When Was CBS Sold to Hamas?

During the current conflict between Israel and Hamas I’ve been watching, listening to and reading a wide variety of media. Mostly it’s been a pleasant surprise this time around. The BBC did a remarkable piece about all the false images claiming to show the suffering of Palestinians in Gaza. Media outlets around the world picked up the story which highlighted the lies and propaganda in places that never report on it. France 24 showed IDF footage taken from one of Israel’s planes which showed a pilot calling off an airstrike because Hamas has put children on the roof to act as human shields which, once again, got a surprising amount of coverage in places where I least expected to see it. (Shown here with English subtitles.)

Just last night on CNN’s Crossfire former US Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich pronounced the calls for Israeli restraint in the face of relentless rocket fire from Hamas his “outrage of the day”. He pointed out: "If the United States had 1,000 rockets fired at us, would we show any restraint? Of course not. We would annihilate whoever did it." Paul Begala, the left wing commentator who normally debates Gingrich, first three words in response: “You're exactly right.” That is not what CNN viewers are used to seeing on Israel.

CBS has been as bad as the far left fringe outlets. Watching Holly Williams report on Gaza from Sderot I learned the most amazing things. For example, most Gazans were displaced from their homeland in 1948. Considering that the median age in Gaza is just 15 most Gazans have never seen Israel. They are the granchildren and great grandchildren of the actual refugees, but Ms. Williams clearly believes in inherited refugee status. Her main theme was that “Israel claims” it’s targeting terrorists but it’s really aiming for poor, innocent Palestinian women and children. Her reports show children going to hospital (some with no obvious injuries), wailing and screaming women, and rubble which supposedly was their homes. There usually is no mention of Hamas using human shields except for last night, when she had a Hamas spokesman on to claim that is a lie. No Israeli was included in any of her reports I've seen during the conflict.

If Ms. Williams does mention Hamas rockets briefly at the end of her report she makes sure to tell us that no Israelis have died and that Palestinians don’t have anything like Iron Dome to protect them. (One Israeli was killed today.) She apparently believes that rocket fire into Israel should be ignored. No mention of injuries and property damage gets into her reports. She needs to use all her time to convince us to pity the poor Palestinians.

If that Hamas spokesman had been given editorial control of the CBS News report he couldn’t have written more favorable propaganda. When I was young the CBS Evening News with Walter Cronkite was the most respected and trusted television newscast in America. That is no longer the case. Sadly journalistic standards and fairness have been entirely abandoned by CBS. Nowadays they are combatants in a media war against Israel, even when many mainstream left-leaning media outlets have decided they cannot participate this time around.

No Israeli Good Deed Goes Unpunished

The two week IDF rescue and medical mission to Haiti drew some absolutely amazing press. Even media outlets normally critical of Israel couldn't heap enough praise on what Israelis did in Haiti. For example, watch this brief (under two minute) report on CNN:


Here is another CNN story about Israeli rescue efforts. Even some in the Arab media covered the story. Here is what Palestinian-American journalist Ray Hanania had to say:

"200,000 Haitians died in an earthquake. They sent doctors and supplies to help. That is a good thing. Just because we are fighting with Israel doesn't mean we should sneer at that assistance to people in need. YES, I wish Israel could show the same compassion for Palestinians. But Israel and Haiti are not at war and Israelis and Palestinians (mainly Hamas and the settlers) are."

Despite this some have used the IDF efforts in Haiti as an excuse to bash Israel according to an article in Ha'aretz published on January 21. Those who hate Israel accuse the Jewish state of giving aid not out of concern for the suffering in that country, but rather for ulterior motives:

"...for a shocking number of others, the bottom line is simple: Israel, and Israelis, can do no right. In its most extreme there are those who have accused Israel of using the Haiti catastrophe as a new reservoir for harvesting organs.

But even many of those who shun blood libels, have seized on the Haiti mission to bash Israel, revealing in many cases a hatred - and a bigotry - that borders on the visceral.

'I guess giving Israel credit for good deeds in Haiti,' wrote reader John Smithson on the widely read Mondoweiss site, 'is like watching a serial killer or other sociopathic type mow an old woman's lawn (or some other charitable thing).'

This sort of reaction is not surprising giving the almost daily anti-Israel diatribes found on that website. The Ha'aretz article continues:

"The contention is that Israel sent aid to Haiti on purely cynical motives [...] it is nothing short of racism to maintain, in Haiti and in general, that Israelis can do no right.

In his book The Case For Peace, Alan Dershowitz claims that many of the supporters of the Palestinians in the West are "more Palestinian than the Palestinians" and that their hatred of and vitriol towards Israel is far greater than what is found among Palestinian Arabs. This latest round of anti-Semitic and anti-Israel hatred, complete with blood libel which would make the authors of The Protocols of the Elders of Zion proud, is a prime example. No Israeli deed, no matter how noble, will go unpunished by those who truly hate the Jewish state and the Jewish people.