If you’ve spent any time on X in the past three months then you may have seen this coming. There are a bunch of accounts on X who exist only to promote Hamas and to simultaneously discount any claims made by Israel. So, for instance, these accounts were all quick to blame Israel for an attack on a hospital in Gaza which most experts agreed was the result of a stray missile fired by Hamas.

These same channels posted images and video of Israeli hostages being released, using them to claim they had all been treated well and to suggest some of the female hostages were sorry to leave their male captors. That’s something that numerous former hostages have denied was the case but the pro-Hamas accounts never post those interviews.

Today the Washington Post reports that this pro-Hamas denialism has reached a new level with some leftists now claiming the entire 10/7 attack was a false flag operation carried out be Israel as an excuse to attack Gaza.

A small but growing group denies the basic facts of the attacks, pushing a spectrum of falsehoods and misleading narratives that minimize the violence or dispute its origins. Some argue the ambush was staged by the Israeli military to justify an invasion of Gaza. Others say that some 240 hostages Hamas took into Gaza were actually kidnapped by Israel. Some contend the United States is behind the plot…

It’s bleeding into the real world: Demonstrators have shouted the claim at anti-Israel protests and have used it to justify removing posters of hostages in cities like London and Chicago. At a November city council meeting in Oakland, Calif., multiple residents disputed the veracity of the attack…

“So basically the Hamas attack was a false flag for Israel to occupy Gaza and kill Palestinians,” reads a recent post on the Reddit forum r/LateStageCapitalism. “Expected behaviour from nazi wannabes.”

LateStageCapitalism is a community of left-wing activists that bills itself as “A One-Stop-Shop for Evidence of our Social, Moral and Ideological Rot.”But the claim can be found elsewhere on the internet, including publications critical of Israel like Electronic Intifada and GrayZone, and in messaging groups like Monte’s Uncensored Truths, which previously had been focused on pandemic-related gripes about vaccines and conspiratorial ideas about “globalists” ushering in a so-called New World Order. Right-wing Holocaust deniers also have latched onto the claims.

There are certainly plenty of conspiracy theorists on the right which is why Alex Jones has a career, but the major accounts I’ve seen relaying pro-Hamas and anti-Israel claims are on the left. Case in point, Jackson Hinkle, who describes himself as a MAGA communist, is probably the top pro-Hamas influencer on X. Hinkle is a long-time promoter of Russia and Putin who until very recently was engaged to Miss Russia 2023. She apparently dumped him last month. This week, Hinkle is touring China.

🚨🇨🇳🇺🇸 Visited the site of the first National Congress of the Communist Party of China today. pic.twitter.com/Y5nMJT93rt

— Jackson Hinkle 🇺🇸 (@jacksonhinklle) January 21, 2024

When not posting photos of himself in China, he’s posting pro-Hamas content.

🚨🇵🇸 HAMAS fighters pray in the streets under the fire of ISRAELI BOMBINGS!
pic.twitter.com/ErDoNn1MgB

— Jackson Hinkle 🇺🇸 (@jacksonhinklle) January 22, 2024

I don’t know if Hinkle has spread the false flag claim but he has certainly spread plenty of misleading claims about Israel since 10/7.

You really have to be a special snowflake to believe the 10/7 attack was some kind of false flag. The attack was filmed by Hamas as it happened and a collection of those clips has been screened several times since then. Hamas had been planning the attack for more than a year.

As for the claim that Israel kidnapped its own hostages I really can’t imagine where that is coming from. There is video showing the kidnappings and Hamas has admitted having the hostages in Gaza, demanding a ceasefire in exchange for their release. Hamas has also released multiple videos of hostages being released by their own militants in Gaza.

Obviously the truth, including things that Hamas itself has confirmed are true, doesn’t matter. Unfortunately there are people out there willing to believe blatant lies so long as the outcome is that Israel is made out to be the villain in every situation.

Update: Max Blumenthal of The Grayzone definitely deserves credit for spreading a lot of nonsense about 10/7. Haaretz published an opinion piece which served as a fact-check of some of his claims back in November.