The Red Brick Road: Navigating the Media War Since October the 7th
Notes From an Alternative Archive
Firstly, allow me to apologise for the surplus of @'s. As I understand it, it's not a particularly decorous practice on social media. But credit, where due, must be given. Every account tagged has been cited at least once within this article.
As for the potential of this piece, I ask only that it be judged on its merit - not on the absence of 'clout' attached to my newly created profile. This is an archival work made possible by the digital age. My hope is that it stands as an alternative roadmap through the media landscape since the God-awful day in question.
Lastly, this is not merely a chronology. It is a personal record - an attempt to track reality through the overflowing media passel, and to honour the dead with truth, not slogans.
Thank you.
‘They don't want the people to receive aid; they want to foil the plan. They live off theft.’ Free the Palestinians indeed. Free the ordinary people therein who are doomed by their terrorist headmen. When the vast majority of the world's media would rather peddle the lies of monsters, it's no wonder they’re nothing short of complicit in the rampaging, brutal foulness seen on our streets. This has without a doubt been ‘a war on reality’ spun through much of the established media. Yes, some may eventually recant, begrudgingly. But by then the stinking, viral content has already been given its dastardly thrust. This will not be a short road to tread. An algorithmic reshuffle is long overdue.
With moments of justifiably scathing ridicule on this journey rare, we could no longer count on some usual suspects for distraction nor respite—wilfully ignorant or otherwise. Meanwhile, morally defunct, self-promoting imps and some humanitarians alike delude and seemingly fail at correctly discerning friend from foe, respectively. Not all purposeful and piercing oration has been lost to the moiling media dissonance. One just needs to beware the enchanting trap of consensus and ‘likes’ in order to find it.
Statehood for murder and unthinkable barbarism? See for yourself. In any fair-minded sense, it cannot be so. It's almost beyond comprehension that some would deny that these events took place when the footage is bountiful and so often shockingly clear. This is not some kind of macabre distortion. For that, you need not look further than the highest podium in the land and their despicable mole-like co-conspirators.
For five hundred and fifty days, Edan Alexander was held hostage by the terrorist group Hamas in conditions that would outmatch the worst squalor imaginable. He emerged with the essence of his life reminiscent of those from the Holocaust: yellowed, pallid, and drawn, though thankfully in Edan’s case, not altogether defeated. Even after this, verity still wasn't in the gift of the posing, would-be arbiters of truth—abetting the perpetrators via misinformation whilst smirking through the deception. Though, to the greatest relief, among the cacophony of the many loud and empty vessels in today’s media landscape, one or two voices have spoken with such generational clarity, precision, and sense that they are the ones most deserving of being heard the loudest—irrespective of political partisanship.
Anger and frustration often result from an inner conflict between one's expectations and a contrary reality. The flustered, sphincter-like convulsions from this particular politician certainly give weight to this theory. It isn't just malice born of strangerhood or common disputation at the heart of all of this; it's an ideology of death and a cult of deception. It's being preached in the wider Western world, and it is not just directed towards Jewish people and the state of Israel. With support and funding from wealthy nation-states, this ideology and advocacy thereof, by way of subversion, suicidal empathy, and other means, has corrupted many formerly revered educational institutions in the democratic world. Predictably, and in a darkly pair-bonded fashion, that age-old prejudice has crept its way into public life once again.
In my own continental quarter, some twisted fellowships have emerged, helped along their way by half-witted Manichaean worldviews. Again, this is sadly unsurprising given the official broadcasting behaviour of some host nations, heaped on top of curricula bursting with postmodernist theories and damaging simple-minded reductivist notions. Astonishingly, even in Israel proper, there are those who would contort blatant acts of terror, and those who perpetrate them, into ‘righteous’ defences of freedom, cued by the persistent framing of Hamas' brutality as mere resistance.
‘My own personal October the 7th,’ a horrifying utterance, spoken anywhere. Yet it was, by Itay Kashti, from the once relatively ensconced isles of Britain. Still within the UK, it isn't an overestimation to say that there was, at some prior stage therein, a general feeling that ‘antisemitism had been dealt with when the guns fell silent in 1945.’ However, the inhumane vitriol and aggression directed towards Jews in the UK and the solitary Jewish state more broadly entirely negates that summation today. And whilst many contemporary members of the studentry believe they're fighting against a fresh, new injustice in their zeal on this issue, they're actually parroting precisely the same propaganda forged by Soviet-era anti-Zionist pamphleteers from the 1980s.
Gratefully, the spirit of levity has not yet been entirely extinguished. Ridicule in the face of tyranny is a perennial ally, however stark the parody may sometimes be. Internationally, the ‘pressure’ has been, and continues to be, primarily exerted on the victim: Israel. Not on the perpetrators of the October 7th massacre: Hamas and their various buttressing agents. This, all whilst the regular citizenry of Gaza assembled in protest against the terrorist group themselves. It's an ongoing debate as to whether or not things have improved for the region’s lone democracy and the Palestinian people since the Biden administration left office. Though interminable will be the debate on whether or not the October 7th atrocities would've taken place had President Trump served contiguous terms from 2016.
Approximately six months into the archive in reverse chronological order—however staccato as required—and one can clearly see the dire consequences of extant media bias and discrepant ideologies in Western societies, as well as further coverage likely deemed unfit for broadcast—subject to your usual provider. During this period we've had: a Jewish radio host fired for refusing to support the pogrom as ‘resistance’; President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey ‘laying the groundwork for a military assault to neutralize the SDF’ in Syria, with Israel being next in line—this just a few months after being met by applause in the Turkish Parliament for calling Benjamin Netanyahu a ‘psychopath’ and a ‘vampire’ who ‘feeds on blood’; meanwhile, it required the words of a survivor to convince certain members of Gen Z in America that the Shoah actually took place; the Emir of Qatar received the red carpet treatment in the UK whilst British Citizen Emily Damari was still being held by Hamas; an arson attack at a Melbourne Synagogue; a Labour MP fishes for special protection of Islam in the British Houses of Parliament and was met with greater affirmation than is usual from Mr Starmer; and a cache of Iranian weapons intended for use by terrorists in Judea and Samaria was jointly intercepted by the IDF and ISA.
Without moving along too rapidly, we then had the invaluable opportunity to learn how not to stretch the meaning of genocide; ancient and modern blood libels; and whether or not Israel is an apartheid state. It isn't, and I won't save you the trouble. Much of this, again, from one of today's most remarkably exacting and faithful voices. Then, evidenced by proximity alone, how terror tunnels, terrorist infrastructure, missile launch sites, etc., were constructed by the terrorist group Hezbollah right under the noses of the very UN ‘forces’ that were installed to supposedly stop those things from taking place—just over the border in Lebanon. Israel retaliated against this threat to the north in order to defend their country, as every other nation should feel duty-bound to do when faced with such an enemy. But foreseeably, because it concerns Israel, this was neither presented well nor well received.
At best, Jewish communities around the globe during this period have been met with ‘unrelenting idiocy’ rather than sympathy. One might be expected during such times to look towards those more credentialed or in positions of authority to aid in parsing through this apparently inverted reality. But as we've previously learnt, their platformed stations and leverage can be the very catalyst that leads to a deathly and treasonous state of affairs when they fail to properly recognise and condemn genuine tyranny. Fair warning they have had.
What of the herd of genuine deplorables in the wider West over these long months? The celebrity class. Whose hugbox feeds generally venture no further than BBC News or CNN. With great influence should come at least a sense of great responsibility, one might imagine. Though in spite of their reach, they seemingly are neither pro-homework nor historically literate. A simulacrum of love appears to be vaguely within the remit of this lot—just not if you're Jewish or from Israel. Many members of the infinitely myopic thespian class have indeed been suffering from moral corruption, delusional notions regardless of reliable testimony to the contrary, and interminable bouts of virtue signalling. But not all those who may still vibrate with the left have been so easily led astray, it must be said.
Unbeknownst to many Westerners, there's a plethora of media coverage out there that does not come so readily to one's free and ‘progressively’ calibrated device. There are broadcasters in this world who blatantly air, amongst other things, that the Holocaust is a ‘great lie’ and implicate the Jewish people themselves in that greatest nadir of our shared time on this planet. ‘Teach all our children to hate Israel,’ said an Egyptian news presenter approximately one year ago. There are those who announce proudly over certain frequencies that the targeting of civilian populations by Hezbollah in the north of the country is what's required for ‘Jerusalem to be liberated.’ These are the same folks who will tell you that Jewish people are thieves and colonisers and negate their ancestral bond to the Levantine region. Even when faced with more than one or two most inconvenient truths—if you will forgive my facetiousness.
The world should, in a far more decent and sensible reality, be thanking Israel. It truly is ‘the most misunderstood country on earth.’ A fact I’m sure is insuperable to those made feeble by the deepest cases of one of the oldest and most rotten forms of prejudice. Since October the 7th, both Ebrahim Raisi (the Butcher of Tehran) and Hassan Nasrallah, the third Secretary General of the terrorist group Hezbollah, have been relieved of duty. In Mr. Raisi's precocious case, at the tender age of 28 years old, then a deputy prosecutor general of Tehran, he became a key member of a four-person ‘death commission’ tasked with carrying out extrajudicial executions of thousands of political prisoners. But rather than the world's supposedly most impartial media paying proper tribute to his ‘legacy,’ some only managed to muster ‘mixed’ reviews. In the case of the finger-wagging Nasrallah, it was only a year ago that, via his own muddled logic, he described how his cult of martyrdom was in fact not a ‘culture of death’ but in fact ‘a culture of life’—just not if you're Jewish or non-Muslim, of course.
As His Esteemed Holiness Ayatollah Khamenei, now short on familiar company, dodders far beneath the ground in Iran proclaiming victory, astoundingly! His pedigree of aboveground friends hardly offers much more enlightenment. This is a man who presided over more than one thousand executions in Iran in 2024—often for charges as trivial as committing ‘enmity against God.’ It should be difficult to fathom how so many minds in the Western sphere could side with such despots and mutilators against Israel—the sole democracy in the Middle East and the West's principal ally in the region. Though when one begins to understand the extent to which such biases and prejudice are found in the world’s most supreme body of arbitration and diplomacy, and how giant media vehicles such as the BBC parrot their trickle-down declarations as rote, the picture does become more clear.
The body in question is, of course, the UN. And despite its frequent platforming of deluded world leaders and politicians making vapid and often dangerous pleas for ‘de-escalation,’ it isn’t made up of infallible beings, philosopher kings, or particularly wise actors. It actually constitutes a fleet of highly partisan, highly fallible, agenda-driven, often antisemitic individuals who represent not only liberal-minded democracies but also despotic authoritarian regimes like those in Iran. It may seem obvious to highlight, but I much prefer to imagine these amorphous international bodies as being populated by tangibly fallible mammals such as myself, rather than unquestionable vestibulers of transnational truths.
Now well over a year through this alternative media landscape. And in Britain, a political party farther left of the then leftist Conservative party loomed large, with promises to finally remove the Jew-hatred amongst its ranks—at least overtly. In Australia, Prime Minister Albanese's anti-Western flag-burning past came to light; we learnt all about the October 7th denying zealotry in the United States; the laughably straight-faced ICC drew equivalences between democratic politicians mediating the safest conflict in history and apocalyptic terrorists who were still, despite myriad unbelievers, engaging in savage urban warfare in Gaza; and lastly, via disparate but no less coherent platforms, intrepid counter-Islamist voices continued to speak against this growing ideological threat, quite rightly advocating for life instead of death—as if that should be worthy of debate.
Viewed through certain outlets, an increasingly one-sided conflict begins to emerge. So much so that when a chant of ‘death to the IDF' rang out from a Glastonbury stage this summer, it was met with resounding echoes from the majority middle-class crowd in attendance. Though this can perhaps be entirely understood due to the type of media these people consume, both errors in judgement and in broadcasting will not be forgotten.
If during this period your attention has been solely wobbled through such channels, you may believe that Hamas does not fire on its own citizens to keep them from fleeing to safety, to stop them from reaching aid, or to silence the bravest of dissidents and protestors. Through the fogged and cloddish lenses you might affix, the IDF, despite its membership comprising that of a small nation, is evil to the core and entirely to blame for all the deaths in Gaza—the situation is plainly simple when one is voluntarily deaf to contrasting viewpoints. They won't have rigorously vetted and facilitated countless tonnes of vital aid via COGAT, all whilst being fully aware of Hamas' intentions to hijack and hold the supplies at ransom to the plight of ordinary Gazan citizens. Or how they've continued fighting a brutal war against a savage and determined opponent whilst supplying aid themselves, under no obligation, and working with independent aid agencies such as the GHF, who actually place aid directly into the hands of ordinary people in need on the ground.
The legacy aid agencies, however, would prefer not to facilitate these efforts, which completely bypass the terrorist group Hamas. And it's almost needless to say, their campaign efforts on behalf of the hostages still being held by the terrorist group haven't quite been undertaken with such commensurate gusto. They choose instead to lobby and conspire against the needs of ordinary Palestinian people through their campaign to have these relatively unmolested channels shut down. There will be more to learn regarding how closely affiliated Hamas is with certain aid agencies and media outlets. As we've already seen, there's a great deal of footage not shown by way of many more traditional channels.
The despicable manner in which Jewish communities have been met in Western cultures since October the 7th defies both reason and decency. Though this is sadly nothing new. The fact that this was the largest attack on this community since the Holocaust is an irrefutable one, even by dint of massaged language and some less-than-concrete sources. Rather than being met with the dignity and empathy one would expect from people living in supposedly fair-minded societies, perhaps once rich in common sense and justice, the antithetical flow of bitter, illogical, and repugnant rhetoric deserves nothing short of a monumental cultural reckoning. The reform of certain broadcasting feels imperative. And equally long overdue is the return to balanced and proper educational standards in the West. However, I do still believe there is reason to feel hopeful regarding information sought. Though many ills, sometimes rightly, are laid at the door of ‘social media', they are often too general in their critique. The reality is, works such as these wouldn't be possible without this modern leviathan—a nuanced approach is vital.
As the grim, epoch-altering day comes into view, chronicling the most atrocious media available within this archive is beyond its reach. Some of the most horrific footage is contained within a forty-seven-minute film titled Bearing Witness to the October 7th Massacre and has been privately screened in over thirty countries since that date, with the purpose of combating, or at least curtailing, the predictable ‘Holocaust denial-like phenomenon.’ The showings included a screening for a large group of Hollywood industry members, organised by actress Gal Gadot, and various other private screenings in many major European cities. Even with this horrifying content aboard the minds of some of the world's most prominent media figures and diplomats, and it being circulated via their reportage, there are still those who, with great surety, smear, distort, shamelessly reframe, and inject devious conspiracy into this alarmingly veritable coverage—an unsurprising state of affairs to the most strident correspondents on this topic.
And yet, what can be, and what I hope has been shown here, is that despite the channels, pages, and outlets that work with immediacy to reshape narratives rather than plainly relaying information, an alternative route through the media landscape can be sought and found. No testament of justice could even begin to be paid to the victims of such an atrocity without precise and truthful reporting. And thanks to the plethora of independent channels and access to global media more broadly in the online world, today, the task of discerning a clear picture of events is made all the more possible.
Several major conflicts have already concluded during my modest lifetime, and when I created my October the 7th ‘playlist’ on YouTube, as well as bookmark and ‘favourite’ tabs native to news aggregators and the like, I believe I wasn't fully aware of how much of an open-ended invitation to bear witness I had made to myself—a point made even more vivid by those who continue to publicly speak truth in the face of such tyranny and amongst increasingly inhospitable populations.
That is because this conflict, or war, and its documentation are different. It didn't start on that bloody, infamous day. It didn't even start in 1948. Indeed, it is so different not due to any measure of savagery or scale, but precisely because this is a war that transcends physical boundaries and nation-states; it doesn't just concern the capture and holding of territory. It's actually an ancient and ongoing ideological war whose field of battle is made in the minds of those who seek to destroy the Jewish people, no matter their place of residence.
The reporting of these events is not a pleasure but, indeed, a necessity. Remembrance is not passive—it is participatory. It is an act in itself. The expediency and efficiency with which information reaches the end consumer are greater than ever before. And whilst this conflict is beyond the physical horizons of many, striving to discern the clearest, most faithful picture of events remains one of the principal battles of the digital age—and it must not be shirked.