OPINION:
Is the tide turning in the Israel-Hamas war? The mainstream media is certainly trying its best.
From CNN to The Guardian, news outlets are pointing fingers at Israel — led by copy-and-pasted headlines — for the “famine in Gaza.” The New York Times cited “global outrage” over starvation in Gaza.
And Americans are falling for it. Only 32% of Americans now back Israel’s military action in Gaza, with about half of U.S. adults viewing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu unfavorably. Among Democrats, those who are most likely to read the Times, only 8% approve of Israel’s military effort.
In Congress, more than half of Senate Democrats recently voted to block arms sales to Israel.
Somewhere in a tunnel, Hamas’ public relations department is celebrating.
Fact check: There has been no official determination or declaration of famine in Gaza. On any given day, more than 100 truckloads of aid, primarily containing food, enter Gaza for collection and distribution. U.S. envoys recently visited Gaza to check on food shipments, and confirmed that the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation delivers more than 1 million meals a day to people in need.
Israel has even offered to increase the truckloads to 500 a day in a good-faith effort to free the Israeli hostages.
Less good-faith is Hamas’ looting of aid trucks intended for Palestinians. According to Israel Ambassador Mike Huckabee’s latest status report, the vast majority of United Nations aid is diverted by Hamas. Nearly 95% of the World Food Program’s trucks are looted before they reach their destination. Gangs and merchants are now selling food in Gaza markets — stocked with looted goods — at exorbitant prices, paid for by residents’ savings from their time working in Israel before Oct. 7, 2023.
One recent day, potatoes were selling for $30 a piece.
Hamas is continuing to exploit the people it pretends to serve. Yet the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health has the audacity to report that 147 Palestinians have died of hunger since the beginning of the war Hamas started.
And still, Western journalists take Hamas at face value. The Gazan boy in a widely circulated image who reportedly died of starvation? He actually suffered a genetic neurological disorder and was treated in Israel in 2018. Another photo, of an infant from Gaza, fails to clarify that the boy suffers from a pre-existing medical condition affecting his muscle development.
Of course, war is terrible and there are hungry people in Gaza. But there is absolutely no evidence — not even from Hamas sources — that hundreds or thousands of Palestinian children are dying of starvation.
On that note, when was the last time you heard about Yemen?
After a decade of war, Yemen is one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises. The United Nations currently fears 11 million children are in need of humanitarian assistance. Tens of thousands of Yemenis are currently living in famine-like conditions.
The only difference: The media can’t blame Israel for the starvation in Yemen. No Jews, no news. What’s real news is that Hamas still holds 50 hostages. Only 20 are believed to be alive today.
If Hamas simply released those victims, the war would end. But that would require Hamas to care about its people. In reality, the terrorist group’s only intention is to undermine Israel, and America’s “journalists” can’t separate radical Islamic spin from fact.
Nor can the useful idiot leaders of Canada, France and the United Kingdom, all of which recently voiced support for the simplistic idea of a Palestinian state with no logical borders or popular leadership capable of forming a government. Catering to booming populations of Muslim residents, Western countries like France (10% Muslim population) are caving to new immigrant voting blocs and non-Muslim Hamas sympathizers who are loud on TikTok.
Political posturers see the demographic trend lines, with the Muslim population expected to exceed 17% in the U.K. and 12% in Canada by 2050.
One day, we will look back on Hamas and its PR effort as just that. But this is not the first time Americans have been deceived in the “fog of war.”
In the early years of the Nazi regime, Adolf Hitler posed as a leader with no great ambitions of conquering the world. After World War II broke out, he falsely claimed that Germany’s enemies had started it. Many Germans believed him. Many in the West believed him, too.
Hamas is learning its PR lesson from history. When will we learn ours?
• Rick Berman is president of RBB Strategies.
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