Lest We Forget

Forgetting, for the moment, the debate over whether Al-Jazeera functions as a bona fide news organization or as a propaganda arm, Israel has claimed that the recently assassinated journalist was also a member of Hamas.

That claim, in some circles, is met with a shrug. So what? 

A recent article in The Telegraph quoted a veteran Palestinian journalist:

“Most of the journalists operating in Gaza are affiliated with one group or another, otherwise, they cannot operate. It doesn’t necessarily mean that he is a terrorist.”

As one online reader bluntly replied: Yes, it does.

If you are a member of Hamas, you are—by definition—a terrorist. It makes no difference whether you fire rockets or cook meals, plant IEDs or broadcast “news,” take hostages or chauffeur leadership. In times of war, you are part of the enemy’s apparatus. The uniform may not be military fatigues, but the allegiance is the same.

And lest we forget, Hamas is not the legitimate government of Gaza. The Palestinian Authority was—until Hamas staged a violent and bloody coup in 2007, throwing Fatah members off rooftops and executing them in the streets. From that moment, Hamas became not just an unelected power, but a violent, oppressive regime holding the people of Gaza hostage in every sense of the word.

It would seem that this is what they do best—taking hostages. Sometimes they are literal. Sometimes they are figurative. Always, they are real.

The Price of Blurred Lines

This is why the line between “journalist” and “operative” matters. A press badge is not a shield against accountability when it covers service to a terrorist organization. Yet the global media often treats it as one, granting blanket legitimacy to individuals whose professional title conceals their political or militant affiliation.

This is not a new phenomenon. From the Nazi propagandists tried at Nuremberg to the Rwandan radio broadcasters convicted for inciting genocide, history is clear: words can be weapons, and those who wield them in service of violent ideologies are not neutral actors. They are combatants—just with different tools.

By refusing to acknowledge this, the press does more than mislead audiences—it reinforces Hamas’s strategy. Every time a Hamas-affiliated “journalist” is portrayed simply as a reporter, the propaganda value doubles: Hamas gets its message out, and any response from Israel can be framed as an attack on freedom of the press.

The tragedy here is not that Hamas operatives are treated as legitimate journalists. The tragedy is that real journalists—those who seek truth without serving terror—are put in greater danger when the definition is diluted.

If we cannot name the difference between a reporter and an operative, we will keep mistaking propaganda for news, and combatants for civilians. And lest we forget, that confusion is not accidental—it’s the point.