Tuesday, October 07, 2025

Two Years of “Indescribable Horror”

The following is excerpted from an article by Branko Marcetic published earlier today by Jacobin.

Two years ago, Hamas carried out a spree of stomach-churning atrocities against mostly Israeli civilians that left the entire world rightly sickened and enraged at the terrorist group, and with enormous reserves of sympathy for Israel. Out of the infinite options available to it, Israel chose to respond by doing exactly what Hamas had just done to earn the world’s disgust, only on a far larger scale, and in many cases – torturing doctors to death, sniping kids in the head and testicles, and burning hospital patients alive, to name a few – committing atrocities even Hamas itself had not carried out.

This is the grisly paradox of the war in Gaza. The crimes of October 7 – killing families and children, kidnapping, sexual violence – were so heinous and beyond the pale, they somehow justified being repeated and inflicted endlessly on a different group of innocent people, week after week for the next two years.

. . . Western governments have given extraordinary, unflinching backing to Israel, even as it has serially disobeyed them, carried out atrocity after atrocity that has shocked the world, and turned their own voting publics vehemently against both the war and, increasingly, against Israel itself. They have parroted with a straight face the increasingly lazy talking points from Benjamin Netanyahu’s government. They have resorted to stunningly authoritarian behavior to stifle criticism of its actions, and been supported in this by a media establishment that has at times wildly violated its own professional standards in defense of the war, including handing the Israeli military censors the final cut of their reporting. They have gone to incredible lengths to avoid ending their military support for the war, right down to taking the unprecedented but ultimately meaningless step of recognizing the Palestinian statehood that they were effectively letting Israel snuff out.

It hasn’t just been Western governments. The Arab states that have historically been Palestine’s champions have the past two years served as Israel’s willing enablers.

As the Israeli military has gradually exterminated a fellow Arab population, these states have not just failed to do much of anything in response – sanctioning Israel, for instance, or even just expelling its diplomats – they have actually rewarded it: upping their trade with Israel, deepening military and economic ties, defending it from the consequences of its widening aggression, and serving as key logistical nodes to keep its war on Gaza going, including for the transfer of Western weapons. As with their Western counterparts, they’ve kept a lid on their increasingly irate populations through heavy-handed repression.

Tomorrow’s history books will have damning verdicts on this generation of political leaders, whose publics have watched them cover for and justify a genocide of largely children with the same practiced, straight-faced certainty they use to play down a budget deficit. It will not be surprising if the unseemly sight of the world’s political elite running out the clock on the crime of crimes pushes public trust in political institutions further into the gutter, and it will not be remotely surprising if years from now, the same media that convinced elderly TV viewers that Jewish-led protests against the war were neo-Nazi rallies treats it as a mystery why.

The flip side of this is the astonishing nonviolent mobilization by ordinary citizens that has bubbled and expanded across the globe against the war, bringing sometimes historic numbers of people into the streets. That mobilization has not only been sustained and actually grown, but has seen a remarkable array of tactics employed to force leaders’ hands, spanning the electorally centered “Uncommitted” movement and traditional civil disobedience like campus occupations, to the Global Sumud Flotilla’s nonviolent breaking of the Israeli blockade and a union-led general strike in Italy, with a Europe-wide dockworker rebellion brewing all the while.

When enough time has passed for us to take stock of the last two years, we shouldn’t forget that the stubborn cruelty of our supposed political betters on this war has never been mirrored in the attitudes of their populations, who, generally speaking, have been way ahead on a host of key questions like supporting a ceasefire, defining the war as a genocide, or putting an arms embargo on Israel. So often these days we’re told the anti-democratic story that it’s the untamed passions of the uncredentialed, uninformed masses that are the problem. In the post–October 7 world, the real danger has been our untamed elites.

– Branko Marcetic
Excerpted from “Two Years After October 7,
the Horrors Are Indescribable

Jacobin
October 7, 2025


Related Off-site Links:
Maoz Inon Lost His Parents in the Oct. 7 Attack. Here’s Why He’s Still Calling for PeaceDemocracy Now! (October 7, 2025).
Israel’s Destruction of Gaza Over Last 2 Years “Would Not Have Been Possible” Without $21.7 Billion From U.S. – Julia Conley (Common Dreams, October 7, 2025).
Report from Gaza: Israeli Bombardment Enters Third Year Despite Ceasefire Talks in EgyptDemocracy Now! (October 7, 2025).
We Must Call It What It Is: A Genocide in Gaza – Basim Elkarra (Common Dreams, October 7, 2025).

See also the following chronologically-ordered Wild Reed posts:
October 7, 2023: “Nothing About Today Is ‘Unprovoked’”
Phyllis Bennis: “If We Are Serious About Ending This Spiraling Violence, We Need to Look at Root Causes”
In the Midst of the “Great Unraveling,” a Visit to the Prayer Tree
Eric Levitz: Quote of the Day – October 11, 2023
Something to Think About – October 12, 2023
Prayer of the Week – October 16, 2023
Voices of Reason and Compassion on the Crisis in Israel and Gaza
More Voices of Reason and Compassion on the Crisis in Israel and Gaza
Ta-Nehisi Coates: Quote of the Day – November 2, 2023
Jehad Abusalim: Quote of the Day – December 8, 2023
Christmas 2023 – Reflections, Activism, Art, and Celebrations
Sabrina Salvati: Quote of the Day – January 2, 2024
Michael Fakhri: Quote of the Day – February 27, 2024
Phyllis Bennis: Quote of the Day – March 28, 2024
Josh Paul: Quote of the Day – March 28, 2024
“A Genocide Has Been Normalized”
“This Is a Genocidal Project”
Outrage and Despair
Naomi Klein’s Powerful Words on Israel’s and the West’s Ongoing Gaza Genocide
Judith Butler on the Ongoing Student Protests Against the Gaza Genocide
Kyle Kulinski: Quote of the Day – May 23, 2024
Something to Think About – June 28, 2024
Nina Turner: Quote of the Day – July 24, 2024
Phyllis Bennis: “We Can Never Give Up Hope”
John Cusack: Quote of the Day – July 26, 2024
Progressive Perspectives on the Presidential Nomination of Kamala Harris
Breaking Down Kamala Harris’s DNC Speech on Gaza
Yousef Munayyer: Quote of the Day – August 30, 2024
“It’s a Systematic Slaughter That We’re Funding”
Protesting Weapons Manufacturer and Genocide Enabler General Dynamics
Something to Think About – September 26, 2024
“A Year of War Against Children”
Anti-Genocide Presidential Candidate Jill Stein Reflects on the First Anniversary of Israel’s Genocide in Gaza
Liam Cosgrove Confronts U.S. State Department Spin Doctor Matthew Miller: “People Are Sick of the Bullshit”
“This Is a Tragic, Heartbreaking Moment in the History of Humanity”
Progressive Perspectives on Kamala Harris’ Faltering Presidential Campaign
Progressive Perspectives on Where Democrats Went Wrong in the 2024 Presidential Election
Hope and Courage – Christmas 2024
Chris Hedges: “Israel Has No Intention of Halting Its Merry-Go-Round of Death”
The Lamentable Legacy of the Biden Administration
Caitlin Johnstone: Quote of the Day – January 22, 2025
Butch Ware: Quote of the Day – January 30, 2025
The Only Difference
Progressive Perspectives on Cory Booker’s Marathon Speech
Silence on Gaza Genocide Is “More Than a Mere Moral Abdication; It Is Lethal”
The Theft of One’s Soul: Omar El Akkad on the “Lesser of Two Evils” Argument
How Genocide Becomes Ordinary
Thomas Friedman: Quote of the Day – May 27, 2025
“A Holocaust, Live-streamed”
Why What’s Happening in Palestine – and Our Response to It – Is So Important
“Life Comes First”: An Interview with Thiago Ávila
Truth-telling in the Face of Systemic Power That Is Silent on Genocide
Caitlin Johnstone: Quote of the Day – July 23, 2025
U.S. Labor Leader Chris Smalls Joins the Crew of the Handala
Israel’s Actions in Gaza: “A Clear and Present Moral Collapse”
Protesting Israel’s “Starvation Campaign” in Gaza
Chris Smalls: Quote of the Day – August 5, 2025
Anas al-Sharif, 1996-2025
A Call to Divest from Israel
Idrees Ahmad: Quote of the Day – August 25, 2025
Michael Sala: Quote of the Day – August 29, 2025
A Poem That Remains Painfully Relevant
Memes of the Times
An “Illusion of Action”


See also the previous Wild Reed posts:
“The Mistreatment and Discrimination Against Palestinians Is Not Unprecedented. It’s Baked Into the Foundation of the Political System in Israel”
“Essential Viewing for All Who Care to Understand the Plight of the People of Palestine”
Progressive Perspectives on the Ongoing Israeli-Palestinian “Nightmare” (2021)
Something to Think About – July 29, 2018
Noura Erakat: Quote of the Day – May 15, 2018
For Some Jews, Israel’s Treatment of Palestinians is Yet Another Jewish Tragedy
Remembering the Six-Day War and Its Ongoing Aftermath
David Norris: Quote of the Day – August 12, 2014


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