14/06/2026
'Nice to meet you, my name is Jewish Terror. I'm new in your world and on your screens, but I've been in the neighborhood for many years. After October 7's deliverance, I decided to raise my head and you decided you could no longer ignore me. Suddenly, you recognized me. Suddenly I exist among you. Well, for your information, those who know me well call me the Occupation. You can call me that too, even if you find it difficult. What's with occupation now, of all times, you'll say. So, feel free and call it "Jewish terror." After all, you know how to lie to yourselves and you're used to living in denial.
Very slowly, with the caution of a mating hedgehog, Israel's centrist media outlets are starting to show a budding interest in reality. It's true that on liberal "investigative reporting" TV programs they are still deeply immersed in October 7. And truly, what's to investigate in the Occupation? In Ilana Dayan's "Uvda" program and in Raviv Drucker's "Hamakor," the "second greatest Jewish calamity after the Holocaust" still constitutes the rock of investigative reporting's existence – with as many tears and as much bravery as possible – but on public broadcaster Kan's "Zman Emet" program they suddenly had a true report on the wild militias called the "regional defense units." News broadcasts and printed media have also been showing promising signs. See, after thrill-seeking soldier shot and killed a baby lying on its mother's lap, some twitches could be discerned in the media. The daily pogroms in the West Bank are also starting to find an echo in what we call the nightly news and newspapers, which in practice are filled with nothing but ta**ry programs meant to brainwash on demand.
After decades of denial and concealment, reality has started to seep out from behind the reality shows. The baby from Hebron was still not worthy of the front page in Israel Hayom or a main headline in Yedioth Ahronoth – after all, this was a terrorist, or at least the son of one – but on the last day of his brief life, seven-months-old Sam Fahed Abu Haykal managed for a brief moment to make it through to Israelis' awareness. He succeeded where 1,000 dead babies in Gaza could not before. Unlike them, Sam had a face and a mother and father who are university lecturers, and even a grandmother who was a legendary school principal. You may soon find Israel calling them a "bereaved family," but that is a long way away. Calling them "terror victims" is unthinkable; "state-sanctioned terror" or an "army of occupiers" is something you can't even dream of. But nevertheless, Sam came to our attention, and with him the recognition that Jewish soldiers are killing Palestinian babies during their work hours and then fleeing immediately after doing so, without providing any first aid.
The state and the army still stand behind them and no one would even consider expressing sorrow or an apology. Why would they? What happened?
The season of serial wars launched by Benjamin Netanyahu two years and nine months ago should have rattled Israelis' impenetrable mindset, even a little bit. Even the fanciest Deepsea Challenge Rolex will fail at some underwater depth. Gaza is out of sight, out of mind, and they are all Hamas; the Israel Defense Forces is the holy of holies and its soldiers are the most moral in the world, which is maybe why the masked settlers with their long sidelocks and gigantic kippot may shatter, at least to some degree, the protective layer enveloping Israelis. Maybe they will be the agents of change leading people to confront reality.
How pleasant was our blindness. Whatever wasn't reported didn't exist. There is no genocide and no apartheid, and there isn't even an occupation. There is only a people that has returned to its deserted land and Palestinians who were born to kill. Sixty years of denial did not end overnight. But the last few weeks show that the first cracks have formed. And as with any other addiction, recognizing the problem is the first stage on the path to recovery. Such recognition is still far away, and recovery even farther. But the shame of 60 years of betrayal and dereliction of duty by media outlets in Israel is approaching its end. Nice to meet you, my name is Occupation.
Jewish Terror, Occupation, Whatever You Want to Call It: Sixty Years of Denying Israel's War Crimes Won't End Overnight
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