of oppression within the pyramid
of oppressed groups.
VIDINO: So when you put
all these elements together,
you have the perfect storm
because you have the ability
of that pro-Hamas,
pro-resistance crowd
to repackage the Hamas narrative
and mobilize the allies
they have made over time.
It was fringe ten, 15 years ago.
It's quite mainstream
at least on college campuses
these days.
ROMIROWSKY: Even though
they're coming from the right
and the left,
all of these groups are willing
to put aside their differences
and they're willing to converge
because of their hatred
and trying to turn the West
on its head.
This is Hamas in America.
MOSAB HASSAN YOUSEF:
Not many people
know Hamas as I know Hamas.
My father,
he was a big shot and he's
still a big shot in Hamas.
REPORTER: For ten years, Mosab
worked undercover for Israel.
Israel's internal
security service,
the Shin Bet, considered him
its most valuable source
within the Hamas
leadership.
YOUSEF: For many years,
when people ask me
about the Middle East,
I did not talk about it
because I thought
I was done with it.
But when October 7th happened,
I had no choice
but to take
my moral responsibility.
Hamas' ultimate goal is
to establish an Islamic state.
Their fight is not over
territory.
They thought by jumping on
the Palestinian cause,
it's an effective way
to fan the flame
of nationalism, in order to get
to their religious agendas.
If Israel does not
defeat Hamas in Gaza,
Hamas will prove to all other
Islamists around the world
that it was possible to bring
a democracy on its knees.
And any Hamas win
will not be only a threat
to the state of Israel
and to the Jewish people.
It will be a threat against
all civilized people
who want to live in harmony,
who believe in tolerance,
who believe in peaceful dialogue
with their neighbors,
who believe in diversity.
And Hamas is anti all that.
Since October 7th, all this mob,
the angry people you saw
on the streets,
they want to globalize
the intifada.
Globalizing intifada
means global disorder.
People define it as uprise,
but it is not.
My definition of intifada
is chaos.
People here in the West,
what they don't understand
that shortly after adapting
the concept of intifada...
ALL:
Globalize the intifada!
...violence will follow.
Killing,
mass shooting,
bus derailing,
suicide bombings.
It's anti-civilization.
So, to bring intifada
to the United States?
Intifada contradicts
with the American Constitution.
Intifada contradicts with all
the values of the free world.
SENOR: Less than two weeks
after October 7th,
The New York Times
posts an article saying
this hospital's been bombed.
Within minutes of it,
quote, unquote, "being bombed,"
they already know
how many casualties there were.
Buried in the piece was, to me,
the most revealing part
of the article.
The IDF does not believe
it was responsible,
but is looking into it
to get to the bottom of it.
And The New York Times said,
"Sorry,
"we don't have time
for you to get back to us.
We'll take the Hamas version."
And then boom, it goes out
to The New York Times--
seven, eight million
subscribers,
notifications
on everyone's phone.
Intelligence from few sources
that we have in our hands
indicates
that the Islamic Jihad
is responsible
for the failed rocket launch,
which hit the hospital in Gaza.
Soon after, the IDF
and the State Department
and other news organizations
started to put together
that it wasn't Israel.
I need to show you what
The New York Times just did.
They updated their headline
three times.
The first headline says,
"Israeli Strike
Kills Hundreds in Hospital."
The next headline says,
"At Least 500 Dead in Strike
on Gaza Hospital."
The third one says,
"At Least 500 Dead in Blast."
When it's Hamas--
they realize it's Hamas--
it's no longer a strike,
it's just a blast.
We're learning more today
about that explosion
at a Gaza city hospital.
REPORTER:
Israel released what it says is
an intercepted conversation
between two militants.
"It's from us?" asks one.
"It looks like it,"
replies the other.
SENOR:
After The New York Times
jumped the gun,
they said they were wrong,
but it was too late.
God knows how many TikTok videos
were created
and circulating
off that headline.
And there we go.
RASHIDA TLAIB:
To bomb a hospital...
...where children...
HEN MAZZIG: People don't
really notice the correction.
They hear some headline that
triggers this
emotional response.
Protests erupted
around the world,
calling to kill the Jews,
attack the Jews.
MAZZIG: One of the most
important symbols for my family
in Tunisia,
the oldest Jewish synagogue,
was burned to the ground.
Wasn't just the media
that ran with the story.
Leading NGOs--
Human Rights Watch,
Amnesty International,
the Red Cross
on their Twitter account,
the World Health Organization--
all of them were pushing out
the false story.
So the demonization of Israel
is not only being put out
by governments that have
their own self-interests,
but human rights groups,
which should have
no particular interest--
they're acting by ideology.
DANIELLE HAAS:
Human Rights Watch has become,
in recent years,
one of the world's major
human rights organizations,
both in size and influence.
As the senior editor,
I oversaw the production
of the World Report, which was
annual review
of human rights abuses
in more than 100 countries
around the world.
On October the 7th,
I was the only Jewish
Israeli staff member in
the 600-plus-strong organization
who actually lived in Israel.
The first public response by
the organization was a tweet.
It was not unequivocal
condemnation
of the massacre
that had just happened.
It was wrapped up with
the language of apartheid
and oppression.
It was my first indication
that something was kind of awry
of not only my organization,
but rather many organizations.
Failing to call a spade a spade,
calling a massacre
a "military offensive"
or an "escalation in violence."
I think what really tipped me
over the edge
was this meeting
on October the 23rd.
There was a great deal
of space given
to what was going on in Gaza.
And not one mention was made
of a Jewish Israeli victim
or a hostage.
It felt sinister.
I had a very strong visceral,
physical reaction
after that meeting.
I was in a public space.
I shut my computer
and I-I-I went hysterical.
I just, I-I just,
I just kneeled by a wall
and I-I was really, I don't--
I was really upset
because it just seemed
like something
profoundly wrong had engulfed
the organization.
I was there
for 13 and a half years,
and when I left
Human Rights Watch,
I wrote an internal email
laying out what I thought
was so problematic about
its Israel/Palestine work.
They have had a conscious
strategy to establish
in the public mind that Israel
is an apartheid state.
We're here precisely because
of years of impunity
for grave abuses,
including Israel's apartheid
against Palestinians.
HAAS:
There were individuals
that were slowly beginning
to absorb others
into really seeing Israel
as some sort of exceptional
demonic country
amongst all others.
It flattened all complexities
about Israel.
These organizations
are now conflated,
by virtue of
their moral message,
with being moral themselves.
And I think
conscientious people think
we are getting this
from a reputable source.
If a human rights organization
is saying it,
it must be true.
And that's an incredibly
dangerous assumption to make.
MESSING:
We went to Times Square
and we hung posters
of all the hostages.
People stayed away,
but they were taking it in.
And I thought, "Good...
"...just take it in,
just do not
forget the hostages."
Children, it's innocent people.
Okay, what about the children
in Palestine?
They're not innocent civilians
if they're profiting
from the genocide.
You just ripped off a kid.
I thought you said
the kids are-are innocent.
SENOR: The infamous image
of the posters
of the hostages
being torn down was, to me,
one of the most powerful
events to happen so soon
after October 7th.
And that's when I started
to say, "Wait a minute.
Something is really wrong here."
You're taking
the kidnapped posters down.
'Cause fuck Israel. That's why.
MESSING: Please stop
ripping our posters down.
These are innocent civilians
in Israel.
(....) you and Israel.
MESSING:
There was so much happening,
all of these horrendous
narratives,
that the hostages were being
completely forgotten.
We sent out a letter,
a plea
to our government
and all governments
around the world
to prioritize
getting the hostages back.
And people wouldn't sign it.
I thought that there would be
an army of activists
and celebrities
who would be out,
and I felt completely
betrayed by Hollywood.
The hostages must come home.
Free every single one of them.
I spoke at the rally
in Washington, D.C.,
and I was so humbly appreciative
with the response
of the way I spoke.
And I appreciate you guys.
Thank you.
I know where I am
on the pecking order.
There's so many other bigger
names, bigger celebrities,
the fact that I,
Michael Rapaport,
was the big Hollywood name
outside from the great
Debra Messing,
it's some real fucking
disappointing fucking shit.
Hollywood celebrities
speak out about
so many different things.
If it isn't the planet,
Black Lives Matter, Ukraine,
LGBTQ, trans community,
inclusion, diversity.
But if you're gonna say things
about trees being cut down
and penguins dying,
you should be ashamed
of yourself not saying anything
about the fact
that there's hostages.
Just that.
MURRAY: About ten years ago,
I covered the conflict
in northern Nigeria,
which is where,
famously, the Chibok
schoolgirls were abducted
by Boko Haram,
an Islamist group very,
very similar to Hamas.
There was a huge campaign
internationally,
"Bring Back Our Girls."
When Israeli children
were abducted,
silence from the world.
I know that many of my peers
faced with so much hatred
and anti-Semitism on campus
are feeling helpless
and hopeless.
As I started speaking out,
Barnard students were
calling me names and saying
that I-I support terrorism
and that I support genocide
because I'm a Zionist
and that my residents are afraid
to have a Zionist RA
on their floor
and they don't feel safe.
Students started harassing me
in the middle of the night,
banging on my door.
I felt a sense of isolation.
Honestly,
I-I really, I did fall
into a very deep depression.
No one expected
the United States
to enter into a ceasefire
with the Empire of Japan
when 2,400 Americans
were murdered in Pearl Harbor.
No one expected the United
States to enter into a ceasefire
with Al-Qaeda and the Taliban
when 3,000 Americans
were murdered on 9/11.
And so, those who insist
that Israel should
no longer defend itself
are holding the Jewish state
to a dangerous double standard
that no other country,
including the United States,
would ever impose on itself.
TORRES:
I'm commonly asked
why would a gay Black Latino
from the South Bronx speak out
so forcefully
against anti-Semitism?
The right question is,
why have others chosen silence
amid the deadliest
day for Jews
since the Holocaust?
Dr. King once said
that the greatest tragedy is
not only the striding clamor
of the bad people,
but it's the appalling
silence of the good people.
And what we've seen
after October 7th
is widespread silence
and indifference
and cowardice from so-called
leaders in our society,
from college and university
presidents and deans,
from self-proclaimed
progressives
and human rights activists.
When I express
an opinion on Twitter
that Israel has a right
to exist as a Jewish state
and to be a sanctuary
for the Jewish people,
what often follows
is an endless stream
of anti-Semitic,
homophobic, racist hate.
There's no issue on which
I face more harassment
and death threats than
on the subject of Israel.
It's terrifying.
Social media enables
the virus of anti-Semitism
to spread on a scale
and at a pace and to an extent
that we've never seen before.
SEGAL: For over 20 years,
I've been tracking
extremist movements across
the ideological spectrum.
I remember in the first
three weeks after October 7th,
in the online spaces
that we monitor for...
for just threats against Jews,
we saw a 400% increase.
MICHAEL MASTERS: Fantasies
of violence, rape fantasies,
mutilation fantasies,
statements of, "I'm gonna go
"into a synagogue
and blow off the heads of
as many Jews as I can find."
That level of visualization
of violence
we've now seen
become much more common
and normalized.
SEGAL: When Jews die,
a lot of people get excited.
That is not uncommon
on social media platforms.
But then we started seeing
how certain online platforms
were creating almost
like a connective
online space for "activists"
and terrorists.
Not only is there
calls for events
by American
anti-Israel activists,
but, like, Hamas communiques
and other terrorist propaganda.
(singing "Hezbollah
Hezbollah Hezbollah")
I mean, it's mixing it all up
so that people don't even
recognize what is extremist
and anti-Semitic anymore,
'cause it's all existing
in the same space.
I mean, let's just face it,
the imagery
and the language of revolution
and of change
that they're putting into
their pro-terror narratives,
it creates something that is
intriguing to people.
It doesn't get more clear
than the immediate embrace
of iconography from that day.
So whether it was paragliders
that were appearing
on event notices
to protest Israel
or red triangles.
A red triangle is used
in Hamas propaganda
to show Israeli targets
before they are killed.
This red triangle
was "reappropriated"
by pro-Palestinian groups
as a symbol of resistance.
SEGAL:
The use of that red triangle now
is-is almost like a threat.
If somebody is being pro-Israel,
you just reply
with the red triangle
as a substitute
for the funny words
that social media
won't let me say anymore.
SEGAL: It connotes that
this is a legitimate target
for this protest movement
because they are
either perceived to be,
you know, Jewish or Zionists
or pro-Israel.
GALLOWAY: 70% of people
my age support Israel.
And the reality is 20%
of people under the age of 25
support Israel.
We've never seen this sort
of generational divide
on a conflict.
And the question is, well,
why is it happening?
If you go on TikTok,
for every one video that's
served to young people
that is pro-Israeli,
there's 54 pro-Hamas
and pro-Palestine videos served.
54 to 1.
So you might say, "Well,
Scott, you're being paranoid.
"This is just a function,
a reflection of
how young people feel who've
come to their own conclusions."
It's not.
The ratio is wildly skewed.
Any thoughtful analysis of
what is going on here
is basically saying the people
controlling the algorithms
at TikTok
have decided it is
in their interests
to get young people more
pro-Palestine and pro-Hamas.
MASTERS: Foreign state
and non-state actors
are trying to influence
and foment hate,
extremism, anti-Semitism.
And to include anti-American,
anti-Western,
anti-U.S. sentiment.
GALLOWAY: If the Chinese
Communist Party owned Sky,
the BBC, ABC, NBC, Netflix,
Amazon Prime, Apple TV+,
would we be okay with that?
Because they do for people
under the age of 25.
VEKSLER: People my age
do not read the news.
They do not read books.
They do not read
scholarly articles.
They watch short-form content
on apps like TikTok
and Instagram
and they take what they see
to be true.
The fact that we have put
the leading news source
for the most impressionable
minds in our society,
in the hands of our leading
foreign adversary...
Like, historians
will remember that
as a colossal strategic
miscalculation
that we will live to regret.
MASTERS:
Iran, North Korea, China
and Russia are amongst
the largest
and perhaps
most dangerous of those
that are actively engaged
in fomenting misinformation,
disinformation,
seeding the world
of the online space
with deepfakes
and false narratives in order
to sow division and distrust.
It impacts the national security
of-of our country
and the stability
of Western democracy.
Raise your hands
if you're a Zionist!
OTHERS: Raise your hands
if you're a Zionist!
This is your chance to get out.
REPORTER:
Flags of terror groups
Hamas and Hezbollah were waved.
Another saying,
"Long live October 7th."
Last year we had over
500 incidents reported to us
that occurred
on college campuses.
That was a 141% increase
from the year prior.
62% of those incidents
occurred in the three months
post October 7th.
And that pace
has not abated at all.
SEGAL: What we see online
animates real-world activity
and both the online space
and the real-world space
are so brazen in terms of
their embrace
of terrorist organizations
and of denial
of Jewish suffering,
that my big concern is that
somebody is going to get killed.
REPORTER:
Violence that turns deadly
at a pro-Palestinian rally.
A Jewish man in his 60s
seen here holding the flag
of Israel one moment,
and the next
he's down on the ground bleeding
after being hit in the head
with a megaphone.
MASTERS:
In the last reporting period,
over 1,100 religiously motivated
hate crimes
in the United States
are directed
against the Jewish community.
The next highest group
was under 150.
So there is no question
by the data
that the Jewish community
is the most targeted group
in the United States
as a religious minority.
And we are a minority.
In the United States, we make up
only 2.4% of the population,
but we are disproportionately
targeted by hate and violence.
55% of all religiously
motivated hate crimes
in the United States
are directed against
the Jewish community.
PROTESTORS :
Free, free, free Palestine.
GREENBLATT: Jewish students
were barricaded in the library
because of a mob outside
that banged on the doors
and yelled,
"Globalize the intifada."
Freedom of speech
is not the freedom
to incite violence.
Over the past
few weeks at Cornell,
there's been a surge
like never before
in anti-Semitic acts.
AMANDA SILBERSTEIN:
At Cornell, a student had posted
on a message board
called Greekrank
that he wanted
to attack Jews on campus,
to shoot up
our kosher dining hall,
to gang-rape
all Jew pig women on campus,
to follow Jews home
and slit their throats.
TALIA DROR:
We received advice
from police and administration
to stay in our dorms
because of potential
security threats.
And essentially,
everyone was just locked up
in their houses that night,
terrified.
Two friends of mine and I
published an article in
The New York Times
entitled "What's Happening
on Campuses Right Now
Isn't Free Speech."
We made our way around the news.
I mean, you had students
fearing to go
into the kosher dining hall
'cause they were afraid
they were gonna get shot.
We spoke on multiple
different shows
about our personal experiences.
My mother grew up in Iran.
She used to get slapped
at school for being Jewish.
My grandfather was stabbed
on a bus one day
after someone called him
"a dirty Jew."
I should never have to walk
around campus listening
to my peers scream that I
and my family should be killed.
- And that's happening?
- Yes.
- At Cornell?
- Yes.
DROR:
My mom always says that
the hardest thing right now
is watching me go through
inherent Jew hatred
after she abandoned everything
to come to a country
where she didn't think she would
have to deal with that.
After all the news appearances,
I was reached out to by someone
in D.C. calling me to testify.
Universities
have failed to uphold
their self-proclaimed
values of equity and belonging
when it comes
to Jewish students.
I really wanted to communicate
what it was like
to be a student
when you're watching
350 people in front of you
scream that Jews
should be killed
for Palestinian liberation.
This atmosphere is intolerable.
Jewish students do not believe
that the MIT administration
has done an adequate job to make
students feel safe on campus.
MIT is not doing anything
to make anybody
feel safe on campus
is the problem.
And the fact
that they're unwilling to say
there are ten times
more anti-Semitic incidents
happening on MIT's campus
than Islamophobic incidents.
It's not saying that we value
Jewish students more, it's not.
It's just saying
this is a bigger problem
that we need to focus on.
My mother is Jewish
and my father is an Afghan
Muslim from Afghanistan.
Obviously,
as the daughter of a Muslim,
and half of my family is Muslim,
I totally empathize with people
who are hijabi, for example,
being scared.
But it's--
it's not an either-or.
President Kornbluth,
please let me go back
to being a scientist.
Let me go back
to being a student.
I don't want to have
to keep advocating
for Jewish student safety
on campus.
It's not my job. It's your job.
Please do your job and act now.
And if you can't, I'm asking
Congress to do it for you.
Thank you.
There's no way
we're gonna get any change
unless people from the top,
you know,
people from the White House,
people from Capitol Hill,
bring these
university presidents
to the principal's office.
ELISE STEFANIK:
Dr. Kornbluth, at MIT,
does calling
for the genocide of Jews
violate MIT's code of conduct
or rules regarding bullying
and harassment, yes or no?
I have not heard calling
for the genocide for Jews
- on our campus.
- But you've heard chants
for intifada.
I've heard chants,
which can be anti-Semitic
depending on the context.
It is a context-dependent
decision, Congresswoman.
Depending on the context.
What's the context?
- Targeted as-- at an individual.
- It's targeted
at Jewish students,
Jewish individuals.
GALLOWAY:
We saw really well-educated,
highly esteemed,
very intelligent
university presidents
unable to condemn
language that calls
for genocide.
And in a different setting,
if they'd been asked,
well, if people started chanting
"Lynch the Blacks,"
they would have had no problem
finding the words to say,
"This is unacceptable."
It just would've been
unacceptable, full stop.
It wouldn't have been
context-dependent.
So we've gotten to a point
where the hard-fought victories
against racism, against bigotry,
against persecution
don't apply to this small group
of people.
DAVIDAI:
We see these videos
of book burnings in Germany
and we're shocked by that.
Where did those books come from?
They came
from university libraries.
Who brought those books out
from the library?
Student organizations.
Who looked the other way?
The administration
and the presidents.
NEWSCASTER: The University
of Pennsylvania president
has resigned.
REPORTER: Harvard president
Claudine Gay has announced
she is resigning from office.
WOLPE:
Over the past 30 years,
these universities
have geared up to make sure
nobody is anti-LGBTQ,
nobody is anti-Black.
But the idea that anti-Semitism
was in that same category
was foreign to many of them,
and they wouldn't see it
even though the evidence
stared them in the face.
STUDENTS:
Rape is rape!
Rape is rape!
Rape is rape! Rape is rape!
Rape is rape!
Me too, unless you are a Jew!
One of the least-discussed
atrocities
in the October 7th
Hamas attack on Israel
is coming into
horrifying focus tonight.
Stories of women sexually
assaulted and brutally killed.
RUTH HALPERIN-KADDARI:
Immediately after October 7th,
it was clear to me
that sexual violence
was also part of the massacre.
On the-the Monday following
that Saturday of October 7th,
we gathered
more than 800 signatures
of international gender
and law professors
from all over the world.
We requested U.N. agencies--
and U.N. Women, of course--
that they issue statements
condemning Hamas.
But the statements
that came out
were extremely disappointing,
especially U.N. Women,
who resorted
to familiar symmetry
between the two sides
of the conflict.
The report that they issued
hardly even mentioned
Israeli women.
Proper comparison should be
to the Russian invasion
of Ukraine.
Global outrage grew today
as more horrific revelations
surfaced from Bucha, Ukraine.
HALPERIN-KADDARI:
After the Bucha massacre,
you see that U.N. Women reacted
immediately, within days.
There was no need to wait
for firsthand accounts.
They immediately called
for investigation
and called for
a resolute condemnation.
And that didn't happen
after October 7th.
MICHAL COTLER-WUNSH:
Women of the world united
around #MeToo
and "we believe you."
#MeToo, unless you're
a Jew/Zionist/live in Israel.
That is the ultimate,
most painful double standard.
FAY: Their silence
was not surprising to me.
Even at my school,
the refusal
of my Barnard sisterhood
to support the women
who had been raped
and sexually assaulted
was incredibly shocking to me.
If an all-women's college
cannot support
our fellow women
around the world
because we're Jewish,
it really, if nothing else,
showed me
that I truly did not know
what anti-Semitism was
before October 7th.
DAYANI:
What is the point
of you sitting this one out?
Do we say
some people's suffering
is more valuable than others?
That certain victims deserve
more rights than others?
Like, either you say,
"We believe women,"
and then you believe all women.
When you say,
"we stand for women,"
and then you stand
for all women,
or do you just get to sit there
and choose?
SHERYL SANDBERG: As the reports
started to come out
about the sexual violence,
and people weren't speaking out,
you know,
I did what I know how to do:
I wrote an op-ed.
And my husband said to me,
"We should make a video,"
so, over a weekend,
we made a video.
No matter
which marches you attend,
which religion you practice,
or none at all, there is one
thing we should all agree on:
rape should never be used
as an act of war.
U.N. Women, it was like
their core job to speak out
on any international situation
on women, so for them,
late is totally unacceptable.
DAYANI:
At this point, it has been
well over 50 days
since the attack.
There were so many
women's organizations
that had not said a word.
So, we had to call this session
at the United Nations.
We had to force their hand.
HALPERIN-KADDARI:
It took them almost eight weeks
after the attack to acknowledge
that there are
concerning reports
of severe sexual violence
and sexual atrocities.
DAYANI: What is it
about these women and girls
that makes them so unworthy
of your otherwise limitless
capacity for outrage,
solidarity and justice?
Once again, I am afraid
the reason is quite simple.
Because they're Jews.
We have come so far
in establishing
that rape is a crime
against humanity.
And we have come so far
in believing survivors
of sexual assault
in so many situations.
That's why the silence on
these war crimes is dangerous.
I think one of the most
important things
that happened at the U.N.
was not just people
who were Jewish speaking out,
but the people who really are
the allies and joined us.
When I saw the list
of women's rights organizations
who have said nothing,
I nearly choked.
I think it's shocking.
I am mystified
by the lack of solidarity
for women's rights
by women's rights organizations.
That, in some way,
Israeli women don't count
or are not women
or are not human.
There's no room
for doing nothing.
VEKSLER: On February 25th,
I got a message
that there was a sign
on the door
of the multicultural center
that said
"Zionists not allowed."
The Jewish community obviously
was freaking out about this.
Not only because of the irony
of this happening
at a multicultural center
but because it was scary.
The next morning,
the Jewish students chose to go,
and they chose to sit
in the exact room
where they were told
they were not allowed to be.
Half of the room was Jewish
students doing their homework,
and then the other half
was a bunch of students wrapped
in keffiyehs making posters.
I went to the side of the room
with the keffiyehs
because I wanted to understand
what they were trying
to accomplish.
And while I was trying to speak
to these students very calmly,
they were trying
to intimidate me
to get me out of the room.
So what they started to do
was to make posters
targeting me directly
with my full name.
"Tessa Veksler
supports genocide."
"You can run, but you can't
hide, Tessa Veksler."
After that, I mean,
it only got worse.
I remember getting a text
at, like, 2:00 a.m.,
"There's people
walking around in masks,
putting flyers in mailboxes
near your house."
UCSB is investigating signs
and social media posts
that appear to single out
the student body president.
I honestly thought that
administration was on my side.
They issued a couple
of statements,
but nothing about me directly.
The urgency of this situation
cannot be overstated.
We must act decisively
and demand accountability
to ensure the safety
and well-being of all students.
I, Tessa Veksler, will not
stand for this on my campus,
in my community
or in my workplace.
Want to see what
Rutgers Jewish students
dealt with last night?
Watch this.
STUDENT:
All Zionists are racists!
STUDENTS:
All Zionists are racists!
STUDENT:
We don't want two states...
SCHANZER:
We now are in a situation
where Jewish students on campus
feel unsafe.
They feel attacked, they feel
alienated and ostracized,
and it is because of this
growing movement of anti-Zionism
that has taken on
a different life
since the October 7th attacks.
TISHBY: The first phase
of anti-Semitism is peoplehood.
There are reports
of Alexandria, 300 BC,
of people saying,
"Who is this weird people?"
When Christianity appeared,
anti-Semitism turned into
religious anti-Semitism.
So, the whole concept
of "the Jews killed Christ."
It was all about
religious persecution
of the Jewish people.
Then anti-Semitism
morphed again,
into racial anti-Semitism.
The tricky part about
that shape-shifting
is that you can't convert
out of it.
So once you're racially Jewish,
it doesn't matter
what percentage of Jew
you have in you, you're done.
That was the third iteration.
Obviously,
it created the Holocaust.
The fourth iteration of
anti-Semitism is anti-Zionism.
PROTESTOR:
Smash the settler Zionist state!
PROTESTORS :
Smash the settler Zionist state!
PROTESTOR: Smash-smash
the settler Zionist state!
SENOR:
Once you normalize
Zionism equals apartheid,
Zionism equals genocide,
and that person is a Zionist,
"then I can do
a lot to that person."
That justifies a lot.
And attacking that person,
in any way I choose
to attack them
becomes defensible.
Zionists don't deserve to live.
The existence of Nazis,
white supremacists,
Zionists--
these are all the same people--
the existence of them...
The anti-Semitism
we see from the left
doesn't surprise me, 'cause
I've been tracking it for years.
But I used to talk about
a political spectrum
from far right to far left
and where you find
the anti-Semitism
on the political spectrum.
I've changed that.
I now talk about a horseshoe.
And you know, the two ends
of a horseshoe are magnetic.
And you would think,
how would the far, far left
and the far, far right
share views on anything?
They don't,
except in this regard.
TISHBY: In recent years,
when I would try to tell people
that anti-Zionism is the worst
part of anti-Semitism today,
they would point out
to an easy-to-identify
anti-Semitism
like Marjorie Taylor Greene.
It's very easy
for every one of us to be like,
"Oh, yeah,
that's anti-Semitism."
Or "Jews will not replace us."
That's overtly
right-wing anti-Semitism.
We understand this,
we know this.
It's very easy for us
to point that out.
But what was very difficult
for a lot of people
in polite society is to identify
what it changed to today.
DAYANI:
We have raised this generation
to stand up
against social injustice.
And I think
that they have understood
a lot of oppression
through a construct of race.
That construct does not apply
to the Middle East.
Like, I am not white, and most
people in Israel are not white.
Hey, this is me,
the Zionist Israeli.
The white colonialist,
settler, occupier.
When you describe Zionism
as this white imperialist idea,
you actively delete the history
of Black and brown Jews.
My name is Ashager,
I'm 33 years old,
uh, I live in Tel Aviv.
I educate people about Israel,
about the Ethiopian Jewish
community.
Uh, I tell stories
of my family, my community,
in order to connect people
to who we are as people.
My family came from Ethiopia,
my grandparents looked like
any other Ethiopian.
But their Black skin didn't
protect them from anti-Semitism.
They were still looked at
as "the Jews."
They were treated as "Jews,"
they were othering
by their own society,
by people who look like them.
So, a lot of people that I meet
who ask me to choose,
what are you, Black or Jewish?
Black or Jewish?
Like one comes
at the expense of another.
To be Black and Jewish,
you live in this intersection
of identities.
When BLM said, "You cannot be
pro-Black lives
and be a Zionist,"
you were saying to me,
"You have to choose
one of your identities."
Like, either you accept me,
me being Black
and me being Jewish.
That's it, I'm not gonna give up
on any identity that I have.
I am both at the same time.
That's it.
FAY:
Before October 7th,
I thought we were all
on the same page,
that I am supported
because I'm Black,
because I'm a woman,
because I'm Native American
and because I'm Jewish.
But as I've now seen,
this-this never included
my Jewish identity.
I know what it's like
to be discriminated against.
Nobody would've questioned me
if I were to say,
as a Black woman, I-I'm feeling
as though I am being aggressed.
And I'm telling you now,
that is what I'm facing.
So why are you not
listening to me?
These ideas had been germinating
in the ivory tower
for a very long time.
And I remember
encountering these ideas
from the very first days
when I was a student
at Columbia University.
I was a political progressive.
I was, you know,
dating women, I was pro-choice.
I was all of the things
that I thought made me
totally part of progressive
milieu, let's say, on campus.
But what I was encountering was
an ideology that said to me,
"No, no, you're not part of us."
And the reason that I wasn't
part of them was because I was
unabashed in my support
of Israel.
I was hearing that
in order to be accepted
into the groups
that traveled under the banner
of progress and social justice,
I was gonna have
to disavow something
that was absolutely fundamental
to my Jewish identity,
and I would argue,
the Jewish identity
of the vast majority of Jews
in the world.
TISHBY: It's very important
to understand
why Zionism is a big part
of who we are.
Judaism,
it's an indigenous religion
that is inseparable
from a place,
from a land, from a country.
For thousands of years,
we were saying,
"Next year in Jerusalem."
That's connected to a place.
We became a people
in that place.
So there is no separating
Zionism from Judaism.
GREENBLATT: Zionism is not
some philosophical idea
just born out
of the 19th century.
Zionism is a Jewish value
that's 3,000 years old.
There's a reason why,
at every synagogue
on the planet Earth,
Jews pray toward the east,
toward Jerusalem.
There's a reason why,
in every prayer book,
there are words
like "Eretz Yisrael,"
or "Yerushalaim" or "Zion."
So the return to Zion
is not new.
It is as old
as the Jewish people.
EMILY SCHRADER:
Zionism does not negate
the existence
of the state of Palestine,
it does not deny anyone else's
right to exist inherently.
It is not mutually exclusive.
It is simply a civil rights
movement for the Jewish people.
VIDINO: The definition
of-of any form of bigotry
is exceptionalizing
or applying a different standard
to a different population.
So if any people have
a right of self-determination,
a right of creating a-a country,
a homeland for-for themselves,
that's what Zionism is.
So, if we say that Jews
are the only people
that don't have that right,
that becomes anti-Semitism.
DEMONSTRATORS:
Free, free Palestine!
Free, free Palestine!
- Free, free Palestine!
- MAN: Hey!
EINAT WILF:
When anti-Zionism
becomes the defining feature
of a society,
what happens to Jews?
Practically.
And here, the record is clear.
As soon as anti-Zionism
became the ideology
of the Arab world
in the '30s and '40s and '50s,
no Jews were left.
And you are talking about
Jewish communities
that predated
the Arab and Muslim conquests
of North Africa and the Levant
in the Middle East.
And the mechanism
is always the same.
They say,
"We have nothing against Jews.
It's not about Jews,
it's only Zionists,"
but then they blame Jews for
harboring Zionist sympathies.
And then they turn on the Jews,
and the Jews understand
and they leave.
And the same thing
that we're seeing right now
on American campuses.
When anti-Zionism begins
to become a dominant feature
of campus ideology,
of academic ideology,
the environment turns hostile
to Jewish life.
JAMES:
We have Zionists...
PROTESTORS:
We have Zionists...
JAMES:
...who have entered the camp.
PROTESTORS:
...who have entered the camp.
JAMES: We are going
to create a human chain...
PROTESTORS: We are going
to create a human chain...
JAMES:
...so that we can...
PROTESTORS:
...so that we can...
JAMES:
...start to push them...
PROTESTORS:
...start to push them...
JAMES:
...out of the camp.
PROTESTORS:
...out of the camp.
JAMES:
One step forward.
PROTESTORS:
One step forward.
JAMES:
Another step forward.
PROTESTORS:
Another step forward.
REPORTER: They're turning the
campus into what they're calling
a "Gaza solidarity encampment."
STUDENTS :
Shut it down! Shut it down!
Shut it down!
STUDENT PROTESTOR: By setting up
this encampment in the heart
of the Zionist stronghold
of Columbia University,
we intend to tear down
the iron gates
of this institution.
SEGAL:
What the encampments did
was ratchet up that activity
to a level of saying...
...we're not leaving.
STUDENT: Fuck you! Fuck you!
We are Hamas!
SEGAL:
They were stopping people
and asking them,
"Are you a Zionist?"
It was more explicit.
STUDENT: You guys want
to prevent Jewish students
from entering? Fine.
Yeah, of course I'm Zionist.
SEGAL:
You can't walk
safely or without fear
of intimidation or harassment.
REPORTER: Intensifying
anti-Israel protests
at Columbia University this week
now prompting the school rabbi
to warn Jewish students
to leave campus and return home.
FAY: I received this notice
from our rabbi.
He believed it was no longer
safe for Jewish students.
But whether or not it was naive,
I stayed on campus
the entire second semester.
I was not going to let
these people push me out.
STUDENT :
Intifada, intifada.
STUDENTS:
Intifada, intifada.
STUDENT:
Long live the intifada.
STUDENTS:
Long live the intifada.
WEISS:
What does it mean,
that the future leaders
of the most important democracy
in the world
are chanting for revolution
and intifada?
What is the country gonna
look like a decade from now?
VEKSLER:
Their petition for my removal
had reached enough signatures,
and it was going to be
on the agenda
for that senate meeting.
They got about 850.
- SACHS: 850?
- Yes.
- That's a lot.
- It is a lot.
VEKSLER:
I remember I had to miss
all my final exams in person,
I had to take
all my exams online
because campus
was just not safe for me.
The vote took place
on April 10th, 2024.
The student senate votes
whether or not
they want to proceed
with a recall election
where the entire student body
would be asked
to vote on my removal.
The administration
was advocating
for the vote
to take place on Zoom.
So, I couldn't even look
these people in the eyes and say
my speech out loud to them.
They voted
at 1:00 in the morning.
It was a six-hour-long meeting,
and they needed
a two-thirds vote.
STUDENT:
The final count was 11 yes's...
VEKSLER:
11 yes's,
seven no's, one abstention.
STUDENT: Fuck yeah.
STUDENT: The Veksler
isn't going anywhere!
VEKSLER: I fought
till the very last second.
And the recall effort failed
by one vote.
It was a feeling of relief,
but also a deep sadness
that it ever had to happen
in the first place.
Also, a lot of betrayal,
for 11 people that I worked
side by side with
to vote for something like that.
Usually, the student body
president speaks
at one
of the graduation ceremonies,
and I'm not partaking.
I really didn't want the one day
that my family is supposed
to be proud of me into...
be watching a bunch of students
scream at me.
To see your daughter
facing the thing
that you once fled...
...I can't even imagine
how painful that must be.
LAHAV: It's been eight months
since, uh, the attack.
I don't live here.
Every time I come here,
I take the key,
I open the door quietly,
and I look to all the sides,
I make sure that there
is no terrorist inside,
and then I relax.
We hid under the table here.
I made a wall of books
that were here,
thinking that once
somebody would open
and the Palestinian terrorist
would shoot us,
the books
will slow down the bullets
and we will not die.
So, it was like this.
And I tied this part
to the door handle, so it,
they couldn't, uh, move it,
they couldn't open it.
We stayed here
from 6:30 in the morning
until 6:00 in the evening.
I'll turn off the light, okay?
Like this.
When you only can hear outside,
shooting and grenades
all the time.
It was just my workroom.
But now when I come here,
I feel it's my safe haven.
I feel this is
the-the most secured...
...the most secured place
on Earth for me.
That's how it feels.
It feels like a home, you know?
A nest, maybe, whatever.
MAYA BENTWICH:
We're in kibbutz Kfar Aza,
which is one of the 22 points--
kibbutzs, communities--
that were infiltrated
on the 7th of October.
And we're currently standing
in the Itamari family house,
which is or was
the childhood home
of a close friend of mine,
Raz Itamari.
I'm gonna take you
inside her room,
which was the MAMAD,
the bomb shelter.
And that's the room
that's supposed to be safest,
supposed to protect you
from bombs, missiles,
not from terrorists.
And that's where
both her parents,
Lili and Ram Itamari Z"L
were murdered.
This is the MAMAD.
You would have ashes up to here
'cause everything was burned.
And you see it, like, you see,
there's nothing left.
We had families that would go
to the Gazan border
almost every Shabbat and fly out
kites as a peace gesture
that often had written on them
"Peace, Salam, Shalom."
Five family members--
the parents were Americans--
were found shot to death
in their MAMADs,
the father hugging his family,
trying to protect them.
And right outside in the living
room, we found the kite
that they were planning
to fly out on that Saturday.
One of the organizer
of the flying of the kites
is Lili, my friend's mom.
These people believed in peace
and worked towards peace.
The world needs to know
and to understand
what happened here.
Because if you're a human being,
you can't be ignorant
to what happened.
You can't be ignorant
to the sexual assault
and to the raping
and to the murdering,
and to the kidnapping.
KHAN:
It's June, um...
we're at the Nova site,
uh, the site of the now infamous
Nova festival massacre.
Uh, and we're standing--
I'm sorry...
amongst pictures of the people
who were killed,
murdered-- brutally murdered--
and kidnapped...
...on October 7th.
Hearing the stories
over the past few months
about what happened here
is, you know, it-it's gutting.
Being here and seeing
their faces
and seeing, like, the face
of this girl...
I think, it's so important
to bear witness
and to humanize
these innocent people.
A lot of these people
were, you know, anti-war
and believed in peace,
you know...
So, like, we're really close
to the war.
I mean, we're hearing
the bombs overhead
that are being sent into Gaza.
It is horrific thinking that--
or knowing, that there are
innocent people
who are dying in Gaza,
um, you know, young children.
That's why I really do empathize
with the people
protesting on campuses.
I mean, war is horrible.
Nobody wants to see
these people dying.
That's one thing that these
students on campuses get wrong,
is they're saying
that we want a war.
We don't want a war.
We want to just live in peace.
PROTESTORS :
Fuck Israel.
Israel's a bitch.
Fuck Israel.
Israel's a bitch.
Fuck Israel.
Israel's a bitch.
PROTESTOR:
Smash the settler Zionist state!
PROTESTORS:
Smash the settler Zionist state!
DAVIDAI: When historians
write this dark chapter
in American history,
there will be a very clear
chronological,
temporal narrative.
And it will start
in October 8th,
with the justification,
excusal and celebration
of the massacre of more than
1,200 civilians by Hamas.
It will go through
the violent protests
and the crazy resolutions
we're seeing in the U.N.
and in city councils.
It will go through Congress
and we hear
university presidents
that are unable to say
that calling for genocide
is bad.
It will go through mobs
storming restaurants
just because
they are owned by
Israelis and Jews.
And when I can't fall asleep
at night,
that's what runs in my mind.
What if what we're seeing now
is the 1930s,
but we're unable to steer
the train off the tracks?
And I just hope
that enough Americans
will wake up and realize
that this is not about Jews.
It never ends with the Jews.
This is about democracy,
this is about human decency.
YOUSEF:
The United States of America
took me in
when my own family rejected me
and, uh, condemned me to death.
Today, I'm an American.
I have obligation to my country,
to my Constitution,
to be the eyewitness
and to speak up,
not to be afraid.
TORRES:
You know, it's not lost on me
that throughout history,
there have been Jews
who gave their lives
for the cause of civil rights.
Andrew Goodman,
Michael Schwerner,
were brutally murdered
in the Mississippi Burning
so that Black Americans
could vote and live freely,
unencumbered by the cruelty
of Jim Crow.
And so, for me,
the lesson learned from history
is that we're all
in this together.
We all have a moral obligation
to fight extremism,
hate and fear,
no matter what form it takes.
And that obligation
is based not only
on the particularity
of our identity,
it's based on something
more universal,
which is our common humanity.
And for me,
October 7th was so barbaric
that it was a frontal assault
on our common humanity.
College campuses
and social media platforms
are indoctrinating
young Americans
with a hatred for Israel
that is so visceral
and so fanatical
that it renders them indifferent
to the butchering
of Israeli babies,
to the cold-blooded murder
of Israeli children
and civilians.
And so, if we as a society
cannot bring ourselves
to condemn
the cold-blooded murder
of children and civilians
with moral clarity,
then we should ask ourselves,
"What are we becoming
as a society?"
You know, this is
not only about Israel,
and this is not only about
the Jewish community.
What is at stake
is the soul of America.
I was on a walk
with one of my closest friends
who's not Jewish,
and just out of nowhere,
not expecting to say this,
what came out of my mouth was,
"Will you hide me?"
Like, "If it comes to that,
will you hide me and my family?"
And like, do I really think
that's gonna happen
in the United States? No.
And it was interesting,
'cause she didn't really know
what I was talking about.
She said,
"What do you mean, hide you?"
And I explained that there are
these righteous people
that hid Jews,
this is the story of Anne Frank.
And then, of course, she said,
"Oh, I know what you mean,"
but any Jew would've known
what I meant immediately.
I feel like I'm grieving for
the security I thought we had.
And I'm grieving
for the sense of protection
I thought my children had.
And I'm working hard to find,
in that grief, our strength.
And so,
if all of the anti-Semitism
was true on October 6th,
we just didn't know it,
at least we're awake now.
And we're not alone.
The friend that I said,
"Will you hide me?"
She cried.
Not for me, with me.
She said,
"I'm not gonna let that happen
to this world either,"
and I believe her.
VEKSLER:
Our history shows us
that Jews always make it out.
I look at young people
who are the future,
and they are ready.
They are proud,
they are ready to fight.
They are smart,
they are brave,
and they inspire me.
The shared resilience
and the future resilience
that I can see
forming in front of my eyes,
that's what gives me hope.
MESSING: We can't fight
the tsunami of Jew hatred
that has exploded
across our country
since October 7th alone.
We have partners who believe
in pluralism and peace
and freedom
and we have
to lock arms together.
If we do that,
we can change minds and hearts.
And ultimately,
that will change the world.
And so, we have to live
by Hatikvah.
We have to live
from a place of hope
because that is going
to bring us together
and that is going to help us
light up the dark.
They told me
It would be impossible
And for many,
they would be right
But for every dark cloud
Cast I ask
Have you seen my light?
Hold my head up
When I'm feeling down
'Cause hope's all I need
To survive
No, you can't break
What's born to stand
Have you seen my light?
Seen my light
Seen my light
Seen my light
Seen my light
Life could make me hard
and solitaire
Instead I choose to be kind
I thank God
For the love that I bear
Have you seen my light?
As the sun shines
in Jerusalem
No prayer shall be
left behind
No prayer
should be left behind
Gratitude hymns
As I cross each bridge
Have you seen my light?
- Seen my light
- Seen my light
Seen my light
- Seen my light
- Seen my light
Seen my light
Seen my light
Hmm
Hmm
Hmm
Hmm
- Seen my light
- Seen my light
Shine a little bit
The sun is always shining
on me, yeah
Seen my light
- Seen my light
- Seen my light
Ooh.