I & I Editorial BoardIn the nearly three years since Hamas terrorists invaded Israel and tortured, raped, murdered, and imprisoned innocent Israeli citizens, we’ve been treated to countless claims of Israeli depredations in its reprisals that have turned out to be bogus. But none is as bewildering as the claim that Gazans were being starved to death.
In 2023, the New York Times reported that “The deluge of online propaganda and disinformation is larger than anything seen before, according to government officials and independent researchers.”
It noted that Iran, Russia, China, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Al Qaeda, the Islamic State, to say nothing of Hamas itself, “have used state media and the world’s major social networking platforms to support Hamas and undercut Israel.”
The Times itself earlier regurgitated Hamas propaganda about a hospital bombing only to admit that “early versions of the coverage … relied too heavily on claims by Hamas and did not make clear that those claims could not immediately be verified.”
And just a few months ago, Times’ columnist Nicholas Kristof claimed, in print, in the pages of the New York Times, that Israel had trained dogs to rape Palestinian prisoners.
Now we learn that the Gaza famine was apparently another media-fueled myth.
The Free Press this week notes that a report from UNICEF finds Gaza has one of the lowest rates of acute malnutrition in the region, and that the rate of “stunting” from poor nutrition is less than half the region’s rate.
“The UNICEF-led team’s presentation also revealed that Gaza now faces a new challenge: obesity and excess weight, which affect a combined 4% of children under the age of 5,” the Free Press said.
Just a year ago, however, the same agency was claiming that half a million people in Gaza were at risk of dying from starvation, that “starvation is present and is rapidly spreading,” and that Gaza was in “a race against time.”
The Free Press notes that “The latest findings do not conclude that no one in Gaza went hungry, nor do they diminish the suffering endured by Palestinians in Gaza or ongoing health concerns. But the stark reversal documented in the July report demands a closer examination of how a famine was declared in the first place.”
That’s been the problem with coverage of this war since its beginning. Any claim by Israel is triple-checked, doubted, or ignored, while “facts” about Israel’s brutality, genocide, targeting civilians, etc., get repeated as gospel truths.
Why bother having an independent news media if they can’t be counted on to apply the same standards of veracity to both sides of a conflict?
— Written by the I&I Editorial Board
Support Independent Journalism
Issues & Insights was founded by seasoned journalists from the IBD Editorials page. Our mission is to provide timely, fact-based reporting and deeply informed analysis on the news of the day -- without fear or favor.
We’re doing this on a voluntary basis because we believe in a free press and because we aren't afraid to tell the truth, even if it means being targeted by the left.
We are 100% reader supported!!
If you like what you see, please feel free to donate.
And be sure to tell your friends!
Of course none of the ‘news’ is true, never has been, never will be. Let’s look at what Thomas Jefferson, America’s Third President (and one of the greatest) had to say about the media:
“I deplore… the putrid state into which our newspapers have passed and the malignity, the vulgarity, and mendacious spirit of those who write for them… These ordures are rapidly depraving the public taste and lessening its relish for sound food.”
“‘From forty years’ experience of the wretched guess-work of the newspapers of what is not done in open daylight, and of their falsehood even as to that, I rarely think them worth reading, and almost never worth notice.”
“Nothing can now be believed which is seen in a newspaper. Truth itself becomes suspicious by being put into that polluted vehicle. The real extent of this state of misinformation is known only to those who are in situations to confront facts within their knowledge with the lies of the day.”
“I really look with commiseration over the great body of my fellow citizens who, reading newspapers, live and die in the belief that they have known something of what has been passing in the world in their time…”
“A truth now and then projecting into the ocean of newspaper lies serves like headlands to correct our course. Indeed, my skepticism as to everything I see in a newspaper makes me indifferent whether I ever see one.”
“The man who never looks into a newspaper is better informed than he who reads them, inasmuch as he who knows nothing is nearer to truth than he whose mind is filled with falsehoods and errors.”
Is it correct that Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005, at huge expense, removed their citizens and handed over all that land and their improvements, buildings etc., to the Palestinians so they could, as they had been demanding and killing innocent people, for decades, make their own self-governed state?
And look what they did with that?
Allowed the Hamas terrorists to take over, dig tunnels to hide munitions, etc., preparing for war and more slaughter. Completely destroyed the promise of a safe and respectful neighbor for honorable Palestinians for which Israel had made the arrangement.
Why would any international body, anyone at all, much less the State of Israel offer them anything, ever again… after their seemingly premeditated abrogation of the beneficial arrangement and after the inhuman slaughter that has followed Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza?? Is that accurate history?
Why is the Judea and Samaria called occupied when there is no sovereignity. It doesn’t fit the legal definition of an occupied territory? Perhaps disputed territories is a better description.