UK Newspaper Deletes Hamas-Sympathetic Review of Oct. 7 Documentary

The U.K. newspaper The Guardian has deleted a review of the Oct. 7 documentary “One Day in October” after receiving backlash over the reviewer’s sympathetic portrayal of Hamas. 

The review, written by Guardian staff journalist Stuart Jeffries, criticized the film for “demonizing” Hamas, the Palestinian terrorist group that runs Gaza, as a group of rabid “killers” and “looters” — descriptions which Jeffries found offensive. 

The  documentary, by film-maker Dan Reed, offers an unvarnished glimpse at the horrors and barbarity of October 7. 

“If you want to understand why Hamas murdered civilians, though, One Day in October won’t help,” Jeffries wrote in The Guardian. “Indeed, it does a good job of demonising Gazans, first as testosterone-crazed Hamas killers, later as shameless civilian looters, asset-stripping the kibbutz while bodies lay in the street and the terrified living hid.”

Jeffries went on to draw an allegory between modern day Israel and colonial Africa, suggesting that Hamas’ brutal slaughter of roughly 1200 people was a potentially justified course of action. XYZ then accused the film of “othering” the terrorist group by encouraging viewers to “identify” with the victims of the massacre.  

“Despite such evident evil, I am reminded of Cy Endfield’s film Zulu, with its nameless hordes of African warriors pitted against British protagonists with whom we were encouraged to identify. TV and cinematic narratives often work as othering machines in this way. At its worst One Day in October, if unwittingly, follows the same pattern,” the Guardian continued. 

“All our sympathies are with relatable Israelis,” Jeffries wrote. “A mother texting farewell messages as she dies from gunshot wounds. A girl sending cute pictures of her playing with friends to her mum, who is cowering in a toilet cubicle, hoping the terrorists she can hear breathing outside can’t hear her. By contrast, Hamas terrorists are a generalised menace on CCTV, their motivates beyond One Day in October’s remit.”

Following backlash, the Guardian deleted the review and issued a statement.

“The article did not meet our editorial standards, and we have removed it pending review. The independent readers’ editor will respond to a number of readers who have raised concerns,” The Guardian wrote.

In the year since Hamas’ brutal terrorist attacks across southern Israel, many progressive organizations and media publications have suggested that the group’s murders were a justified act of self defense. These left-leaning entities often argue that Hamas’s actions on Oct. 7 should be viewed with additional “context” instead of being outright condemned. 

Moreover, many progressive media organizations have refused to designate Hamas as a terrorist group, referring to the characterization as “racist.”The  British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) implemented a policy refusing to apply the “terrorist” label to Hamas, arguing that it would be tantamount to “taking sides.” 

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