Israel Passes Thoughtcrime Law Banning Doubts Over Official Narrative Of October 7th Attack

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The political reverberations of Israel's ceasefire agreement with Hamas continue to erode the foundation the Netanyahu government strengthened itself upon across the 15-month war. Over the course of the conflict, Netanyahu's regime took unprecedented measures to consolidate power in the office of prime minister under the justification that the war constituted a state of emergency that required effectively dictatorial powers. With the war at least momentarily at a pause, the iron-fisted grasp Netanyahu held over Israel has started to slip away. The rapid deterioration of support for Netanyahu has led to the prime minister taking increasingly desperate measures to preserve his future.

The latest development serving that interest comes in the form of an Orwellian law passed by the Knesset that makes questioning the official narrative about the events of October 7th a thoughtcrime. Those events have long been marred by accusations of security failures and even speculation as to whether Netanyahu's regime permitted the attack as a false flag to salvage his 6th term as Prime Minister Of Israel amidst the massive protests calling for his resignation that preceded it. Netanyahu now faces that same pressure yet again in the fallout from agreeing to a ceasefire with Hamas.

Following the official recognition of the Israel-Hamas ceasefire, Netanyahu lost the support of extreme rightwing factions of the ruling coalition of his government. That political upheaval was instigated by former National Security Minister Itamar Ben-Gvir, leader of Israel's Jewish Power party as well as the leader of the Religious Zionism party and Netanyahu's Minister Of Finance Bezalel Smotrich. The mass resignations of their respective party members from the Knesset led by Ben-Gvir and Smotrich were followed by the resignation of Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi, the head of the Israel Defense Forces. Halevi's resignation will take effect on March 6th.

Halevi's resignation amplified the position of opposition to Netanyahu's government that the prime minister has damaged the national security of Israel by agreeing to the ceasefire. Furthermore, the head of the IDF stepping down brings forth more scrutiny over the military's operations in Gaza in which it was unable to realize the profoundly bellicose promise of Netanyahu to the Israeli people to slay Hamas root and stem, a promise he made with rhetoric drawing upon biblical lore that cast Palestinians as the modern iteration of the "Amalek," setting a tone that garnered popular support for measures that have led to accusations of genocide. That hindsight also rekindles doubt about Netanyahu's leadership on October 7th, 2023 itself and whether or not the failures of his administration are to blame for the attack.

The emergency powers that Netanyahu amassed by creating a wartime government not only insulated him from those accusations but achieved a consolidation of power that he was unable to gain through his pursuit of judicial reforms that would have given the office of prime minister unprecedented control over Israel's courts. Now that those powers have waned, Netanyahu finds himself scratching and clawing at measures to regain that level of authoritarian control. He now faces a political crucible unleashed by the floodgates holding back the deeply rooted disfavor of his regime being opened once again by the ceasefire.

The efforts to sustain his hold over the office of prime minister have been aided by the Knesset following the passage of law that makes the official narrative he relied on to protect himself from inquiry into his handling of October 7th sacrosanct. The law mandates a 5-year prison sentence for what the State Of Israel deems is a denial of the events of October 7th. The law has immediately drawn criticism from free speech advocates and critics of Netanyahu alike who question its true intent.

The legislation was modeled after a 1986 law prohibiting Holocaust denial in Israel by it's sponsor, Minister Of Knesset Oded Forer of the party Yisrael Beytenu. Despite the political capital the law provides Netanyahu, Yisrael Beytenu holds 6 of the 52 seats in the Knesset held by opposition to Netanyahu's ruling coalition. “In an era where lies are spread at the speed of light on social media and in the international arena, this law is a bulwark. Not only for the memory of the murdered and the honor of the survivors, but for the sake of future generations who will remember the truth, and not the lies that try to obscure it.” Forer said regarding the importance of the law.

Tenets of the state-sanctioned narrative of what occurred on October 7th have been called into question since the day of the attack, from the scope of how many of the casualties that day were killed by Hamas to the validity of accusations of mass sexual assault and infanticide. The revelation that Israel authorized its Hannibal Directive, which permits IDF soldiers to kill Israeli citizens to prevent their capture is one instance of the official narrative about the attacks being disproven. Israel rejected allegations it authorized the use of such force, only for confirmation of its authorization to be substantiated by Israeli and global media outlets as well as the United Nation's Commission Of Inquiry.

The scale of sexual assault committed by Hamas on October 7th has also been met with significant doubt since the attack. While the United Nations and other organizations have put forward evidence that Hamas militants have committed sexual assaults on October 7th, accusations of those acts have been disproven. Reports of sexual assault by members of ZAKA — an Israeli search and rescue organization led emergency responses to attacks on Kibbutzes on October 7th — were proven to be untrue. The accounts of sexual assault reported by ZAKA were acknowledged to be false by the organization's own admission months after they were alleged to have taken place. That revelation in conjunction with Israel blocking a UN probe into Hamas' alleged sex crimes casts further doubt on how much of that narrative is true and how much of it served as propaganda to rally support for the war in Gaza that unfolded.

Despite ample evidence undermining those core facets of Israel's account of what happened on October 7th, the new law passed by the Knesset jeopardizes any independent inquiry into their validity. While the law does permit statements “in good faith or for a legitimate purpose," the arbitrary scope of what constitutes those parameters carries the looming threat of criminal prosecution that is enough to dissuade independent inquiry. That concern was echoed by the Association for Civil Rights In Israel. Gil Gan-Mor, head of the ACRI's Civil And Social Rights divisions categorized the law as creating “a chilling effect on freedom of expression," due to the ambiguity surrounding what constitutes the line between permitted and banned speech.

Controlling the narrative about October 7th has been an effort led by Israel not just within its own borders, but across the world. This is evident from the actions taken by US President Donald Trump, who on the first day in office during his second administration signed an Executive Order postponing a ban on the social media platform TikTok that went into effect after it was upheld by the Supreme Court just days before his inauguration. While the law has been justified by its supporters as being in the interest of "national security," efforts to ban TikTok were accelerated by opposition to the platform from the Israel lobby because of it being used to voice opposition to the bloodshed in Gaza.

The pervasive influence of Israel into US politics and the depths it has gone to violate its own citizens' free speech in an effort to control the ability of people to voice opposition to the Netanyahu regime shows how crucial information control has been to keep the prime minister in power. The new law passed by the Knesset strengthens its ability to insulate itself from inquiry into its failures on October 7th and beyond at a time where Netanyahu's reign over Israel has become tenuous at best. Israel's justification of its infringements against free speech on the basis of national security parallels similar laws passed in other countries including the US based on that same principle that have been proven to be used as a mechanism to suppress the truth. This begs questions about what truth the Netanyahu regime is trying to suppress about October 7th. If those facts ever do come to light then it may signal the death knell of the Netanyahu regime's future, if not his future as a free man all together.