US Jewish groups found ‘The 10/7 Project’ to fight denial of Hamas atrocities
Initiative also intended to provide ‘more complete and accurate information about the Israel-Hamas war in real time for policymakers and the American public’
Five major Jewish organizations have teamed up to maintain American support for Israel and fill what they say is a gap in coverage of the Israel-Hamas war.
“The 10/7 Project,” named for the day Hamas launched the war with a deadly invasion from the Gaza Strip, has as backers the American Jewish Committee, which initiated the project; the American Israel Public Affairs Committee; the Jewish Federations of North America; the Anti-Defamation League; and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.
“The 10/7 Project is designed to promote continued US bipartisan support for Israel by working to ensure more complete and accurate information about the Israel-Hamas war in real time for policymakers and the American public,” the statement released Tuesday said.
The announcement was spurred, organizers said, by the mass turnout last month at a pro-Israel rally in Washington. Pro-Israel groups have been grappling with how to keep Hamas’s October 7 atrocities in the spotlight while media attention turns to the devastation caused as Israel wages war in Gaza in order to topple the terror group’s regime and secure the release of the hostages that Hamas terrorists snatched that day.
“Since October 7, there has been a concerted and consistent effort from Israel’s enemies to draw a false and dangerous equivalence between Hamas’ deadly rampage to destroy the Jewish state and Israel’s right to defend itself against terrorists,” said Ted Deutch, the American Jewish Committee CEO and former Democratic congressman, in a release.
William Daroff, the Conference of Presidents CEO, said in a text message that it was worth keeping the atrocities front and center in part to confront a crop of people who have denied the magnitude or depravity of the attack.
“We must ensure that America and the entire world are told and retold the stories of the butchery of the October 7 massacre,” he said in a text. “We must discredit and make outcasts of 10/7 deniers, who are Hamas sympathizers seeking to perpetuate false and misleading narratives by minimizing and rationalizing the most deadly day for the Jewish people since the Holocaust.”
On October 7, some 3,000 terrorists burst across the border into Israel from the Gaza Strip by land, air and sea, killing some 1,200 people and seizing some 240 hostages of all ages under the cover of a deluge of thousands of rockets fired at Israeli towns and cities. The vast majority of those killed as gunmen seized border communities were civilians — including children and the elderly. Entire families were executed in their homes, and over 360 were slaughtered at an outdoor festival amid horrific acts of brutality by the terrorists.
Daroff, whose group helped organize the mass rally along with JFNA, also said sustaining Jewish solidarity was key. All of the other groups partnering on the 10/7 Project are members of the Conference of Presidents, an umbrella body that supports Israel and advocates for other policies.
“We must work together, as one Jewish community, to successfully communicate to the American people the critical need to stand with Israel, as well as the importance of the US-Israel relationship to America and to Israel,” he said.
Meanwhile, a growing number of Democrats are calling for a ceasefire and the rising death toll and unfolding humanitarian crisis in Gaza have sparked outrage in much of the world.
The Hamas-run health ministry in Gaza says Israel’s ongoing military campaign has killed more than 16,000 people, most of them women and children. Those figures cannot be independently verified and are believed to include both Hamas terrorists and civilians, and people killed as a consequence of terror groups’ own rocket misfires. According to Israeli military estimates, some 5,000 Hamas members have been killed in the Gaza Strip, in addition to more than 1,000 terrorists killed in Israel during the October 7 onslaught.
Israel says its offensive is aimed at destroying Hamas’s military and governance capabilities, and has vowed to eliminate the entire terror group, which rules the Strip. It says it is targeting all areas where Hamas operates, while seeking to minimize civilian casualties.
- Israel & the Region
- 2023-2024 Israel-Hamas war
- October 7 Hamas atrocities
- Ted Deutch
- William Daroff
- American Jewish Committee
- AIPAC American Israel Public Affairs Committee
- Jewish Federations of North America General Assembly
- ADL Anti-Defamation League
- Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations