Czech TV played old clips on Fri. of the march by students to Národní třída in Prague onNov. 17, 1989, and said that the “the brutal beatings and thrashings with batons [by the SNB security force] had only one purpose – to injure and maim as many demonstrators as possible.” Dissident Michael Kocáb wrote in his book Vabank that KGB Gen. Teslenko apparently oversaw the event as a way to speed up the revolution. Thirty-four years later the attack by Hamas on Israel on Oct. 7 is seen by some to be a way to interfere with the planned Saudi- Israeli agreement, while others see the brutality of the event and the targeting of so many civilians as an intentional effort to provoke comparable brutality on the part of the Israelis. We are now witnesses to the Israeli reaction on a daily basis, but how the situation in Gaza finally ends is still to be seen. With Nov. 1989 as a reference point, it’s probably safe to expect that the greater the brutality, the quicker and more revolutionary the change will be.

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