Round-up of media errors in coverage of the war, Oct. 10

The unprecedented multi-front attacks on Israelis carried out by the terrorist group Hamas on October 7^th  (both the Sabbath and a Jewish holiday) included thousands of missile attacks, the indiscriminate murder of over 900 Israelis (mostly civilians), including the beheading of babies, and the wounding of thousands more, the bombing of an ambulance and scores of kidnappings, including of children – videos of which are hard to stomach.

This is our latest compilation of British media errors, omissions, distortions and propaganda in their coverage of the war.

A Guardian op-ed by Orly Noy, editor at the Hebrew-language news magazine Local Call, (“We feel fear, anger and helplessness: all of Israel is in a state of war. But revenge is not the answer”, Oct. 9), includes the following:

First, it’s not “revenge” for Israel to launch counter-attacks on the antisemitic terrorist group which engaged in the mass murder of over 900 of its civilians. It represents the act of defending its citizens from harm that any government, anywhere in the world, has not just the right, but the duty to undertake.

More importantly, it’s a lie of immense proportions to claim that Israel has gone around Palestinian towns open firing and murdering civilians, including children, and decapitating babies – like Hamas did on Saturday.  It’s a lie of immense proportions to claim that the IDF has taken innocent civilians, including children, hostage. And, its an even bigger lie to suggest a moral equivalence between antisemitic extremist group and the Jews they seeks to annihilate.

During a Channel 4 News video report (“Israel strikes Gaza with ‘mighty vengeance’ – day 2 update”, Oct. 8), their reporter on the Israel-Gaza border, Secunder Kermani, claimed that “anger at Israel’s brutal bloody occupation and blockade of Gaza helped fuel the awful violence inflicted by Palestinian militants“.

First, Gaza is of  course NOT “occupied” by Israel.  Additionally, Kermani, echoing the denial of Palestinian agency that’s common throughout the British media, completely erases the real motivation for Hamas’s massacre of hundreds of Jews on Saturday: the group’s antisemitic extremist ideology, a zealotry which rejects the continues existence of the Jewish state within any borders.  (An Israeli guest who appeared after the video segment, Fleur Hassan-Nahoum, refuted the ‘occupied Gaza’ claim in an interview with Cathy Newman.)

Also notable is the program’s second guest, chief Palestinian diplomat to the UK Husam Zomlot, refused – when asked by Cathy Newman – to condemn the slaughter of at least 800 Israelis (mostly civilians), a crime which was committed by Hamas, a group that’s proscribed by the British government.

A backgrounder on Hamas at the Independent, written by Andy Gregory, (“What is Hamas, and why did it attack Israel? All you need to know about militant group in Gaza”, Oct. 10) included the following:

Instead, Hamas advocates for a Palestinian state stretching from the Mediterranean Sea to the Jordan River based on its historical borders.

However, since 2017, Hamas has said it accepts a Palestinian state shaped around the borders of 1967, which existed prior to the war in which Israel occupied East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza Strip – after it was invaded in a surprise attack by Egypt and Syria, echoed nearly 50 years to the day later by Saturday’s incursion.

It is not true that, since 2017, Hamas accepted a Palestinian state within only 1949 boundaries – a formulation suggesting that they accept Israel’s continued existence.

As CAMERA explained several years ago.  Though in 2017, Hamas unveiled what it termed “A Document of General Principles and Policies” from Qatar, which was designed for Western audiences, it does not replace the original Hamas original charter which calls for Israel’s annihilation and the mass murder of Jews.

We’ve complained to editors.

In her interview with the British Chief Rabbi, Sky News presenter Kay Burley suggested a moral equivalence between butchered Israeli civilians and Palestinian civilians inadvertently killed as the result of IDF strikes on terror targets.