How The Mainstream Media Emboldened Hamas’s Vengeful Hand

It’s a level of horror hard to imagine: hundreds of innocent Israelis raped, mutilated and wounded in cold blood, more than 150 taken hostage under the abominable threat of execution, and the unfathomable scene of butchered children – all at the maniacal hand of Gaza-based terrorist group, Hamas. In the immediate aftermath of the surprise and deeply sinister onslaught, which began on the brink of dawn last Saturday, Israel declared a state of war and launched retaliatory airstrikes targeting the terrorists on its border.

As the situation continues to spiral, with more lives lost by the day, one can’t help but dissect the chilling role the left-leaning, terrorist-sympathizing mainstream media (MSM) have played in recent years leading up to this wincing moment – essentially empowering Hamas to launch such a vicious onslaught and trigger an all-out war.

Since garnering an unprecedented level of support from officials during the Obama administration, Hamas, a U.S. designated terror group that violently won control of the embattled Gaza strip in 2007,  came to understand the power of public relations and that winning over the foolish press was the most potent weapon in its Iran-supported stockpile. For the past decade, we’ve been bombarded with images of poverty in the Hamas-governed areas and wailing stories painting Israel as the villain against much poorer victims on the other side of a “dehumanizing” fence. Never mind that Hamas (a group that calls for the complete decimation of the state of Israel and the Jewish people) dehumanizes itself via notoriously using human shields, disguising themselves as civilians, and indiscriminately launching rockets without regard for Israeli noncombatants – all war crimes whitewashed by the press.

In 2018, former Associated Press reporter based in Jerusalem, Matti Friedman, broke precedent and acknowledged in an op-ed that editors omitted Hamas’s manipulation of events and complied with Hamas censorship orders under the guise of “protecting” journalists from their harm.

“The press could be trusted to present dead human beings not as victims of the terrorist group that controls their lives, or of a tragic confluence of events, but of an unwarranted Israeli slaughter,” he wrote. “The willingness of reporters to cooperate with that script gave Hamas the incentive to keep using it.”

Friedman also highlighted that stories of Israeli peace offerings – rejected by the Palestinians – were downplayed or languished without much fanfare in favor of more anger-inciting stories surrounding Israel’s settlements in the West Bank or the IDF’s response to a threat.

“Any reporter from the international press corps in Israel, whether he or she works for the AP, Reuters, CNN, the BBC, or elsewhere, will recognize the examples I’ve cited here of what is newsworthy and what is not as standard operating procedure,” he added. “I saw, from the inside, how Israel’s flaws were dissected and magnified while the flaws of its enemies were purposely erased. I saw how the threats facing Israel were disregarded or even mocked as figments of the Israeli imagination, even as these threats repeatedly materialized.”