Misinformation

I caught this fact-checking Associated Press article the other day, which I consider to contain not a little misinformation, if not outright disinformation in that the AP seems unwilling to call murderous terrorists from Gaza terrorists. The first paragraph says it all.

In the days since Hamas militants stormed into Israel early Oct. 7, a flood of videos and photos purporting to show the conflict have filled social media, making it difficult for onlookers from around the world to sort fact from fiction.

Militants who stormed into Israel? What happened on October 7 was that members of the organization called Hamas invaded Israel and murdered some 1400 Israelis, including 1033 civilians. Approximately 200-250 persons were seized and taken back to Gaza as hostages. These civilian casualties were not the inevitable collateral damage that occurs during any military strike. They were deliberately targeted and murdered by persons to spread terror. The purpose of these attacks was not to defeat Israel militarily but to compel the submission of the Jewish population of Israel through the use of terror. There is a word in the English language for people who use such tactics. That word is terrorist. The people who attacked Israel were not “militants”. That word implies a military group that abides by the rules of war. The people who attacked Israel were terrorists. The people who have expressed support worldwide for the actions of the Hamas terrorists are supporters of terrorism.

Few of the many conflicts in this world are definitely good versus evil. There is usually at least some and some evil on both sides. The war between Ukraine and Russia has often been presented as a clear case of good against evil, yet the conflict is not as unequivocal as the partisans for Ukraine like to portray. Ukraine is far from a paragon of honest, democratic governance, and Russia may well have a historical and demographic claim to the regions of Ukraine it covets. Russia is in the wrong because its leader, Putin, decided to settle the dispute with war, but this is a conflict where there is at least some justice on both sides.

That is not the case with the present conflict between Israel and Hamas. This war is as clear a case of good and evil as we are ever likely to see. Hamas has deliberately attacked civilians. Even worse, they have deliberately placed Palestinian civilians, their own people, in harm’s way to maximize civilian casualties to use as a reproach to Israel in world opinion. Their actions are evil. If there is any justice on the Palestinian side, it is negated by the atrocious actions of the Palestinian leadership in Gaza.
The Israelis withdrew from Gaza in 2005. They compelled Jewish settlers to leave and gave control of the Gaza Strip to the Palestinians. If the Palestinians had made use of their freedom to invest in their economy; if they had made Gaza into a Singapore or Hong Kong on the Mediterranean; and if the Palestinians of Gaza and the West Bank had negotiated in good faith against a recalcitrate Israel, I might concede that they had justice in their claims against Israel. Instead, the Gazans elected Hamas to govern them. They destroyed the infrastructure that the hated Jews had left behind and launched rocket attacks against Israel. They sent suicide bombers to kill Jews until the Israelis built a wall along the border to keep them out. Hamas and the people of Gaza have not sought to live in peace with Israel. They want to destroy Israel.

The conflict between Israel and Hamas is a struggle between good and evil, between civilization and barbarism. The Associated Press is not being objective and even-handed by referring to the murderous barbarians of Hamas as “militants.” It actively supports evil.