Is the Jerusalem Post siding with the haters (in Gaza)?

Is a supposedly rightwing Israeli newspaper playing the spokesperson for the enemy, the Gaza junta, the haters, the liars, while we’re under their fire?

This may be a very uncomfortable conversation.

Forget about moral equivalence. Gaza’s tyrannical terrorist rulers target Israel’s civilians indiscriminately; the democratic government of Israel bombs the hell out of the tyrants’ facilities while trying to spare all Gazan civilians, even when the junta built much of its military infrastructure in the midst of civilian populations and under hospitals.

The anti-Zionist intellectual English Haaretz gave a cold analysis of why the dictators of Gaza have again started to target the Israeli population.

Two Gaza wars ago I was the first and only one who called this aggression a war crime. Now, everyone here calls it for what it is. True, I couldn’t make the Gazans behave like the Germans after WW II, but at least I was able to improve the conversation and contribute to more clarity of what goes on.

Don’t say that letter writers and bloggers just talk but have no real influence.

Back to Haaretz. Its analysis doesn’t blame the victim, Israel — at least not in the first few words that can be read for free. It talks about Hamas smelling money to be extorted from Israel because its Eurovision Song Festival and its 71rst Independence Day are coming up.

The Times of Israel after that also brings a lengthy analysis of why the tyrants of Gaza started to target us again. Very similar to the Haaretz analysis.

I think that Hamas also started just before the Ramadan so that it can blame Israel for killing in the holy month.

The Jerusalem Post Presents Uncontested Terrorist Propaganda and Lies

However, the Jerusalem Post writes differently. It seems to have copied the media I quote above, at first at 22:00, 8 respectively 6 hours later. But it added a twist. If I leave out the seemingly copied stuff, what do we read?

Palestinian terrorists’ spin without any refutation.

First of all, the Gazan aggression is called a “flare-up of violence in the Gaza Strip.” This is a known journalist trick of dishonest reporting to hide who started the violence. There was no “flare-up,” of course; people pulled the trigger. Further, the violence was not “in the Gaza Strip” but caused by it and perpetrated on Israel. So much for an opening sentence.

Now the reporter continues to claim that the terrorists had “been warning of an imminent “explosion”.” In truth that were not warnings but threats. Their “reason” was Israel not paying Gaza enough. Normal people call that blackmail and a pretext.

Then he reports that the terrorists had “been skeptical about the ceasefire understandings from day one.” That is not skepticism but being uncommitted. Israel would not and did not violate the lull in fighting.

The argument is clear. Israel caused the “flare-up.” But the Times of Israel and Haaretz didn’t think so!

Now, the terrorists (he calls them “Iranian-backed Islamic Jihad”) were “running out of patience” with Israel.

Now it comes. The “real” cause was “Israel’s decision last week to minimize the fishing zone for Gaza fishermen.” In truth, Israel first had enlarged the fishing zone, as a goodwill gesture. Only when the terrorists started hostilities, Israel withdrew the enlargement. Truth is nowhere to be found in this reporting.

Israel then proved the aggression with photo’s of several Islamic Jihad members “it said” (my quotation marks) were behind the recent rocket and incendiary balloon attacks on Israel. Now, there comes the next spin. Supposedly, “Islamic Jihad saw the move as a warning that Israel may resume its policy of targeted assassinations against the group’s senior operatives.”

This is all uncontested propaganda and lies from the terrorists and the Jerusalem Post presents this as an analysis. Hard to believe, no? Well, click on the link and read for yourself.

Who Exactly Were the Killers Here?

The above is not an isolated report of the Post voicing solidarity with our enemies, the occupiers and oppressors of the Gaza Strip. Take the pregnant mother and her toddler killed there yesterday.

Quickly, the IDF Arab spokesperson clarified that they couldn’t have been killed by IDF fire since the IDF had not targeted the area in which they died. Rather, they must have died from one of the 400+ rockets fired by the occupiers.

The ultra-left anti-Zionist Haaretz reported this, the left-leaning JTA did, the left of the center ToI did too, and so did Ynet and the rightwing Algemeiner, the Jewish Press and Arutz7. But not the Post. That reported the Gaza version of the news that Jews (again) were baby killers while our South-West population lives in shelters again.

One of the best national newspapers of the Netherlands quotes the Jerusalem Post stating that Israel killed this pregnant mother with kid.

From this we see that any bad report counts internationally. That it doesn’t matter if the rest of the reporting were OK.

That it mainly writes for the international and not the local market we see when they headline that Israel received 700 rockets “over the weekend.” No one in Israel believes that Sunday is included in the weekend.

But, don’t assume that this was (yet) a(nother) one-off. Half a day later the Post reports the same, together with a couple of extra unchallenged lies from one of the Palestinians’ worst and most charming liars.

One could say that the Post needs the attention and although the press should not prostitute itself, we would understand. However, a not less dramatic story, with picture and clip, of a young pregnant Israeli mother protecting her two-year-old against Hamas rockets went even viral but never made it into the Jerusalem Post. (Correction: at 6:45, it finally had it.)

It even published a whole sob story on how Gazans are the victims of poverty and violence, scared and brave and Israel is the attacker; not one letter about that they are the aggressors! This opposite one human interest story about what Jews suffer at a funeral in Ashdod, published 6 hours later, in which we don’t read one negative remark against our enemy. But nothing about the suffering of Jews in the “Gaza Envelop.” But because it made separate stories, you need to read them both to see the contrast. The Post did bring a story about how Gentile Eurovision Song Festival contestants feel.

Let alone the contrast between an army that tries to avoid hitting civilians and terrorists who try to hit as many civilians as possible.

The Jerusalem Post’s Morally Bankruptcy

And also that is nothing new. I reported before (here and here) that the Jerusalem Post sometimes brings anti-Israel and anti-Jewish propaganda. That would be a preposterous claim if I didn’t have the links to prove it. So rather, most unfortunately, it is a revolting fact, not a preposterous idea.

We knew that financially, the Post is almost bankrupt. It became a Friday paper with some unworthy spacious (immaterial pictures sized half a page) copies the rest of the week. Now we see that it also became morally broke.

Advertisers should know that the Post, as the only outlet in the world, as far as I know, refreshes its page when one gets close to the end or to the end of a video clip on it. This way they double the number of hits their site gets. It’s claiming something to the advertizes that is fraudulent.

One could “defend” the Post and say that on a shoestring budget it is bound to have failures in reporting but that it has no ill intent. But whether this repeated Hamas misreporting is incompetence or treacherous, the Post should be chastised for it.

True, not all of the Post is disastrous. It has fine legal, army, medical and parliamentary reporting and stands squarely against racism. (That still doesn’t make it a newspaper. It’s a collection of a handful of excellent blog posts with lots of giant irrelevant pictures.) But if it also writes as if representing our true enemies, I wouldn’t want a subscription.

My dream for some time is that it finally folds and is bought up by a fine right-of-the-center publisher who restores to its old glory. This dream is becoming more urgent by the day.