Uh oh. To the Grauniad, where trouble is afoot. It transpires that the paper’s review of One Day in October, a harrowing Channel 4 documentary about the tragedy of the 7 October terror attack on Israel by Hamas, has caused quite a stir. So much so that it has, in fact, been deleted and wiped entirely from the Guardian’s website.
The review had ruffled feathers after suggesting that the documentary had portrayed Gazans as ‘testosterone-crazed Hamas killers’:
If you want to understand why Hamas murdered civilians, though, One Day in October won’t help. 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.
It went on:
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.
All our sympathies are with relatable Israelis. 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.
It’s certainly quite the take…
But after an online backlash, it appears that the Guardian has opted to remove the piece altogether, ‘pending review’. The paper could have defended the publication of the piece – or acknowledged its flaws – and yet it seems this beacon of transparency has opted for, um, neither option. So much for journalistic integrity, eh?
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