I'll direct you to the Nat Turner rebellion [1]. Or the practice of "necklacing" in apartheid South AFrica [2]. Or the Mau Mau rebellion [3]. As Nelson Mandela put it [4]:

> A freedom fighter learns the hard way that it is the oppressor who defines the nature of the struggle, and the oppressed is often left no recourse but to use methods that mirror those of the oppressor. At a certain point, one can only fight fire with fire.

History didn't begin on October 7. October 7 was the culmination of (then) 75 years of oppression, ethnic cleansing, colonial violence, collective punishment, starvation, the denial of clean water, the denial of electricity and other basics and making conditions generally unlivable. Israeli tactics included "mowing the grass" [5] and putting Palestinians "on a diet" [6][7]. Palestinians are often held without trial [8] and when there is a trial it's a sham in front of a military tribunal. And this doesn't even touch the constant settler violence in the West Bank.

One reason we say the oppressor sets the level of violence is what happens with peaceful protests, such as the Great March of Return [9]. What happened? Israelis used them as target practice [10][11].

October 7 was violent, no question. but there were also a lot of lies about what happened [12][13][14].

And whatever you think about the tactics or outcomes of October 7, Israel has done an October 7 every day since October 7.

One point:

> the people in the ghetto were on the verge of being shipped off to concentration camps and being killed in gas chambers

There's actually no evidence they knew that. The Nazis went to great lengths to deceive such populations that they were being resettled.

and

> they had been suffering from rampant disease and starvation before the fighting.

Which is different, how?

> ... proscribed terrorist groups ...

That's how state violence works. It makes things illegal. There was a time when slavery was legal. Does that make opposing it wrong? Apartheid in South Africa was legal. Apartheid in Israel is "legal".

[1]: https://www.normanfinkelstein.com/nat-turner-in-gaza/

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Necklacing

[3]: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2016/aug/18/uncovering-trut...

[4]: https://eamonka.com/2010/03/25/6-great-quotes-from-mandelas-...

[5]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mowing_the_grass

[6]: https://imeu.org/resources/resources/putting-palestinians-on...

[7]: https://foreignpolicy.com/2009/02/25/israel-denied-pasta-to-...

[8]: https://www.btselem.org/publications/summaries/200910_withou...

[9]: https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/campaigns/2018/10/gaza-gre...

[10]: https://www.un.org/unispal/document/two-years-on-people-inju...

[11]: https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2020-03-06/ty-article-ma...

[12]: https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/resource/nyt-screams/

[13]: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/10/12/white-house-walks-...

[14]: https://www.thepipd.com/content/blog/israeli-major-disinform...

> October 7 was the culmination of (then) 75 years of [...]

Nothing you might say after this can justify massacring, kidnapping or raping civilians.

> the denial of clean water, the denial of electricity

This is pretty unreasonable framing. Israel withdrew from Gaza, leaving behind valuable modern infrastructure like desalination plants, and then provided free water and electricity even to an enemy who constantly attacked it.

Hamas, on the other hand, proudly filmed themselves digging up pipes to turn into rockets for terrorizing Israel - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=04NB27x138Y