The world’s press, including America’s, has been leaning left of center for a long time, and in recent years is steadily drifting further to the left. In today’s atmosphere, left-leaning tendency is not just limited to political orientation but also adopting its whole woke agenda, including hatred of Israel.
A particular egregious example of this can be seen in its coverage of the Gaza war. The savage brutality of Hamas’ initial surprise attack was too evident to soft-pedal, and Israel generally received much of the world media’s sympathy. However, this lasted only for a few days, and the leftward drift in press coverage returned and reached a crescendo in the fake reports of the hospital attack killing 500 Gaza civilians. Blaring headlines in most of the world’s press castigated Israel for its own ruthless behavior and elicited an appearance of equal brutality on both sides. Rioting immediately broke out around the world, even into the very halls of our own congress.
Subsequent investigation showed that the source of the attack was not Israel, but a terrorist missile that had apparently misfired. Also the parking lot sustained most of the damage, not the hospital, and there were far fewer casualties than initially reported, probably less than fifty. The press began backtracking on some of their initial hysterical outbursts, but only reluctantly. Two days later, the Wall Street Journal, once the bastion of the center-right crowd, is still running articles referring to the 500-death hospital attack.
Unfortunately the “truth” no longer matters, as the damage is already done. The world remains in a greatly agitated state, even as the investigation continues to determine who was responsible and it happened.
However, I think an even more important question than the ongoing investigation after the fact, is why didn’t any respectable journalist or editors wait to try to determine the facts before hysterically proclaiming a brutal attack by Israel. They immediately accepted the word of blood-thirsty Hamas, which is labeled as a terrorist organization by the United States and other countries, as the ultimate truth and ran with that narrative.
The world’s press is obviously compromised and biased against Israel. It is therefore of utmost importance that we, each in our own way, do our part to counter erroneous press misinformation.
Max Wisotsky
Highland Park
