Benjamin Netanyahu: apparently the latest ‘evidence’ comes from the Israeli prime minister – and cannot be independently verified.
This Writer has received a series of hate messages via the platform ‘X’, apparently prompted by this article.
It quotes the only international news agency that didn’t take the claims that Hamas beheaded babies in the Kfar Aza kibbutz at face value and sought confirmation. A report on the news agency’s website states:
The Israeli army has no information confirming allegations that “Hamas beheaded babies,” Israeli army spokesperson unit told Anadolu on Tuesday.
It was alleged that Hamas’s armed wing, the Qassam Brigades, “beheaded many Israeli babies” on the Israeli side during the early Saturday morning attack launched from Gaza.
When Anadolu contacted the Israeli army spokesperson unit over the phone and asked about the allegations, she said “We have seen the news, but we do not have any details or confirmation about that.”
I added:
If it had really happened, you can be damn sure the Israeli Army would have had all the details, with eyewitnesses ready to give their accounts and even – if anybody had the stomach for it – photographic evidence.
None of that is available. There is no evidence of it.
As far as the Israeli Army is concerned, it didn’t happen – and that means it didn’t happen as far as we are concerned either.
The story we are left with is that Hamas has killed babies and children. That might be shocking enough – if only the Israeli military had not killed babies and children in its blanket bombing of Gaza.
You see, the aim of the story was for Israel to claim the moral high ground, and now it can’t. To quote the late, great Paul Newman, “There are only murderers in this room.”
This Site stands vindicated (yet again) as one of the few that stood up for factual accuracy.
This seems to have triggered my correspondent, who claims to be a former colleague from my days at the Shropshire Star, where I was a reporter around 20 years ago. He posted a copy of a post from one Ben Shapiro, showing what is claimed to be the burned body of a baby, then added:
I make no attempt to hide this person’s ‘X’ handle – which is anonymous anyway. Whoever they are, they deserve a bit of exposure after trying to smear me with falsehoods like the following:
Yes, I lost my libel trial and the cost is about right. No, I wasn’t discredited as a journalist; loss of a libel trial doesn’t correspond to such a thing. And I wasn’t expelled from Labour for anti-Semitism but for – in the words of the judge when I took Labour to court over this – “possibly upsetting people”.
On the substantive point that the image posted by Ben Shapiro showed “proof” of the claim against Hamas: it didn’t. It was an image purporting to be of a burned body. It was not an image of a decapitated child.
So my words in the article that upset my disputant stand: “The story we are left with is that Hamas has killed babies and children.”
So let’s not have any more silly shouting about my journalistic integrity.
In fact, the claim that Hamas attacked civilians is now under attack. That organisation has gone on the record as saying it has done nothing of the sort – although I had to go to an Indian news website to find the comments:
In a video statement, Basim Naim, an official with Hamas’ information office, as quoted by CNN, called on the media “to abide by the journalistic code of ethics”.
“We firmly deny these allegations as we reject this media bias, and we call on media to abide by the journalistic code of ethics,” said Naim.
Calling Hamas’ recent large-scale surprise attack on Israel a “defensive” and “internally Palestinian” operation, the official said that it “targeted only the Israeli military bases and compounds.”
Naim further stated that there were explicit directives “from the top commanders of Al Qassam Brigades (Hamas’ military wing) to avoid targeting civilians or killing them.”
So now we have a claim that whatever killed the people at Kfar Aza, it wasn’t Hamas.
As for the new images, here’s possibly the best-known news agency in the world – Reuters:
Israel’s government showed U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken and NATO defence ministers graphic images of dead children and civilians on Thursday, saying they were killed by Palestinian group Hamas as it builds support for its response.
There were no images to suggest militants had beheaded babies — a particularly explosive accusation that first emerged in Israel’s media and initially confirmed by Israeli officials.
The images of the dead infants were included in the video played to NATO. It was not released to the public, but was later seen by Reuters in Jerusalem. Reuters could not independently verify the material.
So the new images are uncorroborated and cannot be proven to be linked to Hamas attacks.
And Hamas has denied attacking civilians in any event.
Who should you believe?
My best advice would be: neither.
That may come easily to you, as regards Hamas – an organisation, we are told, of terrorists. But you should also apply it to the Israeli government, that wants you to be so horrified by what it says Hamas has done that you’ll look the other way while it commits war crimes against innocent people in Gaza.
Obviously you shouldn’t believe the lunatic who chose to lie about me on ‘X’.
Once again, the first casualty of war is the truth.
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