Operation Shield and Arrow has concluded with a ceasefire following over 1,400 rockets fired at Israel by Islamic Jihad in Gaza. It’s time to round up the worst examples of media coverage.
1. CNN’s Confused Reporting
CNN repeatedly insisted the fighting erupted when the IDF took out Islamic Jihad infrastructure. This effectively erased Islamic Jihad’s responsibility for sparking the conflict when it launched 104 rockets at Israel in response to the death of one of its senior commanders, Khader Adnan, in an Israeli prison as a result of a hunger strike.
According to @IsaCNN: “The latest flare-up of the conflict started on Tuesday with Israeli air strikes on Gaza.”
Erasing the 104 rockets launched by Islamic Jihad at Israel in the previous week, for @CNN it all started when Israel fired back.https://t.co/wDCjdVUAKK pic.twitter.com/YcZcgefXJX
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) May 16, 2023
Seriously, @CNN?
🔴This didn’t begin on Tuesday with Israeli strikes.
🔴Islamic Jihad wasn’t targeted for allegedly “planning attacks”; the terror org had fired 104 rockets at Israeli civilians in the previous week.
🔴Stop making Israel the aggressor & terrorists into victims. https://t.co/XnZkbuZL7Y pic.twitter.com/3gWZK5c9pl— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) May 15, 2023
Other news outlets that persistently adopted a timeline designed to turn Israel into the aggressor included the Associated Press, AFP and The Guardian:
Here are some facts @APNews left out:
➡️ the fighting began on May 2 when Islamic Jihad launched 104 rockets at Israeli civilians
➡️ 60% of the dead in Gaza are terrorists
➡️ at least 4 casualties (3 kids) were killed by Islamic Jihad’s own rockets that landed within Gaza pic.twitter.com/iWEyRoh5q2
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) May 12, 2023
Violence broke out the previous week when Islamic Jihad launched 104 rockets at Israeli civilians.
And why does the media always seem to forget that Egypt also enforces the blockade against Gaza?https://t.co/Rm1ldTqEb8 pic.twitter.com/qhLj6QqrpH
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) May 12, 2023
2. WaPo ‘Profiling’ Islamic Jihad
The Washington Post played it fast and loose with the truth in a piece that attempted to delve into the background of Islamic Jihad and explain why Israel is “targeting” the group.
HonestReporting was forced to call out the newspaper on a number of incorrect or misleading points in the article, including the nature of the blockade on Gaza and a failure to distinguish between combatants and civilians.
The most problematic of the WaPo’s profile, though, was its omission of the very ideological foundation upon which Islamic Jihad was formed: the total destruction of the Jewish state.
Why does @washingtonpost‘s Islamic Jihad profile feel like a whitewash of the terror group and a justification for its actions?
➡Islamic Jihad’s commitment to Israel’s destruction is omitted while this description of Israel leaves much to be desired. 🧵https://t.co/ncWQMtVUHR pic.twitter.com/150n7vRCyS
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) May 14, 2023
Like CNN, the publication also erroneously reported that the conflict “began” with the launch of Israel’s military operation and not the first attack by Islamic Jihad the week previously, despite the Washington Post actually covering the rocket fire at the time.
Islamic Jihad fires 104 rockets at Israeli civilians.
The IDF responds. @washingtonpost: The military escalation began with Israel… 🤦🏼♀️ pic.twitter.com/JKqXkU3nV0
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) May 12, 2023
3. New York Times’ Terror PR
The NYT’s Raja Abdulrahim profiled Islamic Jihad, ignoring the group’s proscription as a terrorist organization by the US, UK, Canada, Australia, EU, and Japan in favor of describing them as simply an “armed group” and suggesting Islamic Jihad’s opposition to Israel is largely a territorial issue (see here for HonestReporting’s analysis of the piece).
No, @nytimes. #IslamicJihad isn’t simply an “armed group” founded to “fight Israeli occupation.”
It’s the most radical Palestinian terror org, whose ideological motivation is the complete destruction of Israel through holy war.@RajaAbdulrahim, stop whitewashing Islamic Jihad. https://t.co/7CjygEyqRa pic.twitter.com/yhCnsMcS6S
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) May 10, 2023
Abdulrahim’s blatant distortion of the group’s motives was brought into sharp focus when the NYT published a rewritten version of the explainer that gave readers the unvarnished truth about Islamic Jihad: “It rejects Israel’s right to exist, as does its primary backer, Iran. The group’s goal is to establish an Islamic state in all the territory of historic Palestine, which includes modern Israel.”
The bias of @RajaAbdulrahim is even more obvious after @nytimes gets another of its reporters to rewrite and vastly improve on her original whitewashing of Islamic Jihad. It really shouldn’t be that difficult to accurately describe a vicious terrorist org.https://t.co/9nKBFTneRH https://t.co/elKi0K4qNt pic.twitter.com/cMG4S92oJ2
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) May 12, 2023
4. Reuters Reports ‘Both Sides’
It should go without saying that Israel cannot be compared to Islamic Jihad considering the latter is a terrorist group that seeks to maim and murder civilians.
However, Reuters unwittingly suggested there is some kind of moral equivalence between the two when it said that some Israeli ministers oppose the formation of a Palestinian state.
Whatever you might think about Israel’s government, there is no moral equivalence between the policies of some of its ministers and the Islamic Jihad terrorist organization.
Why is @Reuters conflating the two?https://t.co/yEcQLzJbxE pic.twitter.com/1e4piNZTW6
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) May 14, 2023
5. Sky Strips Agency From Terrorists
Sky News decided to excise terrorists from one of its headlines about the conflict, instead writing as though the physical land mass that is the Gaza Strip had fired rockets at Israel, as opposed to actual people.
Reporting that “Gaza launche[d] more than 600 rockets” the outlet stripped all agency from the actual terrorists responsible, while also neglecting to inform readers that an Israeli civilian had been killed.
Hey @SkyNews, we’ve fixed your headline for you.https://t.co/QUtrIssFVA pic.twitter.com/JD2cC38vGR
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) May 12, 2023
When They Get it Right…
Responsible news coverage of Operation Shield and Arrow needed to include certain facts. CBS News’ Robert Berger was spot on in his reporting, quickly and concisely giving viewers all the facts they needed: Islamic Jihad fired the first rockets, Israel’s response was mild, the IDF took time planning a precision raid to take out senior Islamic Jihad leaders.
👏Well done to @CBSNews‘ Robert Berger for clearly explaining how this latest conflict began with the 104 rockets fired at Israel by Islamic Jihad in the days before Israel’s military operation.
Why are so many other media still claiming it all started when Israel fired back? pic.twitter.com/e5OyoWMMWO
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) May 16, 2023
Another conflict between Israel and Palestinian terrorist groups that are hellbent on destroying the Jewish state is nothing short of inevitable.
But the media’s slanted reportage need not be.
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