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October 17, 2023

The media run with Hamas propaganda about a bombed hospital

By Andrea Widburg

Thanks to support from Iran, Hamas is fairly well-armed and, of course, it makes up in viciousness what it lacks in technical sophistication. However, Hamas’s greatest weapon is propaganda. In the latest conflagration, it engaged in a single orgy of killing. Now, though, it’s looking forward to weeks of anti-Israel propaganda that the world’s media will unhesitatingly accept and relay. The latest example is Hamas’s claim that Israel killed 900 innocent people in a Gaza hospital. The story was almost instantly debunked but don’t expect that to change the narrative.

Here’s the original report, along with an update claiming hundreds of casualties:

Very quickly, though, people pointed out problems with the claimed Israeli attack. For example, if you turn on the audio, the rocket seems to have originated nearby and been coming in fast. There wasn’t the droning sound of something falling from the sky.  According to Bonchie, at Red State,

Whatever hit the hospital, it was not a guided or unguided bomb from an IAF airplane (both of which freefall with no propellant). As far as I can find, there's not much of anything in the IAF's arsenal that would match what is in that video.

That was a good instinct because more information swiftly followed. It turns out that practically at the same moment that the rocket hit the hospital, Hamas was boasting about its assault on Haifa. (As always, you must understand how close these regions are to each other, so Hamas doesn’t need long-distance weapons. The distance from Gaza to Haifa is roughly 100 miles. It’s as if New York went to war against Boston.)

Thanks to Israel’s eyes in the skies, we now know that the rocket that hit the hospital came from within Gaza itself:

In other words, Hamas inadvertently bombed its own headquarters. Sometimes, the fog of war works.

Nevertheless, the usual suspects are doing everything they can to show Israel as the despoiler of women and children. I’ve just grabbed a few screenshots of what the media have on tap as they wage their own war against Israel.

Here’s AP’s home page from today at 4:15 p.m. ET. It acknowledges Israel’s denial (which is supported by footage) but makes it clear that Gaza suffers. I’ve highlighted the really telling story:

MSNBC hasn’t even bothered to update its homepage yet to acknowledge Israel’s denial that it had nothing to do with striking Hamas’s hospital-based headquarters. Of course, the text of the other articles shows that MSNBC doesn’t even pretend to report news; it’s all narrative, all the time. This is its homepage from today at 4:15 p.m. ET:

CBS News also hasn’t gotten around to an update as of this writing (and note how it shares the same heartrending photo as AP does on its homepage):

CNN has added Israel’s refutation but makes sure that Hamas’s claim gets prominence:

To its credit, ABC News has given Israel’s refutation prominent placement on its home page:

As is always the case, short of actual nuclear weapons, Hamas has the biggest guns in this war. It effectively turns the world against Israel every single time. It does not matter that these sites eventually get the story right. What matters is that, as long as the truth is struggling (or being prevented from) getting its pants on, the lie has more time to keep traveling around the world.

The effect of the media constantly advancing the Palestinian narrative is that, whenever Israel gains a military advantage, the world gangs up against her to force it to withdraw. She never gets the opportunity to do to her enemy what the Allies did to the Nazis. Israel never gets to win the war.

Image by Andrea Widburg

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