Quote of the Day
A while ago, I watched the infamous 47-minute video documenting the atrocities of October 7th — the one not made publicly available, to protect the privacy of the victims.
The worst part of this video is not what it displays, but who is displaying it: the perpetrators themselves. Gleefully. Sadistically. Unabashedly. Most of the footage was filmed by Hamas terrorists on their GoPro bodycams, some also by ordinary Gazan civilians on their cellphones.
Even the Nazis tried to cover up their atrocities, but Hamas brags about theirs for the entire world to see. The killers are euphoric throughout the massacre, and their relentless, ecstatic cries of “Allahu Akbar” (punctuated by the occasional “Kill the Jew!”) are simply nauseating.
Some images are seared into my memory forever. I will never forget the two boys in their underwear — one with his eye socket hanging out of his face — asking his brother whether he thinks they’re going to die, while the Hamas monster who had just thrown a grenade in their saferoom helps himself to a drink from their fridge, taking a casual break from the slaughter.
…
It was premeditated and organized. The terrorists crossing into Israel carried printed Arabic-to-Hebrew phrasebooks with handy expressions like “take off your pants,” “lie down,” “spread your legs,” and “don’t make trouble.” I wonder why they expected to need those particular phrases?
I know one thing: no civilized country on earth would tolerate the existence of an organization like Hamas on its border after October 7th. Not one. This includes every self-righteous Westerner currently lecturing Israel from thousands of kilometres away, without an inch of skin in the game.
Maarten Boudry @mboudry
Posted on X May 12, 2026
Hamas achieved glory and celebrated for a day. The magnitude of their error will be in history books for centuries.
They learned their lesson the hard way.
But it wasn’t just Hamas that should learn a lesson from October 7th. Learn from the mistakes of others. Everyone should have learned that disarmed civilians are vulnerable to such attacks. Never give up your guns. Keep saying, “NO!“ until you run out of ammo.
It’s the middle east. There are no “good guys” in power. Every ruler has been brutalizing each other’s people (as well as their own) for all of recorded history. The Israelis have done the same and worse long before the GoPro recorded everything, as had the Egyptians, Palestinians, Jordanians, Lebanese, Turks, Saudis, etc., etc., etc. Being “horrified” like that most likely means you aren’t familiar with much history.
Of course, that sort of behavior isn’t limited to the ME, either. The Bolsheviks. The drug cartels. Slave traders of all types. The list is long. Very long.
The lesson most leaders “learn” is “do it to them first, then claim outrage when they do it back.”
> Keep saying, “NO!“ until you run out of ammo.
That’s going in my quote file.
I was so surprised to see how passive many of the victims were. My mind could not get a handle on that.
My sister is one of the liberals who commented on the IDF bombing a hospital. I took the position that if Hamas chose to put their C&C in the basement, it was a legitimate target. She said that was unnecessary.
I told her our parents’ generation firebombed and nuked cities full of civilians to get the Germans or Japanese to surrender unconditionally. Why would Israel do anything less?
+1 Rolf. People in the Middle East understand power and the use of force. Not using it is a sign of weakness, not compassion.
Same to be said about the victims of the Holocaust. People stood in line to be killed. By the millions. This has always puzzled me. Perhaps they couldn’t process the fact that they were about to be killed, though RumInt to that effect was certainly present in the ghettos. Perhaps they believed, like previous pogroms that this would pass with a few thousand dead. Faced with this situation, I think I would have made a grab for a German (or more likely Ukrainian) rifle. I would die but maybe I could take one with me.