October 7 has been Israel’s weapon. It should be ours

When Israel’s nearly eight-decade genocide of non-Jews river-to-sea shifted back into high gear after the Hamas “attack” of October 7 2023, so did UK popular resistance to the genocide. Marches, demonstrations, and vigils made plain the vast popular outrage at our government’s complicity. The UK’s Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) and its associated anti-war organisations applied for permits for major Saturday marches, and permit after permit continues to be granted.

Yet whereas the government has closed major London thoroughfares and paid for hundreds of police on a surprisingly regular basis to enable many “pro-Palestine” demonstrations, it has all along imposed one Forbidden Fruit that would cost it nothing: the freedom to address the events of 7 October 2023 with even rudimentary intellectual integrity — the very events that have provided the carte blanche for Israel’s genocide. In a free society, unencumbered examination of what happened, and why it happened, would be not merely a right, but an obligation. In the UK, it will land you in prison.

This is because in theory, any honest reckoning with that day’s events would inescapably conclude that Hamas’s “attack” — referring specifically to its breaching of the Gaza “fence”, not the repeatedly-debunked atrocity propaganda used to give excuse to the Palestinians’ extermination — was in truth an attempt to liberate the concentration camp that is Gaza.

I say “in theory” (and this entire article must be read as “were one to say…”), because were this article actually to make that claim, it would run afoul of the UK’s Counter-Terrorism and Border Security Act 2019, which designates Hamas a “proscribed organization”, for which it is a criminal act to “make clear expressions of support”. So, since Hamas is the sole force able to defend the people in Gaza, the UK has effectively criminalised their self-defence against genocide. Instead, Hamas’ role is cemented as the bogeyman in a good-versus-evil construct serving Western geo-political interests. 

This is not to say that Hamas’s breaching of the barrier was wise — surely thousands of survivors in the enclave now wish only to have gone on with their lives under the old sadistic siege and slow genocide, rather than the open-throttle genocide to which October 7 gave opportunity.

Hamas did of course commit the crime of taking civilian hostages. But this is a separate discussion that can only be understood in context of Israel’s thousands of Palestinians hostages and the denial of any conventional means of Palestinian self-defence. Whatever one’s views on Hamas’ “attack” (and indeed of Hamas itself), we are blaming the rape victim who, having dared to fight back, was then killed by her attacker. The West would brand as terrorists any Palestinian leadership that challenged Israel. 

Several peace activists and journalists in the UK have been arrested for suggesting that the people in Gaza have the right to resist their genocide, including the child of survivors of Auschwitz. Indeed one not even need give voice to this proscribed thought: people have been arrested under the Security Act merely for possession of a symbol of resistance, such as an image of a paraglider, or for wearing a green headband at a Palestine rally.

READ: UK Law experts and Muslim group demand inquiry into Met’s pro-Palestine protest crackdown 

The Security Act safeguards the assumption that the ongoing carnage, if perhaps over-zealous, is nonetheless Israeli self-defence in response to October 7. Chained to this construct, the best that we, the opposition, can hope to achieve is eventually to return to the apartheid and slow genocide of pre-October 7. 

In contrast, opening up the what and why of October 7 would completely change the public perception. It would expose Gaza as an Israeli internment camp for non-Jews, human beings locked up so that Israel can maintain its dream of racial purity in its settler state. Thus, any honest look at October 7, followed to its conclusion, would instead deprive Israel of its very alleged right to exist — that is, finally end this eight-decade horror. Instead, thousands die as we forever dodge the “yes, but Hamas…” bullet. 

Those courageous individuals who refused to be muzzled, and paid the price, should not have had to act alone. It should be the responsibility of the organizations charged with furthering Palestinian human rights to unmuzzle us, principally the Palestine Solidarity Campaign. Yes, PSC is trapped in an impossible balancing act — even maintaining a bank account is a challenge when the word Palestine is in your name — but by showing no imagination in circumventing the censorship on October 7, PSC and its affiliated organisations have limited the impact of their many and impressive marches.

Three separate inquiries by this writer to PSC asking their position in regard to the 2019 Security Act, and what “messages” it considers permissible on their demonstrations, remain unanswered, and nothing on their website addresses these issues. Its policies, however, can be surmised from its actions. On the day of the 2023 Hamas “attack”, PSC’s Manchester branch posted this straight-forward statement: 

Palestinian freedom fighters from besieged Gaza broke Zionist colonial barriers and entered settlements built on stolen Palestinian land inside ‘48 Palestine.

Besieged /colonial /stolen are simple facts, and any quibble about the emotive “freedom fighters” is a distraction. But rather than challenging the Security Act, PSC implicitly obeyed: it expelled four of the branch’s officers. Nor is there any record of PSC coming to the defence of individuals whose uncensored anti-genocide signs, words, or symbols landed them in trouble.

There is surely untapped potential in the massive London demos. If neither PSC nor its affiliated anti-war organisations can be expected to go the route of mass civil disobedience, perhaps fresh, “out of the box” thinking can replace strategies born of habit. The media barely noticed even the half million people who marched for the 2025 Nakba anniversary. Might there be imaginative ways to force the media to pay attention, and get a forbidden message of truth circulated?

To cite one easy example, the thousands of signs printed by the sponsoring organizations could convey forbidden truths in a legal veneer, instead of the ubiquitous “Free Palestine” signs. A sea of such signs would be a Trojan horse: their “scandalous” (but legal) message would get the march into the media, the message with it.

At writing, Hamas has petitioned the UK government to be removed from the proscribed list. Even if that happens — which is highly doubtful until it is too late to matter — there will still be a firewall protecting the official mythology of the “conflict”. But they are ever-widening cracks in that firewall. Now is the time for us to take charge and crack it wide open, not to carry on trying to argue for Palestinian human rights within the parameters dictated to us. The goal must be to dismantle the Israeli state, finally, not return us to pre- October 7.

READ: Palestine Coalition rejects Police attempt to block BBC protest march 

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.