# Everything That Didn't Happen on October 7th

**Author:** Dr. Omar Suleiman
**Series:** Explained
**Published:** 2024-10-07
**YouTube:** https://youtu.be/CYfMEKsamEU
**URL:** https://yaqeeninstitute.org/watch/series/explained/everything-that-didnt-happen-on-october-7th
**Topics:** History, Politics & Practical Theology, Social Justice

## Description
For the past year, Israel has justified its brutal occupation and human rights violations against Palestinians by pointing to one day—October 7th. But this narrative erases decades of ethnic cleansing, massacres, and systematic oppression that define Israel’s 76-year occupation of Palestine. In...

## Summary
**Everything That Didn’t Happen on October 7th**

## Key Takeaways
- The framing of October 7th has been used to compress and obscure a 76-year history of occupation, treating a single day as the whole story. Left out of the headlines are the events that preceded it, including the expulsion of over 750,000 Palestinians from their homeland, the Deir Yassin and other massacres, Israel's complicity in the Sabra and Shatila massacre in Lebanon, the apartheid documented by human rights organizations worldwide, and the more than decade-long siege that strangled over two million people in Gaza.
- Many of the most widely circulated stories about October 7th, such as claims of forty decapitated babies and mass rape, have been debunked for lack of evidence, yet they served their purpose by drawing on tropes of the uniquely barbaric Arab. These fabrications functioned not as facts but as excuses, manufactured to justify seizing land and removing a people who do not fit an expansionist vision of a Greater Israel.
- The same rhetoric used against Palestinians has now been redeployed to justify entering southern Lebanon, revealing a pattern aimed at domination rather than self-defense. Yet the strategy is faltering, as Israel's economy struggles, large numbers of Israelis have left the country, and global opinion increasingly sees through the narrative that treats October 7th as justification for everything that follows.

## Transcript
**[0:00]** For the past year, we've witnessed the criminal Israeli state violate every single human right of the Palestinian people. Their justification? October 7th. They used that one day, that one event to tell the entire 76-year history of the occupation of Palestine.

**[0:16]** As the anniversary of October 7th rolls around, here's everything that didn't happen on October 7th. The ethnic cleansing where they forcefully expelled over 750,000 Palestinians from their homeland, destroying their villages and massacring civilians. The Deir Yassin massacre where over a hundred Palestinian civilians were murdered in cold blood by Zionist gangs.

**[0:37]** The Sabra and Shatila massacre in Lebanon where Israel was complicit in the massacre of 3,500 innocent civilians. The established reports of Israel's illegal apartheid by virtually every human rights organization in the world. And of course, the relentless siege of Gaza before the genocide,

**[0:54]** which has strangled, starved and suffocated over 2 million people for over a decade. But to the politically and historically illiterate, Israel's story may sound convincing. And that's not an accident. You see, every reasonable human being stands against the murder of civilians.

**[1:10]** Nobody wants to see violence perpetrated against any innocent person. But the history of unchecked brutality against innocent Palestinians, literally every day before and after October 7th, is intentionally left out of your headlines. In fact, many of the stories Israel created around October 7th were meant to play into tropes of the uniquely barbaric Arabs,

**[1:31]** and they've widely been debunked. 40 decapitated babies, completely false. Claims of mass rape, not a shred of evidence. But because of the framing of these lies, actual babies have been beheaded, and the world has ignored concrete evidence of Israel's systemic rape of Palestinian prisoners.

**[1:48]** And now, Netanyahu is doing a copy-paste job in Lebanon. The same lies and rhetoric he used to violate the rights of Palestinians, demolish their homes, and invade Gaza, were used to enter South Lebanon. So let's face it, these weren't just fabrications. They were excuses.

**[2:04]** Manufactured opportunities to seize land and exterminate a people that don't factor into an extremist vision of greater Israel. This was never about self-defense. It was always about domination. But it's not working as well as Netanyahu would like his people to believe. Israel's economy is tanking.

**[2:20]** Inflation is spiraling. And nearly half a million Israelis have fled the country since October 7th. And people around the world are starting to see through the lies. Netanyahu is losing. Losing control, credibility, and the trust of his own people. So he's doing what every bully does, terrorizing yet another victim.

**[2:39]** And the world is supposed to just sit by and watch as Israel plays victim, while America protects it in its crimes. They say nothing justifies October 7th. But somehow, October 7th justifies everything else.

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