Oct. 7 denial is dangerous to decency, truth

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Oct. 7 denial — like Holocaust denial — is riding menacingly high this holiday season. For some, the Hamas barbarism is a subject of dispute. For others — judging by their reaction (or lack thereof) — it is a matter of indifference.

In either case it is a profound challenge to decency and truth.

It is why — at the request of Israel's Consulate in Chicago — I hosted a screening of the Hamas atrocity video compiled largely from the bodycam, cellphone and social media posts of Hamas terrorists.

As reported in the Star Tribune and other media, opinion leaders and journalists were invited to bear witness. It was not an ask made lightly. The scenes are grotesque.

In one moment, a Hamas terrorist decapitates a dead Israel soldier and walks away with the head as though he is cradling a ball. We also watched as a young boy of about 11 — who just witnessed his father murdered — wail from his kitchen floor, "Daddy, daddy, God, why am I alive," as the Hamas terrorist nonchalantly raided his refrigerator for a snack.

Still later, we heard a terrorist boast to his parents by cellphone that he just killed 10 Jews.

It is the stuff of nightmares. Of course, it is the lived experience of Israelis and others (including Americans) from throughout the world who were murdered, raped, tortured and mutilated on Oct. 7, and the over 100 who are still being held hostage by Hamas.

The urgent need to screen the atrocity video is on display only a few miles away at the University of Minnesota. There the Gender Women and Sexuality Studies issued a "Faculty Statement on Palestine" on Oct. 16.

In the inverted world of this statement, Hamas terrorists are "fighters" conducting an "excursion" into Israeli territory in which no mention is made of murder, beheadings, rape, burning people alive or hostage taking. The statement outrageously assails "global media coverage [for] reproduce[ing] Islamophobic tropes of terrorism and unsubstantiated claims of 'uncivilized' violence."

After two months on the College of Liberal Arts website (in violation of university policy dealing with statements, which apparently the administration is loath to enforce) Oct. 7 denial is alive and well at the University of Minnesota.

The university is hardly alone in its historical revisionism or uncharacteristic reticence. It took the United Nations until December to recognize the vast and collective sexual assault perpetrated by the Hamas terrorists on Israeli women on Oct. 7.

The existence of this denial is atrocious. Even more sobering, it is symptomatic of something far worse.

According to the December Harvard/Harris Poll, among Americans aged 18-24, 67% agree that "Jews as a class are oppressors," 60% believe the Oct. 7 atrocities were justified, 51% say, "Israel should be ended and given to Hamas and the Palestinians," and 50% support Hamas more than Israel (fortunately, according to the same poll, Americans overall reject these beliefs).

Nearly 80 years after the end of World War II, a majority of young Americans — the future leaders of our nation — believe the killing of Israelis and the termination of the Jewish state is acceptable and justifiable, while an overwhelming majority cling to a deeply antisemitic trope.

We are all at an inflection point.

The JCRC and our Jewish communal colleagues are working tirelessly to address this surging tide of Jew-hatred, but this is not a problem for Jews alone to solve. As Rabbi Jonathan Sacks taught, "[t]he hate that begins with Jews never ends with Jews. Antisemitism is the world's most reliable early warning sign of a major threat to freedom, humanity, and the dignity of difference. It matters to all of us. Which is why we must fight it together."

There is fortunately some guidance for the path ahead.

After the Shoah, the Catholic Church promulgated the Nostra Aetate, which directly addressed church antisemitism. Nearly every Protestant denomination adopted its own version of the Nostra Aetate since the 1960s. Such theological reset, outreach and peacemaking has thrust Christian-Jewish relations into an upward trajectory — particularly in North America and Europe.

One difference is that the appalling views of young Americans are not religious based. Are they cultural, social, educational or incubated in social media?

The prevalence of young people marching and sloganeering with the genocidal, "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free," on campuses and in high schools may mean it is all of the above.

Judging from our own University of Minnesota and the polling cited above — there is a leadership and moral clarity deficiency which must be addressed.

Steve Hunegs is executive director, Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas.