In the name of correcting the narrative: the documentaries "Holy Occupation" and "Al-Shifa Hospital: 14 Days of Savagery"

Israel's unprecedented genocide against the people of Gaza since 7 October is about to complete its 11th month. Every day Israel continues its genocide by surpassing its own bar of savagery and crime. Everyone in the world with reason, conscience and a sense of right rebels against what is happening, but none of these rebellions and objections is enough to stop the enraged Israel. Because the perpetrators of these inhuman massacres, of this genocide, are protected by the United States, absolved by European states, and watched with expectations by Arab countries.

There are also those who try to justify Israel's aggression after 7 October as a response to Hamas's attack. As if before 7 October Israel were a normal country minding its own business and dispensing peace and justice. There is a gigantic field of power built over a century on Jewish victimhood. What stories Zionism, which brought Israel into being, produced from this victimhood, what fairy tales it fabricated, and it has kept the people sleeping on their feet until now.

That a monstrous structure like Israel, which has been inflicted on all humanity, has come out of this victimhood has been made possible by a gigantic media and communications sector, through strategic communication activity. Until now the process was always questioned in terms of how such a monstrous structure could come out of such a victimized people. As one becomes acquainted with the skills of media illusions, it also emerges that one must question the reality of the victimhoods that a structure of such monstrosity is claimed to have undergone in the past. We know what happened in the past to those who questioned this (Garaudy, for example), but today there is now much more data. In fact, with 7 October, all the hypocrisy, falsity and hollowness of the Western-centered world of values that tolerates Zionism has been laid bare.

Of course, one must not lie back thinking that it has come out anyway. These things must be documented; they must be told and shown to those who have heard and those who have not, in the most effective way. What is not documented, however plainly it was lived, can be forgotten, and is forgotten. And once forgotten, its repetition becomes far more likely.

Last Saturday in Istanbul there was the presentation of two documentary works in this direction. One is a documentary titled "Holy Occupation," prepared by TRT World. Produced 2 months after 7 October by infiltrating the usurpers known as "settlers" in the West Bank (not Gaza), the documentary shows with what kind of religious motivation these usurpers come from many parts of the world and with what appetite they seize the lands of the Palestinians. This state of usurpation is the routine practice of the Israeli occupation, and for years even in the Western media this "settlement" was seen as an excusable, even as innocent as possible, act, accompanied by stories about the Holocaust or other injustices Jews suffered in history. The Palestinians whose lands they usurped were treated as though they were matched with the people who had oppressed them throughout history.

This was, of course, the way the Western media serving the Zionist project reflected the matter. Since 7 October, the "usurpation" dimension of these settlements has begun to become far more visible all over the world. This became one of the great contributions of 7 October to the Palestinian cause, even if at a great price.

In TRT World's documentary the religious motivations behind the Jews who voluntarily joined this settlement program, coming from many parts of the world, are drawn attention to in a very striking way. This Zionist theology is hate-filled at its core, and there is no good it promises for humanity.

This theology, which instills nothing but hatred, contempt and hostility toward all people who are not like itself, cannot of course be the authentic belief of Judaism. This perversely man-handled theology, extremely dangerous for humanity, can justify the genocide being committed in Gaza today, again with religious grounds. The death of every single child, which makes the conscience of all humanity ache, creates not a speck of sorrow in these rotten hearts, but on the contrary leads to great jubilation. It is truly very hard to believe. What kind of belief, what kind of world of values, what kind of motivation is this? Has the Orientalist Western world, which for centuries has been brewing its boza at the Muslims' nape with peace, the sword, human rights, religious tolerance, religious bigotry, democracy, science, reason, freedom and so on, written a single line about this bigotry until now? It has not.

Yet these are realities that would set off a new hurricane of enlightenment, and announcing these realities in the most striking way will be a means of awakening the sleepers.

The second documentary was organized by Aljazeera and focuses on just one incident of the genocide, which since 7 October has proceeded with a savagery surpassing itself at every step: the attacks on Al-Shifa Hospital.

In fact, whichever attack of the occupying regime one focuses on over the roughly 11 months, a similar dimension of savagery, brutality and crime against humanity can be shown in the most striking way. Each of the deliberate attacks on schools, houses of worship, broadcasters and journalists exposes the plain guilt of Israel and all the powers behind it. But among these events, the documentary on the repeated bombing and besieging of Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza, the killing of the patients inside, and the forced dragging out of patients and wounded from their beds, has also been prepared with Aljazeera's documentary quality. The event was screened in Istanbul through the joint organization of the Record for Humanity initiative and the Aljazeera team.

Before the presentation, a special panel was held featuring artists, politicians and student activists known worldwide for their pro-Palestinian work.

Both documentaries are important steps in a process in which all the narratives in the world about Israel are being turned upside down and rebuilt. The real great step was taken in the field on 7 October by the valiant men of Gaza. Israel was stunned by this great step, and since that day, with all the crimes against humanity it has committed, it has revealed the real face both of itself and of a whole great civilization that supports it. What remains is to put all this forth with a solid and strong testimony.

Still, let me end by asking why the same day was chosen for the presentation of these two documentaries, each important in its own right. Perhaps they are complementary works, but the possibility that presenting them on the same day would reduce their total effect should have been considered.