Mission to Israel Part VII: The Surveillance Video
[This is the seventh post in my series on my mission to Israel. You can read Parts I, II, III, IV, V, and VI.]
On the final day of our mission to Israel, we visited the headquarters of the IDF Spokesperson in Tel Aviv. This is the public affairs department of the Israeli military. We would attend a screening of surveillance footage of the October 7 attacks. This was a moment I had been thinking about since I agreed to go on the trip. Would I watch it? This descriptions in this post will be quite graphic, though I encourage you–for reasons that will be made clear at the end–to read on through.
The Holocaust and October 7 Happened
To this day, people deny the Holocaust happened. Some claim the entire Shoach is a fiction. Others claims that there was some murders, but the number of deaths was been greatly exaggerated. Others assert that the German government was not behind the mass exterminations. And so on. What is remarkable is that people hold these views in the face of mountains of evidence. The Nazis were quite proud of their efforts, and documented their systematic efforts to wipe the Jewish people off the map. If you haven’t visited the Holocaust museums in Washington, D.C. or New York, you should. And if you went a long time ago, you should go again.
Still, when you visit these institutions, all of the photographs are black-and-white, and the videos are grainy. Though we know these accounts are real, watching them feels like watching a history movie. Nearly nine decades removed, they seem like a thing of the past. And Holocaust deniers insist that these sources are doctored or manufactured.
October 7, 2023, however, is still raw and fresh. And much like the Nazis before them, Hamas was proud of their barbarism. They recorded their acts of terror with body-cameras. They livestreamed murders–often on their victims’ phones. They shared on social media photos and videos of horrific acts. All in high definition! There are already specters of October 7th denialism–perhaps the most egregious is that the Hamas terrorists did not commit rapes because their religion forbids it. I saw this claim repeated in the press, without any skepticism. But Hamas documented their own atrocities.
Should I Watch The Video?
In the wake of October 7, Israeli forces collected these photos and videos to document the horrors. Moreover, there were recordings by Israelis on dashboard cameras, doorbell cameras, and other surveillance systems. The Israeli government compiled these scenes into a single movie that stretches about fifty minutes. While many, if not most, of the individual clips can be found online, the compiled footage is kept under strict control. It is only exhibited at secure facilities to certain guests who are cleared.
Members of the Israeli military are not allowed to watch it. It is considered far too traumatic, and traumatizing for people who have lived through October 7. None of my family members in Israel had watched. They had no doubts about what happened on October 7, so why go through the pain of enduring the day again? My Rabbi told me not to watch it. There is a teaching to not cause any shame for dead people. He asked if the people who had been murdered in those videos would want me to watch them in such a terrible state. These were all fair points.
I thought long and hard about whether I would watch it. Initially, on a personal level, I was inclined not to. I do not like horror movies. Generally, if there is any movie with blood or gore, I turn it off. I can’t even watch medical programs that depict surgery and other procedures. I close my eyes when I get a shot or have dental work. Yes, I am quite squeamish. There is an expression that is far too overused–”You can’t unsee this!” But it is very apt for the surveillance video. I knew that these fifty minutes of pure, uncensored barbarism would haunt me for the rest of my life.
What turned me was a presentation I saw by Judge Roy Altman, who led a mission to Israel for federal judges. Altman described, in graphic detail, what he saw. He has given this lecture in many places, and it is moving. After the lecture, I asked Altman point blank if he regretted watching the videos. On one level, he did, as these images would never leave him. But on a deeper level, watching these videos made his message that much more powerful. Having witnessed the savagery, he could now spread the message around the globe. And this is not a second-hand account. He watched the video with his own eyes. And he didn’t simply scan through a few clips on social media. He endured the entire curated film, with no break, in an Israeli military facility.
Altman’s explanation persuaded me to watch it. I routinely lecture at law schools and other venues throughout the country. This year, I plan to talk about Israel–if any law school is brave enough to host me. (So far only a few takers.) I intend to relay the medieval acts of terror I witnessed. Having personally seen these clips will allow me to speak to the issue in a way I simply could not have by reading about it. I regret that I personally had to endure the screening. (Although whatever minor inconvenience I had pales in comparison to the suffering that happened on October 7, and to this day.) And to this day, I cannot forget what I saw. I recently watched the De
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