Moscow mass shooting and October 7 massacre: Similarities and differences - analysis

• Published date: 24 March 2024
• Author: SETH J. FRANTZMAN
• Publication title: Jerusalem Post, The: Web Edition Articles (Israel)

The attack in Moscow is similar to many other ISIS and other extremist attacks around the world, most like the November 2015 Bataclan attack in Paris, the 2008 Mumbai attacks, the Westgate Mall attack in Kenya, and also the Moscow theater siege in 2002

It also reminds us of the October 7 attack. Like October 7, this involved several armed men murdering civilians. The videos show the same adoration of massacre in the eyes of the killers as they seem to enjoy machine-gunning people who are trying to flee.

In general, it is there that the similarities to October 7 end. This is because the reaction of the world has been completely different to the attack in Moscow and the attack in Israel. When hundreds of Hamas terrorists committed a similar massacre in Israel, many of the countries that have condemned the attack in Russia, did not condemn the attack in Israel. For instance, Russia, China, Iran, Qatar, Turkey and many other countries that condemned the Moscow attack did not condemn the October 7 attack. In fact many of those countries have sought to justify the October 7 attack. There is also a major campaign of denial about the Hamas crimes of October 7. For instance an Algerian senator recently denied the Hamas sexual assaults that took place on October 7. In the Moscow attack the attackers did not commit sexual assault, so there is no comparison in that regard.

When it comes to condemnation that is one level in which we can see the hypocrisy of the world. This hypocrisy is not total. Many western countries did condemn the attack on Israel and also condemned the attack on Russia.

Now it's important to look at several other contrasts. The attack on Russia has spawned rumors of conspiracies.

Some on social media have claimed the attack was a "false flag" while others have asserted that ISIS may have been "hired" for the attack. These voices present ISIS as a tool of some other terrorists' agenda.

Usually these types of conspiracy theorists claim ISIS is linked to the US, or even to Israel. In essence you have a whole echo chamber of people who not only deny the October 7 attack, but then claim Israel is behind the attack on Russia. For these people Israel is always to blame for everything, and any attack on Israel is always denied, or excused and justified. While it may seem that these conspiracies are marginal, they tend to infect a swath of the far-right and far-left online. Some of the accounts that push them have hundreds of thousands of followers.

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