Call It October 7

Over the last two years, writers have struggled with the best way to identify what Hamas did in Israel on October 7, 2023. In my own writing, I have used the words "attack," "assault," "massacre," "slaughter," and "pogrom." Others have opted for "incursion," "invasion," "atrocity," "raid," and "siege." However, none of these terms captures the horror of that day. Because the usual nouns and adjectives fail, we should refer to it simply as October 7.

Two examples from American history illustrate how the enormity of an attack can exceed normal signifiers – Pearl Harbor and September 11.

The day after Japanese attack on the U.S. at Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt famously said that "Yesterday, December 7, 1941 – a date which will live in infamy – the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by the naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan."

However, no one referred to the attack as "December 7." Instead, it became known simply as "Pearl Harbor." This phenomenon is known as metonymy, a form of abstract communication in which one word or phrase is substituted for another. In this case the proper noun "Pearl Harbor" came to denote the surprise Japanese attack and the U.S. entry into World War II.

September 11 is a better precedent for October 7.

For months after September 11, people searched for the right term to describe what happened. Much of the media quickly settled on "the tragedy of September 11." But "tragedy" was inapt. The word had fallen from its origin in Greek drama and had come to mean a sad death. In an era when the death of a single person can be a tragedy, the murder of 2,977 people transcends the tragic.

An even worse early descriptor was the bland euphemistic phrase "the events of September 11," which feels like an attempt at objectivity through the cold and impersonal language of journalism.

Eventually, Americans found the significance of the day too ponderous for the usual terms, and so "September 11" (or 9/11) stood alone, and the date came to mean the attack.

October 7 shares with Pearl Harbor and September 11 shock, surprise, and horror, but the barbarism of the day makes October 7 different.

At Pearl Harbor, airplanes carried out a conventional attack with bombs against a military site. Apart from the ordeals suffered aboard the four jets, the violence on September 11 was cold, almost impersonal. But on October 7, the violence was personal and designed to inflict prolonged suffering and humiliation.

The October 7 perpetrators recorded themselves and their victims, reveling in their savagery as they murdered 1,195 people in the most gruesome ways. It was a day of infanticide, beheading, incineration, hostage-taking, and of course rape. Not just random and intermittent rape, but gang rape, communal rape – carefully-planned, procedural, strategic rape. This dimension of October 7 has its own academic-diplomatic term: conflict-related sexual violence (CRSV).

The Dinah Project has documented Hamas' "systematic and intentional usage of sexual violence as a weapon of war" on October 7 in a report that shows how the "complexity and modus operandi of the attacks, which seem to have occurred over three cumulative waves appear to demonstrate a significant level of planning, coordination and detailed prior knowledge of the targets selected."

On October 7, Gazans killed children in front of their parents and parents in front of their children. To further traumatize the children, they slaughtered scores, perhaps hundreds, of pet dogs.

Everything about the day was planned for maximum cruelty. No analogues in modern history exist.

So, let's have no more euphemisms like "the tragedy of October 7" or "the events of October 7." Let's dispense with the quotidian nouns and modifiers. There was nothing common about October 7. Let the date alone designate the day of infamy.

Call it simply October 7.

Chief IPT Political Correspondent A.J. Caschetta is a principal lecturer at the Rochester Institute of Technology and a fellow at Campus Watch, a project of the Middle East Forum where he is also a Milstein fellow.

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