The girl in the red scarf
How one image of a terrified Israeli running for her life on October 7 exposed an underbelly of terror support and hate in the UK
This is what leading pro-Palestinian activist Sarah Wilkinson posted while Hamas were murdering people in Israel on October 7th. The Israeli woman wearing the red scarf in that chillingly infamous video is Vlada Patapov. She survived the attack on the Nova festival where 360 were killed and dozens kidnapped. She never knew and likely never will that a British woman far away was celebrating the “Palestinian heroes” that were still hunting her.
Vlada and her partner Matan along with their friend were at the party when alarms screamed and rockets started flying. They got in their car as did hundreds of revellers, and headed out of the one exit. Eventually they got to the road but soon traffic halted. A woman ran by from in front of them shouting “terrorists”. Then a man. He was gunned down. Vlada fled on foot and hid in a shelter but the policeman there told them to run. Run.
So she ran. As terrorists came from multiple directions and people were dropping all around her, she ran. She described how easily Hamas killed them. Like fish in a barrel, but human beings in a field. At some point strangers inside a moving vehicle shouted at her to get in. She jumped. Then her friend did. Eight in a tiny car. She was pinned under her friend but saw her partner Matan’s desperate face too far to get to. Too far for rescue. They looked at one another with expressions of grim goodbyes.
A woman drove by and saved Matan but they ended up in different places. Thankfully both were saved.
Hamas continued their killing spree for hours after and it took two days to fully root out all the terrorists. The murderers and rapists who Sarah Wilkinson called “Palestinian heroes”.
Wilkinson’s isn’t the only pro-Palestinian voice to celebrate the Hamas attack on Israel. We saw parties on the streets of London and here in Brighton a speaker called the massacre “beautiful”. For 11 months there’s been regular ‘protests’ that are riddled with antisemitism and terror support. 18 in London alone. There are only ever a handful of arrests mostly when Jewish people and others witness and call it out on social media.
Yet what is never challenged is the underlying hate at the base of this movement. On Saturday the organisers Palestine Solidarity Campaign shared a video of the front of their march where people were chanting “From the River to the Sea”. They shared it publicly and proudly. With likely full knowledge of the controversy around it and what it is understood to mean for most Jewish and Israeli people. Genocide and ethnic cleaning. The destruction of Israel. There were chants for intifada and many hateful placards and banners. Marchers made the shape of the inverted red triangle with their fingers and were wearing clothes with that Hamas coded symbol on.
Most of that behaviour went unpunished.
Sarah Wilkinson is just the tip of a dark iceberg. A shadowy mass in our society. Her post on October 7th one of thousands that rejoiced while Israelis ran for their lives. The image of the running girl in the red scarf revealed that ugliness. Showed us who people were.
The girl herself Vlada Patapov was asked how she felt about her image becoming so well known as a symbol for that Black Shabbat. She said: “This is a picture of a girl who survived and not someone who did not. It gives me some hope.”
One image. Evil and good. Ugliness and hope.
I’m with Vlada.
*interview with Vlada Patapov