What Really Happened on October 7th? (Greg Laurie x Johnnie Moore)

My friend Johnnie Moore—advisor to presidents, humanitarian, and one of the most connected evangelical voices on the global stage—sat down with me for a wide-ranging discussion on my podcast, The Greg Laurie Show.

At three years since the October 7th attack on Israel, I want to share with you what we covered on the matter. Johnnie brought great answers on a range of common questions, like what really happened on October 7, 2023, how did Israel not know about the attack, and did Israel actually commit genocide?

Why Was October 7th More Devastating Than We Think?

Greg Laurie: It’s been three years since October 7th. People tend to gloss over this event. Well, yes, around 1,200 people were murdered on that day and people taken hostage, but they don’t go into the details.

And I remember Franklin Graham had a copy of the video, some of which was taken by the terrorists themselves. He says, “Do you want to see this?” I said, “I actually don’t.” And then he said, “Watch a little of it.” And I watched just a little, maybe four minutes. It’s still in my mind. It was so horrifying because it was taken from the viewpoint of one of these men murdering an innocent Jewish man. And you saw how barbaric it was. And sometimes I feel like, have we glossed over that too much? Do we need to just pause for a moment?

Because, next to the Holocaust, this is one of the most horrific things that has happened to the Jewish people. And it happened in their homeland.

…If it happened in America … it would be like 40,000 Americans slaughtered. I think that would get our attention.

…Proportionately the size of Israel, that’s what happened to them.

Is There Evidence for What Happened on October 7th?

Greg Laurie: Talk about that event, what actually happened on that day, and why it was so devastating to Israel.

Johnnie Moore: And also the hostages, including the children. They took kids hostage. … Babies.

Greg Laurie: …People want to dispute that one point. Well, there’s no evidence to support that, but it actually happened.

Johnnie Moore: There’s a lot of evidence. And, you know, you’re right. I mean, October 7th was the single biggest attack against the Jewish people since the Holocaust.

Was October 7th an Attempt to Derail Peace with Saudi Arabia?

Johnnie Moore: I remember that morning. I was supposed to fly to Israel that night. I was literally getting an award on Wednesday for my work building bridges between Arabs and Israelis. And I was going from there to Saudi Arabia.

That was my plan that week because we were on the edge of peace between Saudi Arabia and Israel. And this is part of what Hamas was doing and with Iran’s support to try to derail these peace plans.

But it was a singular event of terror.

Who Were Some of the Victims of October 7th?

Johnnie Moore: And what makes it even worse—everything about it’s terrible—what makes it even worse is that the people who lived in those kibbutzim, those little villages next to the Gaza Strip, many of these were the people most committed to peace. I mean, they were the people who lived there for that purpose.

Greg Laurie: Those were the people at the music festival.

Johnnie Moore: These hundreds and hundreds of young people. It was a peace festival.

How Did Hamas Gather Intelligence for the Attack?

Johnnie Moore: And in fact, some of the Hamas operatives from that day, that broke through and killed all those people in such horrific ways, they actually were actually employed on a regular basis by those kibbutzim.

They actually, they crossed over and they allowed them to work. And while they were working, they were collecting intelligence in order to prepare for this horrible attack.

Why Did People Protest in Support of Hamas After October 7th?

Johnnie Moore: …And there are all kinds of obvious things that October 7th revealed. The less obvious things that it revealed was just the total moral corruption of so many of our institutions and so many of our leaders who could not see good and evil.

Because people forget that on October 8th, when many of our churches were praying for our friends in Israel, on October 8th, 2023, protests erupted in all of our democratic capitals and all of the major cities in the world.

Greg Laurie: You would think there would be protests in favor of Israel, and it was the very opposite.

Johnnie Moore: They were protesting in support of Hamas. And it just shows what had grown up underneath.

Greg Laurie: “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” is one of their slogans.

Johnnie Moore: They were celebrating it all. And they were celebrating it all as before Israel had retaliated in a war that Hamas started that day.

And that’s what it was. It was a war that they had started. There were thousands and thousands of Hamas operatives.

What Was Hamas’ Goal on October 7th?

Greg Laurie: What do you think the objective of Hamas was? Like, “We hope that this war accomplishes this goal.”

Johnnie Moore: Oh, they wanted to wipe Israel out.

I mean, what Yahya Sinwar was doing was he was– number one, he was concerned that if there’s going to be peace between Israel and Saudi Arabia, that it would reset the entire region.

Number two, and Iran was involved in all of this. Iran was, the Iranian IRGC dreamed up all the tunnels and all the infrastructure. They trained the operatives. They smuggled the weapons.

What Was Hamas’s Plan for Attacking Israel?

Johnnie Moore: But what Yahya Senwar thought was that they would break through in Gaza, by the way, sometimes using paragliders. And the paragliding training actually came from Europeans that were trying to help with tourism, oddly enough, in the Gaza Strip.

But Yahya thought that—evil, evil man—they were going to break through and then Hezbollah was going to join from the north with 150,000 rockets. And it would be the destruction of Israel.

Why Didn’t Hezbollah Join the October 7th Attack?

Johnnie Moore: And for whatever reason, Hezbollah did not join in. And there have been the reasons for all of that, some of which was Sinwar was really operating on his own timetable and wasn’t coordinating with all of the Iranian proxies and all of these things.

But it was not inconceivable that had that plan actually been implemented as he imagined it—with an attack from the south, an attack from the north, Iranian proxies in Syria, and maybe even Iran itself joining—it was an existential moment for Israel.

It was a shock that with all of their technology and all of their innovation, that they could still be vulnerable.

How Could Israeli Intelligence Miss This Huge Breach?

Greg Laurie: You know, it’s ironic.

I was on a phone call with a number of other pastors and Christian leaders orchestrated by Mike Evans. And Prime Minister Netanyahu was on.

And he was telling us how safe and secure Israel is, how advanced they are technologically. They’ve never been stronger.

He was talking about this peace treaty or this, you know, new relationship with Saudi Arabia. And it was so optimistic. And it was only a couple– a few days after that that this happened. So clearly he did not see this coming. How could there be a breach of this kind without Israeli’s intelligence, Massad, their military, knowing about it?

Johnnie Moore: I mean all of that will be will be studied and analyzed, but i think it’s a lesson for all of us.

Greg Laurie: Yes.

Johnnie Moore: That even the most powerful, sophisticated countries in the world can have blind spots. I mean the United States has some blind spots-

Greg Laurie: Yes we do.

Johnnie Moore: Some of which I know about, which I will not say on this microphone, because you know, you don’t want other people to know about them.

But every country does.

And one of the things that Israel lost in the October 7th attack was that sort of like mysterious deterrence and invincibility, which they steadily gained back…

Was There a Genocide in Gaza?

Greg Laurie: Of course, [Israel’s] accused by some of genocide.

I don’t even think people who use the word genocide know what the word means. If Israel wanted to commit a genocide, they could do it. And they could do it in short order, but they’ve done nothing of the kind.

But their response …there’s innocent children that have been killed. But we don’t even know how accurate some of that information is that’s relayed through a very compliant and cooperative press with this sort of agenda, this anti-Israel agenda.

So tell me what you think about the response of Israel and maybe bring clarity to what’s going on in Gaza, because you know a lot about that in particular.

Johnnie Moore: …There was obviously not a genocide in Gaza. And the shocking thing is … we’re speaking, you know, after the UN General Assembly took place in New York, and the absolutely horrible Secretary General of the United Nations included in his remarks that the worst thing he’s seen as a Secretary General of the United Nations is what happened in the Gaza Strip. While he’s been Secretary General of the United Nations, like literally millions of people have died under his watch.

What did happen in Gaza was Hamas started a war.

Greg Laurie: That’s right.

Johnnie Moore: And to your point, if there was an attack like that on the United States of America, we would respond. And the Israelis responded to that war.

How Has the Media Shaped Public Perception of Israel?

Johnnie Moore: And all wars are horrible. And civilians die in wars. And yet, on the same token, it’s not only a compliant press, it’s that what we’ve been experiencing is actually the first, what I call the first global information war, where we have seen basically everything Hamas said, the global media and many governments took at face value, and everything Israel said they treated it as a lie.