When Will It Be Enough? On Tisha B’Av, Media Blood Libels Reveal the Enduring Threat of Antisemitism
This week has been filled with online posts, pundits, and media influencers who have once again bought into an antisemitic blood libel, poured straight from the headlines of prominent news outlets such as The New York Times and the BBC. Their reporting has stirred anguish and outrage over alleged starvation in Gaza, amplified by harrowing images of suffering children.
But the facts, as always, tell a different story.
On July 25, 2025, The New York Times issued an Editor’s Note correcting its widely circulated story about Mohammed Zakaria al-Mutawaq, a Gazan toddler initially described as a victim of war-induced malnutrition. The article, bolstered by an emotionally charged photo, was later clarified to reveal the child suffered from a pre-existing health condition, including cerebral palsy and hypoxemia, which significantly impacted his muscle and brain development, a key detail omitted from the original publication.
As Representative Ritchie Torres wrote on X this week, “In war, truth is the first casualty.”
We have seen this playbook before. On October 17, 2023, the Times falsely blamed Israel for the bombing of Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza. Only after significant outrage and video verification did they walk back the claims, admitting they had relied too heavily on Hamas sources.
Meanwhile, at the BBC, the situation is even more disturbing. On June 5, 2025, Steve Winston, Managing Director of the National Jewish Assembly, published an op-ed revealing that in the span of just 48 hours in the beginning of May 2025, the BBC had aired two separate false reports accusing Israel of massacres at humanitarian aid sites in Rafah. Both stories were later fully debunked by the very aid organizations on the ground yet were initially broadcast as “breaking news” based solely on Hamas propaganda.
Just this week, a leaked internal memo exposed that BBC staff were instructed to intentionally slant Gaza coverage not just against Israel, but also against the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), which is working to feed Gazans despite the chaos.
In recent months, even some Jewish organizations have joined the chorus of critics holding Israel to what many would argue is a uniquely high moral standard not applied to any other nation in wartime. Historically, no other country has been expected to provide food and aid to a civilian population governed by a terror group actively working for its destruction. And yet, Israel has secured and delivered humanitarian aid, and is still demanded to do more, or it is not moral or ethical enough.
Egypt, which also borders Gaza, faces no such international pressure. And those same Jewish groups rarely confront the false narratives that demonize Israel, distort reality, and contribute to the surge in global antisemitism.
The damage isn’t limited to misinformation and its spread. When media outlets frame Israel as the aggressor and ignore the fact that Hamas is the cause of all the suffering since October 7, they do more than mislead; they have a hand in legitimizing a lie. Hamas is not the victim; it is the perpetrator. It hides behind civilians, uses them as shields, and exploits Palestinian suffering as a weapon on the ground and in the global press.
There are innocent Palestinians, yes, but not every Palestinian is innocent, and not every casualty is a victim of Israel, as Hamas has murdered Palestinians seeking food and medicine since the war began. Some have enabled or participated in terror. Others are trapped by a regime that thrives on their pain. But when the world refuses to see Hamas as the author of this devastation, it becomes complicit in the lie and in the consequences that follow.
We are in precarious times.
Since April, we have watched how distortion metastasizes into danger—how words, chants, and slogans become weapons.
In April 2025, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro’s home was set ablaze. The perpetrator cited “perceived injustices to the people of Palestine” and screamed “Free Palestine” as the flames rose.
In May, two Israeli embassy staff were murdered in Washington, D.C., carried out under the same slogan: “Free Palestine.”
In June, a peaceful rally in Boulder, Colorado, where Jewish demonstrators called for the release of Israeli hostages, was firebombed. Once again, the attacker shouted, “Free Palestine.”
What begins as a narrative, repeated in headlines, op-eds, and social media threads, does not stay a narrative. It hardens into belief, actions become rationalized, leading to consequences, and those radicalized movements can become deadly.
According to the ADL’s June 10, 2025 survey, the climate is growing more hostile:
- 24% of Americans say these attacks were “understandable”
- 15% say the violence was “necessary”
- 13% say it was “justified”
- 38% believe attacks against Jews would stop if Israel declared a ceasefire
This is the moment we find ourselves in, once again.
Tisha B’Av is a day of mourning for the destruction of our Temples in Jerusalem. The First by the Babylonians in 586 BCE, and the Second by the Romans in 70 CE, and the exile that followed. It is not only about physical destruction. It marks a pattern repeated across centuries: in 1290, the expulsion from England; in 1492, from Spain; in 1496, from Portugal; and in 1942, the deportations from the Warsaw Ghetto to Treblinka, all linked by distortion, defamation, and the failure of surrounding societies to intervene or speak out.
Tisha B’Av stands as a warning: that the collapse of safety begins not with violence alone, but with lies left unchallenged and hatred allowed to fester.
When will it be enough?
When media stops laundering terror propaganda into primetime headlines?
When truth matters more than agenda?
When we recognize that today’s headlines are simply old hatreds repackaged?
When we stop apologizing for insisting that Jewish lives are not expendable?
If we fail to name this for what it is, modern-day antisemitism wrapped in righteous disguise, we become silent witnesses to a fire we’ve seen before. But this time, it isn’t just history warning us. Reality is screaming. The fire is here. And silence is its fuel.
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