Hamas and the Shill Game
Israel is guilty until proven innocent—and guilty AFTER proven innocent.
In a recent comment on Bastiat’s Window, a reader recounts a grisly claim out of Gaza and said that, upon reading this story, “I'd wager tha[t] any normal human being with a conscience or a heart would say the Israeli government is committing atrocities and being barbaric.” In an unfortunately familiar pattern, his words imply that mere allegations circulating on the internet constitute proof positive of Israel’s guilt—and that anyone who dares question said allegations lacks conscience, heart, and, indeed, status as a “normal human being.” As the Queen of Hearts declared in Alice in Wonderland, “Sentence first, verdict afterwards.” Or, perhaps, “When did Israel stop beating its wife?”
Here, I break the reader’s comment into segments—in order, complete, and unedited (other than correcting one typo)—and respond separately to each segment. In discussing this topic, it is critical to understand the grotesque unreliability of news and statistics flowing out of Gaza—most of it originating with Hamas. Here are three recent articles on this general topic: HonestReporting.com, CAMERA.org, and the WashingtonInstitute.org. Beyond these particular articles, all three sites routinely offer high-quality coverage of the conflict and of the torrent of disinformation surrounding it.
CREDIBLE VERSUS CREDULOUS
READER: “So there are widespread, credible (including in Jewish news outlets) stories about Palestinian babies having to have a limb amputated without anaesthesia because the Israeli government is not allowing humanitarian supplies to get through, and you're saying that a person, including a Jew, who reads about that and objects can only be an antisemite, gullible, or supporter of Hamas? Really?”
I’ve never said such a thing—but I would say that anyone who reads the story you cited and immediately accepts it all without question is either antisemitic, gullible, or both. Hamas has a long history of issuing heinous accusations against Israel that ultimately prove to be lies—but only after Israel and Jews have been demonized by the media, across the internet, in legislative chambers, and on the streets.
As Winston Churchill noted, “A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.” Israel, unfortunately, faces an endlessly recurring pattern in its news coverage.
FABRICATION: Hamas concocts Accusation X out of lies, half-truths, and wild exaggerations;
AMPLIFICATION: UN, NGO, and media shills trumpet and augment Accusation X;
VILIFICATION: Accusation X goes viral, and outraged readers—antisemitic, gullible, or both—rage in the streets;
EXONERATION: Accusation X begins to fall apart as exculpatory evidence emerges;
PRESTIDIGITATION: As a con artist plays his shell game, Hamas issues Accusation Y to distract attention from the disintegration of Accusation X;
BOWDLERIZATION: As the tide of evidence rises in Israel’s favor, some news outlets quietly edit or delete the now-discredited Accusation X from their sites. Some issue half-hearted, little-read retractions. Some just leave the incendiary libels out there in perpetuity. But, with Accusation Y now dominating the news cycles, Israel’s exoneration on Accusation X is barely perceived.
REFABRICATION: As Accusation Y begins to crumble, Hamas gins up Accusation Z.
What matters is not whether the accusation is credible, but rather whether the press, social media denizens, readers, and activists are reflexively credulous in accepting libels against Israel—regardless of sources or quality of evidence. Cognitive dissonance is no problem, as the credulous are happy to circulate mutually inconsistent accounts side-by-side. Example: (A) Hamas’s barbaric, livestreamed orgy of rape, torture, murder, beheading, kidnapping, and necrophilia was celebrated as a justifiable act of heroism and a template for the future; AND (B) Hamas never did any of these things.
A partial explanation of this mindless credulity can be found in a 2016 quote from former Deputy National Security Avisor Ben Rhodes, explaining the Obama Administration’s nuclear deal with Iran. Rhodes, whose brother was then president of CBS News, attributed their success to having constructed an “echo chamber” of ignorant, gullible journalists:
RHODES: “All these newspapers used to have foreign bureaus. Now they don’t. They call us to explain to them what’s happening in Moscow and Cairo. Most of the outlets are reporting on world events from Washington. The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old, and their only reporting experience consists of being around political campaigns. That’s a sea change. They literally know nothing.”
In the days following the attacks of October 7, there were “widespread, credible” reports that Israel had bombed a hospital, killing 500 people—a story disgracefully repeated without question in some of the aforementioned “Jewish news outlets.” In fact, it was a Hamas rocket that hit the hospital grounds, it landed in the parking lot, and it likely killed scores of people, not 500. True to form, the story lived on, even after debunking—as in Rep. Rashida Tlaib’s blood libel issued on the floor of the House of Representatives.
ANTISEMITIC, GULLIBLE, OR BOTH?
READER: “You think Amira Hass is antisemitic? Gal Gadot? Natalie Portman? How about Hannah Arendt? Masha Gessen?”
I’ve made no such accusations, so please don’t imply that I have. I’ll offer no comment on Gadot or Portman, since I haven’t researched the range of their comments. But generally speaking, it’s difficult to imagine a less reliable source of geopolitical insight than Hollywood celebrities. Entertainers who join in the vilification of Israel are not necessarily antisemitic, but I did offer “gullible” as an alternative descriptor. In contrast, Jewish director Jonathan Glazer used last week’s Oscar ceremonies to issue an ignorant and brazenly antisemitic diatribe and love letter to Hamas, so both adjectives do apply to his ignorant, antisemitic self.
Unfortunately, there are always “Jewish news outlets” and Jewish sources willing and anxious to believe the worst libels about Israel and about Jews in general—and to disseminate them widely and loudly. Hannah Arendt was hopelessly confused, inconsistent, indecisive, and at times incoherent on the subject of Israel. As for her analytical skills, journalist Ron Rosenbaum famously document Arendt’s breathtaking gullibility, describing her as “the world’s worst court reporter” in crafting her “banality of evil” trope:
ROSENBAUM: “It somehow didn’t occur to her that a defendant like Eichmann, facing execution if convicted, might actually lie on the stand about his crimes and his motives. She actually took Eichmann at his word. What did she expect him to say to the Israeli court that had life and death power over him: ‘Yes, I really hated Jews and loved killing them’? … But when Eichmann took the stand and testified that he really didn’t harbor any special animosity toward Jews, that when it came to this little business of exterminating the Jews, he was just a harried bureaucrat, a paper shuffler ‘just following orders’ from above, Arendt took him at his word. She treated Eichmann’s lies as if they were a kind of philosophical position paper, a text to analyze rather than a cowardly alibi by a genocidal murderer. … She was completely conned by Eichmann, by his mild-mannered demeanor on the stand during his trial; she bought his act of being a nebbishy schnook.”
I was not previously familiar with Hass and Gessen, but a quick perusal of their work leaves me profoundly unimpressed. Latter-day Arendts, without her gravitas, perhaps.
IF IT’S ON THE INTERNET, IT MUST BE TRUE
READER: “Why is human suffering, whoever is the sufferer and whoever is the cause of the suffering, not objectionable? If you covered up the names and just described what one side was doing to the other, I'd wager tha[t] any normal human being with a conscience or a heart would say the Israeli government is committing atrocities and being barbaric.”
So … suffering is terrible, but regardless of “whoever is the cause,” it is Israel who surely bears the guilt. You have presented an incendiary story circulating on the internet and have not offered even a scintilla of skepticism—despite the fact that the stories almost certainly originate with the pathologically dishonest Hamas and its supporters. The mere reading of such stories, your paragraph suggests, clearly demonstrates that “the Israeli government is committing atrocities and being barbaric.” So airtight is this proof that it is obvious to anyone “with a conscience or a heart.” And in fact, anyone failing to grasp this crystalline truth is likely not “a normal human being.”
With these words, you apply the standard of proof that Israel faces: Guilty Until Proven Innocent—and Guilty AFTER Proven Innocent. In contrast, let me offer a few questions that a normal human being with a conscience and a heart might wish to ask when reading this story:
Is it possible that the entire story is a fabrication? That no children have suffered amputations without anesthesia?
If there have, in fact, been amputations without anesthesia, is it possible that this occurred because Hamas withheld available anesthesia to generate gut-wrenching propaganda by torturing Palestinian children? That would be consistent with Hamas’s long history of using Gazans as cannon-fodder for propaganda. Israel routinely warns Gazans when and where battles will occur, and Hamas routinely prevent Gazans from heeding Israel’s warnings and getting out of harm’s way.
If there is a shortage of anesthesia, does the fault lie with Israel, or is it possible that this is one more example of Hamas’s long history of stealing humanitarian supplies intended for the residents of Gaza?
Is it possible that supplies of anesthesia and other medications were available, but were lost or destroyed because of Hamas’s practice of using hospitals as staging grounds for terrorist supplies and activities? (This well-documented practice by Hamas is by any definition a war crime.)
Would a single one of these deaths or injuries in Gaza have occurred without Hamas’s barbaric termination of the previous ceasefire on October 7?
Given Hamas’s history of smuggling armaments in humanitarian shipments—does Israel have a choice other than to carefully inspect the goods flowing in?
Are the sorts of stories you mentioned unusual in war situations—peculiar to Israel’s behavior in Gaza? Were medical supplies into areas of Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan impeded by allied forces during World War II, for example? If so, would “any normal human being with a conscience or a heart” conclude from this that the American, British, and Russian governments were committing atrocities and being barbaric?
Hamas has pledged throughout its history to murder every Jew in Israel and every Jew on earth; Hamas’s charter explicitly promises to do so. Hamas commits endless war crimes—combatants wearing civilian garb; use of hospitals, schools, and residential neighborhoods as military installations; murderous attacks on civilians; organized, large-scale sexual assault on women; hostage-taking; etc. These acts by Hamas are war crimes against Palestinians as well as against Israelis. After October 7, Hamas officials promised to repeat the events of that day “again and again.” That is what Israel is dealing with.
WAR IS HELL
READER: “Yoav Gallant, Israel's Defense Minister, said on Oct. 9, ‘I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed. We are fighting human animals and we act accordingly.’”
Gallant’s words are blustery, but Israel has been forced into a war for its survival—and the survival of its citizens. There’s no shortage of parallel quotes from generals and politicians throughout history—in every conflict that has ever been fought. As Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman wrote to the City of Atlanta in 1864,
SHERMAN: “You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the maledictions a people can pour out. … You might as well appeal against the thunder-storm as against these terrible hardships of war. They are inevitable, and the only way the people of Atlanta can hope once more to live in peace and quiet at home, is to stop the war, which can only be done by admitting that it began in error and is perpetuated in pride. … ”
As Sherman said years later, “War is hell.” When Gallant spoke, Israel was clearly cutting off Israeli supplies of electricity, food, and fuel to Gaza. Israel has provided those goods and services for decades because Hamas chose to destroy all but the war-making portion of the Gaza economy. (Gaza’s economy had thrived to a remarkable degree when Israel was in charge from 1967 to 2005.) The cessation of Israeli supplies in the current conflict has not ended the availability of electricity, food, or fuel. It’s interesting how the incurious say that Gaza has no electricity—a fact they divine from multitudes of videos taken by Gazans’ fully-charged cellphones.
“STAUNCH” SUPPORTER OF ISRAEL
READER: “Chris van Hollen, U.S. Senator and staunch supporter of Israel, recently said, ‘Kids in Gaza are now dying from the deliberate withholding of food.’ In what world is this not barbaric?”
You and I apparently have remarkably different definitions of the phrase “staunch supporter of Israel.” War is horrible, but the relevant questions are how Israel’s actions and the results of those actions compare with equivalent war zones elsewhere in the world. In fact, compared with other countries, Israel goes to extraordinary lengths to protect its enemies’ civilian populations—revealing battle plans in advance and delivering those plans to civilians via flyers and text messages, for example. Hamas grotesquely overstates civilian casualties and understates combatant casualties. A proper reading of the data suggests that the sufferings of Gazans, heartbreaking though they may be, are less than in equivalent conflicts elsewhere—including in America’s not-long-ago war on ISIS.
SENTENCE FIRST!
READER: “I can understand taking Israel's side in terms of wanting to wipe out Hamas, but justifying or lightly dismissing what Israel is doing the way you do is truly astonishing to me.
Apologies, but your broad capacity for astonishment is not my concern.
IF IT WALKS LIKE A CANARD AND QUACKS LIKE A CANARD …
READER: “And to say that Jews who are critical of the Israeli government are themselves Jew haters is likewise incredible to me. Thankfully, I can say with certainty that this is simply wrong.”
I have never made such a statement, and have never heard anyone else make that statement. This accusation is mere canard. The fact that it is parroted across the internet does not make it more than that. “Criticizing the government” differs substantially from “calling for the eradication of a nation and, perhaps, of its people.”
RELITIGATING THE PAST?
READER: “To shift the focus, what books would you recommend to nonexperts? What books have shaped your view of the whole conflict, going back to the Balfour Declaration?”
I appreciate your request for recommended readings, but I’ll only suggest the three websites mentioned in the second paragraph of this essay. I’ve been reading materials on this conflict since the mid-1960s, so I’ve been informed by countless books but, frankly, more by thousands of journal articles, news sources, commentaries, etc. So, I’d be hard-pressed to rank those sources and offer a reading list.
Moreover, your query itself is problematic. Why would you want to revisit the Balfour Declaration a century after the fact? In asking about that, you implicitly recognize that Hamas’s objections do not lie with Israel’s “occupation” of Gaza or the West Bank, or recent events, etc.
Hamas’s objection is to the very existence of the State of Israel and, moreover, to the existence of living, breathing Jews anywhere on earth. They’ve said that repeatedly throughout their entire history—a fact lost to many news sources (including some of your fabled “Jewish news sources”). In 1947-48, a Jewish State emerged in Israel—with the support of two-thirds of the much-vaunted U.N. Security Council. For Hamas—an offshoot of organizations established with Nazi assistance in the 1930s and 1940s—that is the objection.
The globe in 2024 is covered with nation-states whose borders were drawn in the aftermath of the catastrophes of World War I, World War II, and other assorted conflicts. Hardly any border on earth was established without some degree of injustice to someone. Borders around the world were often drawn by outsiders. Refugees numbered in the hundreds of millions in the 20th century. Europe is loaded with movements demanding independence or autonomy—Scotland, various regions of Italy and Spain, etc. But for the most part, the world accepts these boundaries and, either peacefully or by war, adjusts them from time to time.
As an academic exercise, one can legitimately debate whether the establishment of Israel in 1948 was the optimal choice by the world community—as one can debate the Palestinians’ rejection of an independent nation also offered by the U.N. But it is now 76 years later, and generations have built their lives around those long-ago decisions.
Only in the case of Israel is there constant clamor from combatants and their shills to entirely eradicate one of the scores of nations that emerged generations ago from the dissolution of the British, French, Spanish, Dutch, Italian, German, Portuguese, Russian, and Ottoman Empires, among others. Have you also asked anyone for recommended readings on whether Iraq or Yemen or East Timor or Pakistan or Laos or Bangladesh or Kazakhstan or Sudan or Eritrea or Uganda or Lesotho should ever have been founded and whether any of those countries should be eliminated as vestiges of very real long-ago injustices? If not, that incuriosity—widely shared by others—begs the question, “Why is it only Jews who must give up their independence, flee into exile, or die at the hands of barbarians like Hamas?”
Why only the Jews, indeed.
SCREENSHOT OF THE ORIGINAL COMMENT
I’ll offer a book to the reader who asked for some help in clarifying the Palestinian situation: _The War of Return: How Western Indulgence of the Palestinian Dream Has Obstructed the Path to Peace_ by Einat Wilf and Adi Schwartz. Short synopsis: the Palestinians want the Jews out of Israel in order to “reclaim” their homeland. It isn’t going to happen and giving encouragement to the Palestinians does nothing more than prolong their misery.
Hamas is the sole cause of Arab suffering in Gaza. It assuredly knew the repercussions of its acts on Oct. 7 and assessed that they were a feature, not a bug. Hamas knows it cannot possibly defeat the IDF militarily and is thus almost entirely dependent on the propaganda war. It is not coincidental that so-called "civilian" death statistics are somehow churned-out with clock-like precision despite the IDF breathing down Hamas's neck. The strategy is to inflame the Muslim world and other useful idiots by reinstating a blood libel against the Jewish state. That is the key to victory. And a look at the news and pundits at any given moment makes one realize that these evil barbarians are also uncannily savvy.