‘If we fought the Nazis now: 

BBC would run 100s of clips from their “team in Berlin”. 

They’d interview Goebbels to explain what was “really happening”.  

Show 1000 human interest stories about poor German families. 

They’d mention Nazis as “officials in Germany”. 

We’d lose.’ 

This is how David Collier, an award-winning investigative journalist, sarcastically but poignantly phrased in an X post just a few days ago how the mainstream media have reacted to Israel’s actions of self-defence aimed at eliminating Hamas soon after the terrorist organization brutally attacked the Jewish state on October 7.  

Since the outbreak of the war, more than 7,300 rockets have been fired from Gaza, more than 1,400 Israeli Jewish civilians, soldiers, and tourists from other countries were murdered in the most brutal ways, more than 4,500 were injured, and more than 220 were kidnapped including babies, women, men, and elderly. The mainstream media, however, still tries to downplay Hamas’ brutality and push the narrative of ‘Palestinians fighting for their freedom’ against an ‘occupier’ Israel.

Al-Ahli Hospital Bombing: Mainstream Media Was Quick to Believe Hamas’ Propaganda

One of the most recent examples of how the mainstream media is quick to side with Hamas was seen on the evening of 17 October as the news started to circulate about the bombing of the Al-Ahli hospital in Gaza, which turned out to be caused by a misfired Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket that was fired from within Gaza. Minutes after the hospital was bombed, the Hamas-run Health Ministry claimed that 500 people were killed by an Israeli air strike. Without second-guessing, as a The Federalist article points out, mainstream media headlines from The New York Times to Al Jazeera and the Wall Street Journal instantly published headlines repeating the lie.  

On the morning after the attack, the IDF, US, and other intelligence sources verified that the rocket, meant to strike Israel, was not only misfired by the Palestinian Islamic Jihadists but, unlike it appeared in the news, landed in the parking lot of the hospital complex and caused fewer casualties than Hamas officials reported. As an IDF’s report explains, it is not uncommon that when Palestinian terrorists bomb Israel, they misfire rockets and hit Gazan residents. According to the report, since 7 October, Palestinian terrorists misfired 450 rockets—five percent of those that were fired at Israel. Another piece of evidence that the IDF has come up with to disprove the Hamas narrative was an intercepted phone call between Hamas operatives, which showed that within a short time after the incident, Hamas was well aware that the bombing on the hospital was caused by a misfired rocket, calculated that the mainstream media both in the Middle East and in the West would believe them, so they went ahead and shared the disinformation. And their calculation was correct. 

It took a week before The New York Times published some sort of a belated apology: 

‘Given the sensitive nature of the news during a widening conflict, and the prominent promotion it received, Times editors should have taken more care with the initial presentation, and been more explicit about what information could be verified. Newsroom leaders continue to examine procedures around the biggest breaking news events—including for the use of the largest headlines in the digital report—to determine what additional safeguards may be warranted.’

As Robert C. Castel, an internationally recognized Hungarian Israeli expert on security policy, pointed out in a Hungarian radio discussion: ‘The IDF, supported by US and British independent intelligence, published several pieces of evidence that the bombing was caused by a misfired rocket from Palestinian Islamic Jihad, while Hamas has been unable to prove that it happened otherwise.’ 

It is still hard to believe how quick mainstream media outlets were to uncritically share propaganda information provided by a terrorist organization, Hamas, which only two weeks before massacred, kidnapped, raped, burnt, and tortured innocent Israeli Jews and foreigners alike. As highlighted in a recent Hungarian Conservative article, these horrible attacks showed that the main agenda of Hamas is not to gain territory or ‘free’ the Palestinian people, but to kill as many Jewish people as they can, humiliate them in the most brutal ways, and destroy Israel. Moreover, it also showed how Hamas used many donations from international institutions, nations, and human rights organizations to fund terror instead of lifting Gazans out of poverty. It is also clear that instead of protecting Palestinian civilians, Hamas still uses them as human shields and has no regard for human life, as seen in the case of the bombing of the Al-Ahli hospital in Gaza.

‘The Media Helped Spread the Blood Libel Against Israel’

The spreading of the fake news not only misled people

but also triggered multiple antisemitic attacks throughout the world.

Only hours after the bombing of the hospital, angry mobs assaulted the embassies and military bases of Israel, the United States, Germany and other Western countries. In Tunisia, hundreds of Palestinian protesters were filmed setting fire to a synagogue in the central Tunisian city of Al Hammah hours after the explosion at the Gaza City hospital because they believed the Hamas propaganda. The Tunisian Al Hammah synagogue was not an active site of worship, as no Jews live in the city; however, it was the site of the tomb of 16th-century Kabbalist Rabbi Yosef Ma’aravi. The synagogue in the Kahal Adass Jisroel community building complex in the centre of Berlin, which houses a synagogue, a kindergarten, a yeshiva school, and a community centre, was firebombed. Rabbi Jonah C. Steinberg, regional director for the Anti-Defamation League in New England, said the ADL’s Center on Extremism has tracked at least 168 antisemitic incidents since 7 October, including verbal insults, school bullying, and graffiti. Last week, an iconic Kosher deli in New York was vandalized, and the home of an 80-year-old Jewish couple was set on fire in Paris.

As Jonathan A. Greenblatt wrote in his USA Today article, after the hospital bombing, the streets of Baghdad, Istanbul, Beirut, Amman, Doha, Tehran, Cairo, Rabat, and even some European cities like Berlin and Barcelona were filled with large masses of enraged Hamas sympathizers who believed (and now will always believe) that Israel struck the hospital. Greenblatt urged journalists to report responsibly on the was against Hamas, as irresponsible reporting can spread the blood libel, an ancient myth that Jewish people intentionally kill non-Jews. He emphasized: ‘Today, we see the blood libel in full effect when the world recklessly blames Israel for any number of crimes. It proliferates when, in this delicate moment, major media outlets fail to apply the normal checks and balances used to minimize misinformation. It has always been dangerous, but it is even more explosive in the Information Age because Jews around the world will be the victims. As the Hamas war rages and tensions rise, media services around the world must take responsibility and prevent false information from spreading and fanning the flames of hate.’

The fake news about the bombing even affected US President Biden’s trip to the Middle East after his stop in Israel to show solidarity and full support; he was to visit Jordan as well, to attend a summit with Egyptian and Palestinian leaders, but while he was en route, Jordan cancelled the summit.  

Pro-Palestinian Marches Have Supported Hamas’ Jihad Throughout the West

Pro-Palestinian and pro-Hamas protesters have flooded the streets of London, Berlin, Sydney, and other major cities in Canada and throughout the US since 7 October, chanting antisemitic slogans like ‘gas the Jews,’ ‘rape their daughters,’ or the infamous Palestinian slogan ‘From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free’, which means Israel has no right to exist on the land between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea. Anti-Israeli activists should be aware that when they chant this slogan, they are endorsing the ideology oy of Iran’s mullahs, Hamas, and other terror groups that have long worked to achieve their goal of destroying Israel. If Israel didn’t fight to eliminate Hamas, its brutal massacre of innocent Jewish people would continue. In fact, Hamas’ Charter explicitly states that ‘the only solution to the Palestinian question is through Jihad [holy war].’

There Is Some Light in the Darkness: NYC Mayor’s Powerful Speech in Support of Israel

Fortunately, there is still some light in the darkness as large crowds gather all over the world to express their sympathy for and solidarity with the Jewish nation. At these pro-Israeli marches, from India to Hungary, from Japan to the UK, participants do not chant racist slogans, do not attack others, and do not celebrate and endorse brutal terror; they rather peacefully sing the Israeli hymn ‘Hatikvah’ and express their stance in a dignified, non-violent way.

On 10 October, thousands gathered to show support for the Jewish nation in New York City, where

Mayor Eric Adams delivered a heartfelt, historic speech

in which he phrased how the world should have reacted to Hamas’ massacre. The mayor stated: ‘We are not all right when we see young girls pulled from their homes and dragged through the streets. We are not all right when we see grandmothers being pulled away from their homes and children shot in front of their families. We are not all right when, right here in the City of New York, you have those who celebrate at the same time when the devastation is taking place in our city.’ The mayor added: ‘We are not all right when Hamas believes that they are fighting on behalf of something and their destructive, despicable action that carried out. We are not all right when we still have hostages who have not come home to their families. We are not all right, and we’re not going to say we have a stiff upper lip and act like everything is fine. Everything is not fine. Israel has a right to defend itself, and that’s the right that we know.’ Eric Adams also pointed out that New York has the largest Jewish population outside of Israel, which is why their voice ‘must rise and cascade throughout the entire country.’ He concluded by stating loud and clear: ‘We will not be all right until every person responsible for this act is held accountable. And we don’t have to pretend.’