October 7 Denial and Distortion

The surge of a false narrative about October 7

Five weeks after the October 7 terror attack, I wrote about an incipient Holocaust denial-like movement that sought to “downplay the day’s death toll or barbarism to conspiracies that put the blame on Israelis.” Since then I have monitored how it has grown and expanded, hundreds of millions of views of distorted videos and hateful disinformation. It is a movement similar to 9/11 truthers in that it attempts to absolve the Islamic fundamentalists responsible for the atrocities and perversely pin the blame on the victims. The difference is that the October 7 denial movement is on antisemitism steroids that makes it far more widespread and pernicious.

The article below was originally submitted as an opinion piece to The NY Times. What came back from an editor was this: “I agree with Gerald Posner that those who seek to deny the 1,200 lives taken by Hamas are delusional. But I'm not sure this piece convinces me that their delusion rises to October 7 denialism (as he puts it) depraved as it…