Hasty media puts Jewish lives at risk
IT is no exaggeration to say the media breathlessly amplified a terrorist organization’s blood libel against the Jewish people Tuesday, less than a week and a half after that same terrorist organization carried out the largest single-day slaughter of Jews since the Holocaust.
When an explosion occurred near a hospital in Gaza, the press instantaneously — and nearly unanimously — reported Israel was responsible for a strike that killed hundreds.
“Breaking News: An Israeli airstrike hit a Gaza hospital on Tuesday, killing at least 200 Palestinians, according to the Palestinian Health Ministry, which said the number of casualties was expected to rise,” declared The New York Times.
“Hundreds killed in Israeli airstrike on Gaza City hospital, Health Ministry says,” decreed The Associated Press.
Wait for facts
Not so very long after these reckless voices had rushed to propagate this unfounded accusation, Israeli authorities released information to support its contention the explosion was actually caused by a faulty rocket.
One that had been fired from within Gaza — at Israel — by Palestinian terrorists.
The American military came to the same conclusion, as President Biden later confirmed.
Journalism’s most hallowed halls had gotten the weighty story hopelessly wrong. “But wait!” cried out the media’s apologists.
“These outlets were merely reporting on the claims of reputable sources on the ground in Gaza.” That dog won’t hunt.
All the vague attributions leaned on by the press — “Palestinian Health Ministry,” “health authorities,” “government in Gaza” — is more accurately Hamas.
The media should obviously not be amplifying the claims of terrorists. Especially not those who hold the explicit aim of murdering Jews, have the explicit intention of sacrificing innocent Palestinians to do it and take explicit interest in exaggerating civilian casualties in Gaza and misleading the international community about who bears responsibility for them.
And especially not without confirming their claims.
Laundering Hamas’ lies with weasel words like “government in Gaza” or by referring to innocuous-sounding “health authorities” is a damning indictment of those who engaged in this thinly veiled propaganda campaign.
The consequences of this particular scandal are reverberating far beyond the media ecosphere.
Across the Middle East, protesters are taking to the streets to pressure their governments to condemn Israel and aid Hamas.
Palestinian terrorists killed Palestinian civilians, Hamas lied about it, and the media presented that lie as the reasonable claim of a neutral third party.
Now Jews will suffer for it. This constitutes one of the most flagrant and consequential failures of the American press in decades, and the full measure of its repercussions will likely not be known for years to come.