Calling a Hack a Hack

This post is not about the Middle East. It is about truth, and it is about journalism. It uses examples from the Middle East because the examples are simultaneously documented to be true beyond dispute, and yet widely regarded as untrue, or widely, strenuously, ignored.

Fact: In 2005, Israel closed down all civilian Jewish settlements in Gaza, and withdrew all military units. Israel continued to monitor the borders of Gaza in an effort to keep out weapons. While successful in keeping out tanks, the Israeli’s were not successful in keeping out rifles and small rockets. The two million Palestinian inhabitants in Gaza became completely self-governing.

Fact: Through a combination of ballots and bullets, Hamas acquired political and governing control in 2006. Despite millions in annual aid from the outside world, Hamas did not make Palestinian prosperity a priority. Hamas had two priorities: indoctrinating the children of Gaza to hate Jews and Israel, and the construction of miles and miles of tunnels for the purpose of hiding, storing, and transporting soldiers and weapons.

Fact: On October 7, 2023, Hamas invaded sparsely populated portions of Israel with the intention of avoiding Israeli military units as much as possible. Their objective was to find and kill/rape/torture/kidnap as many civilian men, women, and children as they could find before running back to Gaza. They murdered 1,195. They kidnapped 251. They held the captives in secret, scattered locations and dared the Israeli Army to come and rescue them.

Fact: Urban warfare results in terrible loss of civilian life. In the recorded history of urban warfare, no army has successfully minimized civilian casualties as well as the IDF. Minimizing civilian casualties was demonstrably a high priority for the IDF. Hamas, on the other hand, systematically used Palestinian civilians as human shields to protect themselves as they fought.

Fact: Gaza has never been able to feed itself. It has always been dependent on a daily parade of trucks for most of its food. Throughout the 30-month hostage rescue mission, Israel did not seek to prevent food from entering Gaza. Starvation was never a concern for the people of Gaza. Hamas, on the other hand, routinely commandeered food trucks so that they could demand civilian cooperation by the threat of withholding food.

Fact: During the 30-month hostage rescue mission. There were civilian casualties and deaths, notwithstanding extraordinary Israeli efforts to minimize such consequences. Gaza was and is a community of over 2 million.

The accusation that Israel engaged in genocide in Gaza routinely comes from the mouths of American academics, American entertainment celebrities, Arab-American activists, far-left activists, and occasionally, Democratic politicians. American journalists routinely report and disseminate such accusations uncritically.

The Palestinian atrocities of October 7 are never mentioned by those who scream Genocide. American journalists routinely fail to mention this silence. The hostage rescue mission is never referred to as a hostage rescue mission but is routinely referred to by journalists as an Israeli reprisal. When police arrest kidnappers and rescue the kidnapped victims, I have never heard the actions of the police referred to as “a police reprisal.”

Antisemitism is sustained by the constant dissemination of lies. Antisemitism is combated by ceaseless labeling of such lies as lies.

The outrage this post intends to highlight is not the telling of the lies. The outrage I intend to highlight is the failure of American journalists to brand such lies as lies.

There is no legitimate controversy about October 7. The atrocities of October 7 were recorded on video. The terrorists themselves recorded their own atrocities. They called home to celebrate and brag about their atrocities. Not every victim was killed. Countless survivors exist to tell the truth. The terrorists did not leave behind a battlefield; they left behind hundreds of bloody crime scenes, all of which were carefully documented.

Reasonable people cannot have a good-faith disagreement about October 7. Reputable journalists do not report on the claims of holocaust deniers without labeling them as holocaust deniers. A reputable journalist cannot report on the ravings of an October 7 denier without labeling him an October 7 denier.

Reasonable people cannot disagree about Hamas. They are cowardly killers who hide under hospitals. They rape to advance their cause. Constant lying is among their lesser sins. Any journalist who pretends any statement from Hamas is remotely credible is a hack. To pretend the Hamas Minister of Health is anything other than a lying terrorist is as farcical as the Minister of Health.

Furthermore, no reasonable person can accuse Israel of genocide in Gaza in good faith. Anyone who accuses Israel of genocide in Gaza does so in bad faith. If you knowingly spread an antisemitic slur, you are an antisemite. If you wish to call yourself a reputable journalist, all antisemitic slurs must be labeled as antisemitic slurs.

The reputable journalist cannot hide behind the slur-maker’s possible ignorance. Let’s assume Mark Ruffalo is genuinely deluded about genocide in Gaza. A reputable journalist is not deluded and is duty-bound to decide for themselves what is truth, what is genuinely up for debate, and what is undeniably false. Genocide in Gaza is not genuinely up for debate. Any journalist who pretends that it is deserves the reputation of being an antisemitic hack.

The Democratic Party nominee for the Senate in Michigan spreads the genocide slur. Supposedly reputable journalists can’t manage to call him out. If your loyalty to the Democratic Party exceeds your loyalty to truth, you are a hack. You are not a reputable journalist.

G-Pub