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The Washington Post Abandons ‘Truth’ and ‘Fairness’ in Its Israel-Hamas War Coverage

Despite The Washington Post espousing principles of “truth” and “fairness,” its expansive coverage of the Israel-Hamas war since October 7 has been marred by its bias against Israel’s defensive actions and conduct in the region….

Reading time: 7 minutes

Despite The Washington Post espousing principles of “truth” and “fairness,” its expansive coverage of the Israel-Hamas war since October 7 has been marred by its bias against Israel’s defensive actions and conduct in the region.

Over the past four months, HonestReporting has tracked this biased coverage, focusing on three particularly concerning areas:

  1. The narrative produced by The Post’s general reporting;
  2. The opinions expressed in its editorials;
  3. Its disconcerting reliance on the testimony of controversial sources.

“Civilians,” “Fighters” & “Captives”: The Washington Post’s Skewed Reporting

Through its use of certain terminology, skewed facts, and context-free assertions, The Washington Post’s general reporting on the war helps to create a narrative that implicitly portrays Israel as the aggressor while simultaneously downplaying the ruthlessness of Hamas and its regional allies, including Hezbollah.

One of its most influential pieces produced since October 7 has been the investigation into the IDF’s claims regarding Hamas’ use of Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City.

In order to undermine the evidence presented by Israel to the public (which is not the full extent of its relevant intelligence), The Post made a variety of speculations and context-less assertions to lay doubts in its readers’ minds as to the veracity of Israel’s case.

The Post used this amateurish “muddying the waters” tactic to subvert the IDF’s justified entrance into the hospital complex, portraying Israel as the aggressor while relinquishing Hamas of any responsibility for using civilian infrastructure for terrorist purposes.

In another investigative report, The Post sought to cast a dark pall over the IDF’s actions in Gaza by claiming that the number of children killed in this conflict might be unprecedented in the annals of 21st-century warfare.

However, The Post was only able to reach these conclusions by skewing the statistics against Israel: It relied on selective data that didn’t provide a complete picture of the damage wrought by these other conflicts and also relied on verified statistics for the other conflicts while relying on Hamas’ unverified number for the Gazan casualties.

Related Reading: Washington Post Turns Israel Into #1 Child Killer Based on Faulty Statistics

While both the Al-Shifa hospital report and the comparison of Gaza with other conflict zones were blatant hit pieces directed against the IDF’s activities in Gaza, there are more subtle ways in which The Post’s bias has skewed the narrative.

For example, while the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health does not differentiate between combatants and civilians in its count of the daily dead during the war, it would be irrational to assume that all killed by the IDF were civilians. However, this didn’t stop The Post from referring on numerous occasions to all of Gaza’s dead as “civilians.”

Similarly, in reporting on the November 2023 exchange of Israeli hostages held by Hamas for Palestinians held in Israeli prisons, The Post described it as an exchange of “captives,” implicitly equating civilians kidnapped by a terror organization to those imprisoned by a democratic country.

In addition, one of the reports on the exchange deal referred to Palestinian prisoners as “civilians,” sanitizing those who are members of internationally recognized terror organizations and/or in prison for violent activities.

Following the November exchange, The Post even uncritically quoted a Hamas official that all women and child hostages had been released, even though that was patently untrue.

This is not the only instance in which The Post has parroted Hamas’ claims to its audience.

Days after the October 7 massacres, The Post published an explainer on what Hamas is and why it had invaded southern Israel. This included detailing Hamas’ reasoning for its attack without any editorial rebuttal, implicitly justifying the terror group’s twisted logic.

Similarly, following the IDF’s entrance into Al-Shifa Hospital, The Post uncritically tweeted Hamas’ claim that this constituted “war crimes and crimes against humanity” to its 20 million followers.

The Washington Post has sought to create a moral equivalence between Israel and Hamas by comparing Hamas’ indiscriminate rocket fire directed against Israeli civilian centers to Israel’s strikes against Hamas targets in Gaza.

Similarly, clashes on the northern front between the IDF and Hezbollah have been described as “tit for tat” fighting where Israel attacks Lebanon and then Hezbollah attacks Israel even though it is actually the opposite: Hezbollah initiated hostilities on that front and Israel is forced to respond to the terror organization’s attacks against northern Israel.

The Post’s bias is not limited to reporting on the present but can also be observed in the newspaper’s revisionist view of Israeli history.

For example, in one article, it was claimed that during the creation of Israel, “750,000 Palestinians were expelled.”

This is a gross mischaracterization of history (which serves to perpetuate the myth of Palestinians being the victims of Israeli aggression) as most of the Palestinian population that was displaced during that time voluntarily fled to escape the fighting.

Similarly, describing the 1967 Six-Day War, The Post claimed that Israel “launched” the “war against Syria, Jordan and Egypt,” ignoring the fact that in the month prior to the outbreak of the war, Syria and Egypt had engaged in acts of war against the Jewish state and Israel only fought Jordan after the latter attacked Israeli positions after the war had started.

Poisoned Pen: The Washington Post’s Anti-Israel Opinion Pieces

The Washington Post has published an array of anti-Israel opinion pieces, both those written by its staff and those contributed by guest writers.

In the month following the October 7 attack, columnist Karen Attiah published several opinion pieces that sought to tarnish Israel’s reputation and its fight against Hamas through misleading statements, a skewed analysis, and unfounded opinions.

Some of the most egregious examples of Attiah’s disdain for the Jewish state and whitewashing of Hamas include the claim that Israel is committing “ethnic cleansing” against the Palestinians, the implicit comparison of Israel to Nazi Germany, the complete disregard for the rise in global antisemitism since October 7, and the undermining of the term “human shields” in regards to Hamas’ cynical use of Gazan civilians for its nefarious purposes.

Ishaan Tharoor has used his column to promote the false idea that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza and to present a one-sided view of Israeli administrative detention.

Like Karen Attiah, Tharoor relies on biased sources, skewed analyses, and misleading statements to denigrate the Jewish state in the eyes of The Post’s readership.

It’s not only seasoned columnists like Ishaan Tharoor and Karen Attiah who have been given a platform to spread their anti-Israel views.

In December 2023, Perry Bacon Jr. (who rarely comments on Israel) penned an op-ed accusing Israel of “indiscriminately bombing” Gaza while simultaneously downplaying the role of Hamas, its misappropriation of civilian infrastructure, and its October 7 atrocities to make them seem almost irrelevant.

Similarly, in a guest op-ed by Benjamin Moser, Israel is blamed entirely for the collapse of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process with nary a mention of the numerous Palestinian terror attacks, rejections of peace offers, and continued incitement against the Jewish state.

While opinion pieces may not reflect a newspaper’s official viewpoint, the fact that the pieces mentioned above were deemed acceptable for publication speaks volumes about how The Post’s editorial board views the conflict.

Hamas Supporters & Propagandists: The Washington Post’s Reliance on Questionable Sources

On January 8, 2024, HonestReporting published an investigation into two Gaza-based freelance journalists who had supported the October 7 invasion of Israel.

One of these freelancers, Ashraf Amra, hosted an Instagram Live where he encouraged Gazans to cross into Israel and gleefully watched footage of the lynching of an Israeli soldier. It was also revealed that Amra has at least twice had friendly interactions with Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh.

Mere hours after HonestReporting published its investigation, Ashra Amra was quoted by name in a Washington Post report.

This is not the only time that The Post has relied on the testimony or evidence of a controversial Gaza-based figure.

In late October 2024, The Post’s Instagram page shared a video of Israel’s military activities taken by Palestinian journalist Hind Khoudary.

It was revealed in 2020 that Khoudary had reported to Hamas a group of Palestinian youth who had engaged in a Zoom dialogue with Israelis.

Members of this group were later arrested by Hamas for “normalization.”

In January 2024, The Post advertised a talk about life in Gaza during the war to be given by Plestia Alaqad, an “aspiring journalist.”

However, Alaqad has been known to spread Hamas propaganda and anti-Israel libels, including claims of genocide and the assertion that Israel had committed a “massacre” at the Al-Ahli Hospital (the explosion outside the hospital was actually determined to have been caused by an errant Palestinian rocket).

While it should be noted that The Post has also featured some opinion pieces and reports that are favorable to Israel, this does nothing to “balance” what remains the clear evidence of bias against Israel in its pages.

This should concern anyone who looks to The Washington Post for an objective and fair take on the current conflict between Israel and Hamas.

Liked this article? Follow HonestReporting on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok to see even more posts and videos debunking news bias and smears, as well as other content explaining what’s really going on in Israel and the region.

Photo Credits from Flash90:
– Abed Rahim Khatib
– Oren Ben Hakoon

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Chaim Lax
Chaim Lax
Originally from Toronto, Canada, Chaim moved to Israel in 2018. He has a B.A. (Hons) in Political Science and History from York University as well as an MA in Israel Studies from the Rothberg International School at Hebrew University. Prior to joining HonestReporting, Chaim worked with a variety of Israel advocacy organizations in both Canada and Israel.
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