Americans brace for all-consuming Oct 7 anniversary: protests, play about survivors and politics

A month after Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, journalists Phelim McAleer and wife Ann McElhinney visited the nation and interviewed 20 survivors and family members of the slain. 

The couple’s purpose was to create a “verbatim play” based on the actual transcripts of their interviews. Monday night, the one-year anniversary of the terror attack, the play will be performed at UCLA, where some of the more dramatic protests against Israel have taken place.

McAleer told Just the News that pro-Palestinian groups are planning to disrupt the stage play and “there will be massive security – the police are bringing in bomb-sniffing dogs.” 

Thus, the performance and the reaction to it could be considered an indication as to how much the one-year-old act of terrorism still resonates with Americans, and how much it matters to them in the upcoming presidential election.

Israel said that when 1,200 of its citizens were murdered on Oct. 7, 2023, it was the worst one-day attack on Jews since the Holocaust. The Hamas-run Gaza Health Ministry (not known for accuracy) says that Israel’s response has thus far has taken the lives of 40,000 Palestinians.  

According to a poll form Langer Research Associates and Public Opinion Research Israel, if Israelis could vote, 54 % would choose GOP presidential Donald Trump and just 24% would vote for Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris, with the rest undecided. 

Israeli resident Marc Zell, vice president and general counsel of Republicans Overseas, notes that there are 500,000 eligible U.S. citizen voters in Israel, equal to or greater than the number of potential voters in more than 10 states.

“Some very savvy stateside pundits have suggested that the vote in Israel could well determine the outcome of the presidential election as well as the balance of power in the Senate and House of Representatives,” Zell told Just the News.

He said that in 2000 when George W. Bush beat Al Gore for the presidency it was determined by 537 votes in three South Florida counties, where Bush received 1,200 votes from Israel. 

Israeli voters need to be motivated to vote, “But when they do vote, they vote overwhelmingly Republican – an anomaly when it comes to the Jewish vote, which has consistently favored the Democrats by a wide margin” in the U.S.

Also in Israel is Avi Abelow, host of the pulseofisrael.com show, who told Just the News that Israelis are skeptical of Harris.

“One presidential candidate has a proven record of pro-Israel policies, someone who moved the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, recognized our sovereignty over the Golan Heights, and backed us on the world stage,” he said. “The other candidate, well, her track record doesn’t show the same commitment.”

He also said Israeli’s are paying attention to largely pro-Palestinian protesters at American universities. 

“This isn’t just a problem for Jews or Israelis; this is a problem for every American who cares about the future of their country,” he said. “What happens on these campuses doesn’t stay there. It will spread into politics, media, culture, and ultimately, into the very fabric of American society.”

In New York City alone, students from at least a dozen college campuses throughout the city are planning a walkout Monday as the city braces for a day of protests on the anniversary. 

Columbia University, on Manhattan's Upper West Side, was the site of some of the biggest, longest and most disruptive protests. Pro-Palestinian protests by students and others went from April to June. The New York City Police Department eventually dismantled the encampments, resulting in the arrest of roughly 100 people. 

Protests have already started in the U.S. 

In Washington, D.C., on Saturday night, protesters gathered near the White House, and one person set himself on fire, according to news reports. And late last week, the FBI and Department of Homeland Security issued a joint public announcement stating the anniversary could serve as motivators for acts of violence by extremists. 

A Harvard CAPS/Harris poll indicates that only 34% of likely voters approve of the way the Biden-Harris administration is handling the Hamas-Israel conflict, with 69% saying a ceasefire, advocated by President Joe Biden, should only happen after Hamas is removed from power and all hostages are released. 

But a poll taken in April at the height of university protests commissioned by Summit Ministries and conducted by Scott Rasmussen’s RMG Research paints a different picture. 

Among adults ages 18-24, 47% say Israel is unjust in its response to Hamas simply because it has more wealth and power, while 42 percent disagreed. Overall, while just 10% of American likely voters say Israel doesn’t even have a right to exist, the number rises to 33% among those ages 18-24.

“It is still a very big topic for supporters and opponents – massive. Opinions have hardened and not changed,” said McAleer, who adds that many Democrat Jews will “hold their nose” when voting for Harris.

“There's a historic split among the parties. Democrats are now becoming an anti-Israeli party; the older generation are pro Israel but after this election or certainly the next – the anti-Israel faction will be in the ascendancy,” he predicted.

Robert Shapiro, a political science professor at Columbia University, told Just the News that he expects campus protests to re-emerge coinciding with the anniversary of Oct. 7.

“As an election issue, it will be important to some minority group voters opposed to white oppression in any form, as well as some young voters,” he said.

He also predicts that many Arab and Palestinian voters in Michigan could vote for Trump to punish Biden and the Democrats for their support of Israel, even though Trump is perceived as being more supportive of Israel.

After Iran launched a missile attack on Israel last week, Trump posted on social media, “We had PEACE. Now, War or the threat of War, is raging everywhere, and the two Incompetents running this Country are leading us to the brink of World War III. You wouldn’t trust Joe or Kamala to run a lemonade stand, let alone lead the Free World.”

Trump added: “It is no surprise that Iran desperately wants Kamala Harris to be President, because they know as long as she is in power, they can take advantage of America … . If I was in charge, October 7th never happens.”

Harris countered with: “My commitment to the security of Israel is unwavering. We will continue to work with our allies and partners to disrupt Iran‘s aggressive behavior and hold them accountable.”

But Shapiro said the issue could land Trump in the White House again.

“If Trump can regain Georgia and Arizona and not lose North Carolina and then wins in Michigan due to the Arab/Palestinian-American vote, and performs better than before among Black and young voters, he can win the electoral vote,” he said.

Though John Pitney, a professor of American politics at Claremont McKenna College, says that the issue simply doesn’t have the urgency as it did as recently as August, when some Democrats worried that pro-Palestine protesters would interrupt their convention.

“There were protests, but they were nothing like the 1968 antiwar demonstrations in Chicago,” he said. “One problem for the current protest movement is the taint of anti-Semitism.”

Beyond the stage-play at UCLA, a host of other programming is in store for the anniversary, including We Will Dance Again, a documentary streaming on Paramount+ that shows bodycam footage of Hamas terrorists killing and capturing 400 revelers at the Nova Music Festival, in southern Israel. One segment features concert-goers hiding beneath trash in a dumpster, to no avail as Hamas gunmen pick them off, regardless.

Among the interviewed are the parents of Hersh Goldberg-Polin, 23, who suffered injuries from a grenade at the festival and was taken hostage. His mother, Rachel Goldberg, and father, Jon Polin, spoke at the Democratic National Convention, each wearing a piece of tape emblazoned with the number “320” that signified how many days their son and others had been missing.

“Needing our only son and all of the cherished hostages home is not a political issue; it is a humanitarian issue,” Jon Polin said during the couple’s presentation. Ten days later they learned their son had been executed by his captors.