About Joe Weber

Now the Jerry and Karla Huse Professor Emeritus at the University of Nebraska's College of Journalism and Mass Communications, I worked 35 years in magazines and newspapers. I spent most of that time, 22 years, at BUSINESS WEEK Magazine, leaving in August 2009 as chief of correspondents. So far, I have worked in central New Jersey, New York City, Denver, Dallas, Philadelphia, Toronto, Chicago, Beijing, Shanghai and Lincoln, Nebraska. The adventure continues.

What Can Make Trump Fail

Can the media, doing its job, show voters the fatal flaws of their hero?

Source: Bloomberg via Getty Images/Axios

Despite scores of news stories about his astonishing legal woes, Donald J. Trump seems likely to coast in on a smooth glidepath to the Republican nomination for president. As the National Review noted, he is polling above 60 percent nationally and leads the field by 30 points in Iowa, where caucusing takes place Monday night.

In the face of his four indictments, 91 criminal charges and two impeachments, his supporters seem only to rally behind him. They seem persuaded by his claims that he is a victim of persecution, much as they feel victimized by the economic, racial, ethnic and social change he seems to stand against – he is their King Canute.

A short time ago, The Wall Street Journal ran “Trump’s Businesses Got Millions From Foreign Governments While He Was President,” a piece detailing how various governments enriched him with official stays in his hotels in Las Vegas and Washington and spending at his New York properties. When I posted a link to it on Facebook, a journalist friend sadly wrote: “Story after story, year after year, decade after decade, yet no legal team can put TFG away,” wrote BusinessWeek veteran Joan Warner. “From tax evasion to misuse of funds to election tampering to insurrection to rape, he gets away with is. The one truthful thing he ever said was that he could shoot a guy on Fifth Avenue and it wouldn’t make a difference. He was right.”

The disdain Trump’s supporters feel for the legal system is mind-boggling, of course, as is the system’s seeming inability to nail him (even as a clutch of his underlings, deserted by him, have been jailed or face criminal charges). Equally unsettling, though, is the disregard among the MAGA faithful for journalistic work that that has illuminated his perfidy – before, during and after his presidency.

Source: The Washington Post

Story after story seems to roll off their backs or, bizarrely, to deepen their enthusiasm for him. Are they simply not paying attention? Or, worse, do these pieces just entrench the idea that the elites – in the “fake news” media that Trump derides to great effect – are just unfairly coming after their hero again?

For journalists, the question arises: does any of that painstaking, diligent work make any difference? Indeed, might be it counterproductive?

Back when Trump was spreading lies about Barack Obama’s birthplace, researchers described the “backfire” effect. As NPR put it in a 2010 piece, this was the idea that “we base our opinions on beliefs and when presented with contradictory facts, we adhere to our original belief even more strongly.” University of Michigan researcher Brendan Nyhan, who did much of this work, said “it’s threatening to us to admit that things we believe are wrong.” And the way people – both liberals and conservatives – deal with the cognitive dissonance of facts versus beliefs is to “buttress that belief that they initial held.”

Of course, it helps if one can find media outlets that reinforce such beliefs. In the case of Trump, think Fox News, Newsmax, conservative talk radio and the like. They stand in counterpose to legitimate media, feeding their audiences a steady pro-Trump diet that flies in the fast of the steady anti-Trump coverage of the mainstream folks.

Source: YouTube

And then, of course, there are Trump’s own blasts on social media. One of his most recent jaw-droppers is a reposted video, “God Gave Us Trump,” made by a group of his supporters and featuring the AI-created voice of Paul Harvey, a voice that would resonate in MAGA world. While a bright person might think this a parody, it’s anything but. Trump followed that with a birther attack on Nikki Haley, reposting a piece that claims she’s not a citizen, even though she was born in South Carolina, because her parents were immigrants. With that, he attacks perhaps his most palatable rival – one who polls better against Biden than Trump does – and smears immigrants, all in one fell swoop.

But there is reason to believe that continuing revelations about Trump’s shortcomings, along with the legal actions, could undo him. He may sail into the GOP nomination because so much of the party has been highjacked by the far right, but his luck in a national race could run as dry as his bankrupt casinos of old if the media continue to highlight his canyon-deep flaws. The best evidence, of course, is President Biden’s election in 2020. While Trump drew an amazing 74.2 million votes in that race, Biden still bested him with nearly 81.3 million. And the Electoral College tally was an impressive 306 for Biden to just 232 for Trump.

Back then, the media had reported for years about the legion of missteps by Trump in the White House. And in the election coverage, journalists delivered a nonstop barrage of coverage of his dismayingly broad array of problems. The media there clearly made a difference, as they did in the midterm elections in which Trump-backed candidates fell hard.

So, will the media tip the scales again? Well, a sharp new focus on the perversions to our system Trump is likely to deliver if elected may help. Publications such as The Atlantic have drawn attention to how much damage he could do to institutions ranging from the military and regulatory agencies to law enforcement. The New York Times has opened a window on what he and his minions plan, from wielding the Justice Department to attack his enemies to upending trade policy.

More such coverage of life under Trump 2.0 may stir up more Biden support, even if it doesn’t peel away Trump backing, going forward (Trump’s fans don’t read such publications, it would seem). Indeed, it would seem unlikely that the Trump base will shrink (it had grown from 62.96 million votes in 2016), unless reports are true that many of his backers would flee him if he were convicted of crimes.

Seeing him hauled off to jail may rally his most diehard backers, perhaps dangerously so, a la Jan. 6. But that could strip away some of the less deluded among his crowds. Of course, he’s doing his best to delay trials that could lead to such convictions, betting that he could quash the federal efforts, at least, if elected.

But what remains puzzling is just why so many people continue to back him. His railings against immigrants and minorities, his barely concealed white supremacism, his disdain for globalism and his thumb-your-nose views of coastal elites all seem to find traction among his devotees, overriding his yawning gaps. His personal immorality continues to be a non-issue for evangelicals who see him as their deliverer.

No matter how much economic stability and restored global influence Biden brings, these other matters seem to make Trump unassailable among many of his supporters. Why is he their avatar, their flagbearer?

Source: Facebook

Part of his appeal seems to lay in the simple ignorance that seems widespread among his backers. He has long been cherished by the under-educated and our system of primaries seems to turn heavily on them. As The New York Times reported, college-educated people have long been deserting such important primary states as Iowa and other states in the Upper Midwest, leaving behind those Hillary Clinton memorably described as a “basket of deplorables.” Such folks may read little of anything, in fact.

More troubling, part of his success has to do with flaws in our version of democracy. Recall that Clinton actually beat him by a fair number of popular votes in 2016, garnering nearly 3 million more votes at 65.8 million nationwide. But she lost the Electoral College vote 306-232 because that probably outdated institution gives more power to voters in small states than they deserve. Indeed, there continues to be a sharp media focus on so-called swing states, as intelligent cries for abolition of the Electoral College continue to go unheeded.

Moreover, the two-party system puts the choice of our presidential contenders in the hands of an astonishingly small number of people. As a Brookings Institution commentator broke down the figures, some 10,000 people – split between 8,567 delegates to the Democratic and Republican conventions and the members of the parties’ national committees – choose the two contenders, the only real prizefighters in these elections. Most of those folks are representative of primary voter choices, of course, but those primary voters are always a fraction of the general electorate.

There remains hope that enough people can be persuaded – either in the primaries or in the general election – that we will be denied the continued hauntings of this supremely vindictive racist narcissist in the fall. Democracy, at least our flawed form of it, could prevail. It’s possible that even the legal system will rise to the occasion, despite him playing it like a fiddle.

Source: Partisan Issues

What of the media’s role and effectiveness? More recent research about the “backfire effect” suggests that even deeply held beliefs may not be set in concrete. As researcher Nyhan put it, “corrective information is typically at least somewhat effective at increasing belief accuracy….” Misperceptions may persist for years, but he suggests that carefully targeting information and breaking what he calls the linkage between group identities and false claims can be effective.

In other words, if the Trumpists begin to see him as a failure, his hold on them may slip. We can only hope he fails in the courts, in time, and in some key primaries, and that the media can drive home word of such slipups. By shooting straight with honest decisions and reporting about a man who reviles them, judges, juries and journalists can make a difference, but all have their work cut out for them.

Non-resolution time

What promises are you making for 2024?

Source: Newsweek

I have always avoided New Year’s resolutions. Partly, that’s because the holiday always struck me as a hollow, made-up affair, with forced excitement and too much drinking. Unlike, say, Christmas or Rosh Hashanah, it really seemed like nothing more substantial than a turning of the calendar. No Times Square cavorting for me.

Moreover, such customary vows as losing weight and exercising would likely prove short-lived or temporary, at best. Old habits die hard and just screwing up one’s resolve only to disappoint oneself in time — often in a very short time — seemed self-defeating.

But now that the calendar seems to turn faster and the road ahead is shorter than the road behind, I wonder if it’s time for me to revisit my reluctance. In whatever time remains, perhaps some goals, and knowing I have the means or ability to reach them, might be useful.

Source: BuzzRx

A new friend, who recently retired as a professor of nursing, told me the other day that she now has one job in life – to keep herself healthy. For her, that has meant dropping weight, a lot of it, and committing to a personal trainer. She spoke of how she celebrates every small achievement nowadays, whether it’s maintaining her new slenderness or bragging about the new definition in her arm and leg muscles (that trainer has been invaluable).

For my part (and for many of you, I expect), one job is far too small an estimate. We likely have myriad obligations as spouses, parents or grandparents. We may have commitments to volunteer efforts or to projects (writing-oriented ones or others). And all those come atop a basic need to stay healthy, which is quite the challenge in these Covid-will-be-with-us-forever times.

So, this brings me back to resolutions – or, perhaps, they could better be called aims or goals. One can fail in pursuing a resolution, after all, but if one falls short in an aim or a goal, one can still claim partial success. And one should always aim high, of course (consider the adage that one’s reach should always exceed one’s grasp).

Here are a few aims for me:

— Treat family members, particularly my devoted and superb wife, better each day than the one before.

— Be kind to strangers in need. This would apply to people I help as a volunteer at a ski resort and to folks such as the homeless who, sadly, seem to be proliferating everywhere.

— Make time for healthy diversions, such as exercise and hobbies such as honing those guitar skills.

— Be available for friends. Set up those for-the-hell-of-it dinners or lunches.

— Be fair-minded and open to alternative viewpoints.

— Avoid dwelling on toxic influences (that includes Donald Trump). And this one doesn’t contradict the prior one, since some things remain beyond the pale.

— Be kind to oneself, including being forgiving when falling short of such targets as those above.

Source: Bhavana Learning Group

Okay, so a skeptic may say these aims are vague. Better to promise something such as “drop 10 lbs. by Feb. 15” or “compliment my wife at least three times a day” or “write that damn novel, already.” But, that sort of specificity invites failure. Such detailed commitments smack of resolutions, not aims (see above).

So, fresh from a delightful New Year’s Eve gathering last night with friends (which wasn’t at all made up, but was wonderfully warm and fun), I set down these aims. Let’s see how well they stand up over the coming 365 days.

I hope your resolutions, aims or whatever, go well. Happy New Year, all.

Why So Sour?

Americans seem more pessimistic than ever in recent memory — and it’s tough to see what will change that

Source: The Wall Street Journal

By most measures of national economic health, things look pretty bright. And yet, Americans have become a nation of Gloomy Gusses, it seems. Just why goes some way toward explaining our troubling politics and our likely futures.

A couple recent polls – a national one released by The Wall Street Journal and a narrower one from The New York Times – both point to a surprising degree of negativity abroad in the land. And a few experts – as well as laymen – have offered concerning explanations of the results.

The Journal recently released results of a survey in which only 36% of voters said the American dream still holds true. This is down from 48% in 2016 (that fateful election year) and from 53% in 2012 in similar surveys. And it’s down substantially from a Wall Street Journal poll just last year in which some 68% said people who worked hard were likely to get ahead in this country.

The Journal observes: “… Americans across the political spectrum are feeling economically fragile and uncertain that the ladder to higher living standards remains sturdy, even amid many signs of economic and social progress.”

Source: The Economist

The American dream, as the pollsters from the University of Chicago’s NORC program working with the WSJ described it, is the simple notion that if you work hard, you’ll get ahead. And their question, from interviews with 1,163 voters, was whether that still holds true (36% said yes), never held true (18%) or, quite disturbingly, once held true but doesn’t anymore (45%).

Furthermore, half of those polled said that life in America is worse than it was 50 years ago, compared with just 30% who said it had gotten better. Asked if they believed that the economic and political system is “stacked against people like me,” half agreed with the statement, while only 39% disagreed.

The big question, perhaps an existential one for the 2024 presidential election, is “why such pessimism?” Moreover, how can Americans feel so down when macroeconomic measures are so up?

The national unemployment rate, for instance, sits at 3.9%, remarkably low by historic standards. And median weekly earnings of the nation’s 122.1 million full-time wage and salary workers are now 4.5 percent higher than a year ago, outpacing inflation (up 3.5 percent over the same period).

The Journal article suggests a few explanations. It quotes a 30-year-old Missouri fellow as saying: “We have a nice house in the suburbs, and we have a two-car garage … But I’d be lying if I didn’t say that money was tight.” For him and most of his neighbors, “no matter how good it looks on the outside, I feel we are all a couple of paychecks away from being on the street.”

Despite the extraordinary material amenities that most Americans now enjoy, thanks to technological progress and global economic health, that fellow said life is “objectively worse” than it was a half-century ago. He pointed to the decline of unions and the disappearance of pensions, things that helped his railroad-worker grandfather.

Others quoted by the WSJ similarly pointed to inflation, even though the rate of price increases has declined in recent months. Suggesting a lag in perception, the newspaper noted that inflation outpaced the gains in worker pay in 2022 for the second year in a row, and mortgage rates are at their highest level in more than two decades.

The results of a New York Times/Siena College poll, focused on six electoral swing states, likewise reflect gloomy outlooks. Eight in 10 respondents said the economy is fair or poor, with just 2% calling it excellent. Majorities of every group of Americans — across gender, race, age, education, geography, income and party — have an unfavorable view.

A Times editorial board member, Binyamin Applebaum, and Peter Coy, a former colleague at BusinessWeek now writing for the newspaper, offered some wisdom on the grumpiness.

Source: Stanford News, Stanford University

Coy pointed to differing views of inflation between the average consumer and the number-crunchers. “To an economist, inflation is the change in prices,” he wrote. “So if prices go up sharply but then level off for a few months, the monthly inflation rate at that point is zero. There’s no more change in prices, right? But to most people, inflation is high prices. So they look at high prices in the supermarket or wherever and say, ‘That’s inflation!”

Furthermore, Coy pointed to home prices and mortgage rates, both up as affordability is way down. “Rents are also up. This is no problem if you already own, but it’s awful if you’re a young person trying to buy your first place,” Coy wrote. “That’s why you see TikTok talking about a Silent Depression; that might also explain why 93 percent of people 18 to 29 in a recent New York Times/Siena College poll said the economy was poor or only fair.”

For his part, Applebaum focused on the dark outlook for the future, a sense of dread.

He noted that an NBC News poll found that only 19% of respondents were confident that the next generation would have better lives than their own generation. “NBC said it was the smallest share of optimists dating back to the question’s introduction in 1990,” he said.

Applebaum’s conclusion: “For me, this is the great failure of the Biden administration and its economic policies: Americans simply aren’t convinced that the future is bright.”

This observation was supported by a crucial detail in the WSJ poll results. To 45% of the respondents in that survey, there once was an American dream but it has disappeared. And for 18%, it was all a lie, something never real.

Let’s add a few thoughts. First, widespread unaffordability of housing may be the single biggest tangible element contributing to the bad-feelings wave. After all, a key part of the American dream is owning one’s home, something that brings with it safety and promising educational prospects for a family.

According to the National Association of Realtors, the median price for an existing home — one that’s already standing, not new construction — came to $410,200 in June 2023, Bankrate reports. The news service reports that the figure is the second highest since the association started tracking the data. While down a bit from the all-time high of $413,800, at the peak of the housing boom in June 2022, it’s still in nosebleed territory for many.

Those of us who recall the postwar developments such as Levittown remember a time when GIs with little assets but with steady jobs in the fast-expanding economy could afford homes. A home in such a development would sell for $8,000 in the late 1940s (or about $102,000 in today’s dollars). As Edward Glaeser recounted in Triumph of the City: How Our Best Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and Happier, the G.I. Bill and federal housing subsidies, trimmed the upfront cost of a house for many buyers to around $400 (or $5,100 today).

Levittown, Pa., source: Wikipedia

Where are today’s Levittown equivalents? From coast to coast, developers are keen to build homes that start at $500,000 or so. Are many building on the lower end? No. Indeed, the median price of an existing home in Levittown, New York, today, is $606,000.

Moreover, developers are not even building enough apartments for low-income earners – which could otherwise be steppingstones for affordable homes.

The Urban Institute and the National Housing Conference report that for every 100 extremely low income households, there are only 29 adequate, affordable, and available rental units. That means two parents who both work minimum-wage jobs might wait years to find a safe, affordable place to live with their two kids. With such high demand, why aren’t developers racing to build affordable apartments?

The answer: “building affordable housing is not particularly affordable,” the groups say. They point to a huge gap between what such buildings cost to construct and maintain and the rents most people can pay. “Without the help of too-scarce government subsidies for creating, preserving, and operating affordable apartments, building these homes is often impossible,” the groups say.

A related issue that likely contributes to national pessimism — at least among city-dwellers — is widespread homelessness. Walk the streets of just about many medium-size or large city in America and you are likely to come across people living in tents. The Department of Housing and Urban Development counted about 582,000 such homeless people in 2022, or 18 for every 10,000 Americans.

And homelessness is a product of both unaffordable low-end housing and a panoply of intractable social ills, including drug addiction and mental illness. With such highly visible and apparently worsening problems, is it any wonder that many Americans find optimism difficult?

Source: College Board

In looking forward, too, education factors into the national mood. Higher education, after all, is perhaps the biggest driver of social mobility over generations. The average cost of a college degree now is $36,486 per student per year, with all costs included. Accordingly, the amount of debt most students must incur – something that can weigh them down for decades – is prohibitively high. The costs, of course, were far lower in past decades.

Finally, while crime rates in some respects have been dropping, gun violence has been rising. In 2020, gun violence became the leading cause of death for American childrenThe New York Times reported. In 2022 things grew worse: The number of children killed in shootings rose by almost 12 percent, and those wounded increased by almost 11 percent, the newspaper said.

Of course, mass shootings garner headlines, which hardly can only corrode the national mood. The national tally of such events now tops 600 and solutions that can curb them seem impossible to find. Tragically, the number of guns nationwide continues to climb.

Amid all this, we now face the prospect of a rematch between Joseph Biden and Donald Trump for the presidency in 2024. For all his policy successes – and measurable economic gains – Biden, now 81, is widely seen as just too old. Even though Trump is just four years younger, Biden often appears feeble in comparison to Trump. Neither is, say, a John F. Kennedy, whose youthful good looks mirrored the upbeat national mood of the early 1960s.

It’s hard to see what will lift the national outlook. A new generation of presidential politicians, those who project the optimism of a Kennedy or, on the other side, a Reagan? That would go some ways. But the tougher nuts to crack are the all-too- tangible ones of affordable housing and higher education, safety and better-paying and more secure jobs.

Truth and Lies

Misinformation abounds in the Israel-Hamas war

Al Shifa Hospital, source: Haaretz

As Israeli forces move in on the Al Shifa Hospital in Gaza, they and the world will soon learn whether their intelligence, corroborated by American information sources, is correct that the facility masks an elaborate underground Hamas command and control center. The denials by Hamas leaders about the site and their rejections of the charge that they use human shields – in this case, vulnerable patients – to protect their operations will either be validated or shown to be more disinformation.

But will the Arab world see or believe the reports? Or will it see what it chooses to see and is often fed, a nonstop parade of Palestinian victims in videos served up on CNN and other outlets? Will that world see mostly the propaganda shared by Qatari-owned Al Jazeera that, instead of displaying the savagery of October 7th in Israel, airs clips of Hamas terrorists nuzzling Jewish babies?

As The New Yorker so capably reported, much of the Arab audience is seeing heroic and compassionate fighters, as Al Jazeera displays them. In one oft-downloaded clip, the so-called “bismillah” video, a terrorist vigorously pats the back of a crying baby pressed against his shoulder—the same shoulder carrying his Kalashnikov.

“Another fighter, wearing a camouflage uniform, bandages the foot of an Israeli boy of toddler age, then puts the boy on his lap while jerking the crying baby back and forth in a stroller,” the magazine reported. “A camera zooms in on the confused face of the boy as an unseen fighter, speaking broken English, instructs him to repeat the Arabic word meaning ‘in the name of God.’ ‘Say bismillah,’ the fighter says. The boy complies, in a soft Hebrew accent.”

Experts quoted by The New Yorker derided such clips as ham-fisted propaganda. Michael Milshtein, a retired Israeli intelligence official, told the magazine that the bismillah video “demonstrates Hamas’s arrogance toward the West—that they think all Westerners are stupid, that, if they show images of these barbarian terrorists holding babies and hugging them, people in the West will say, ‘Oh, they are so sweet. We were wrong about them!’ It’s ridiculous.” 

But the cruel nonsense gains traction in much of the Arab world. Ghaith al-Omari—a former adviser to the Palestinian Authority and a longtime opponent of Hamas—told the magazine that such videos had convinced many Arabs that the group’s fighters, unlike ISIS, “are humane and respect Islamic laws of war.” He added, “It has resonated throughout the Arab world. This is now the line you see not only in Hamas media but in most Arab media, in Jordan, Egypt, and North Africa. The dominant narrative has become the narrative of Hamas.”

Indeed, to Palestinians and other Arabs, the crass video hit the target. “It was posted to Al Jazeera’s Facebook page for Egypt, and has been viewed more than 1.4 million times,” The New Yorker reported. “Nearly seventy-five thousand viewers have liked it, and nearly three thousand have left comments, many of them admiring. One commenter praised ‘the morals of the fighters of the Islamic resistance.’”

Much as American audiences can choose to view media that confirm their prejudices, the rest of the world can do so, as well. And a good part of that world isn’t seeing the truth – as best as honest journalists can discover it – but is getting propaganda, as best as Hamas and its supporters can craft it.

Misinformation abounds. The New York Times reported on how imagery from other wars is being widely circulated under headlines about the Israel-Hamas war, for example. “A heap of dead children swaddled in white, described as Palestinians killed by Israeli forces. (In fact, the children are Syrian and the photograph was taken in 2013.),” the Times recounted. “A young boy trembling in the dark, covered in a white residue and grasping a tree, cast as ‘another traumatized child in Gaza.’ (In fact, the video was taken after a recent flood in Tajikistan.)”

For the most part, major Western news outlets have been careful to check the imagery and information they get and they avoid publicizing it. However, some have been embarrassed by revelations that they employed photographers who were cheerleaders for Hamas. CNN and AP, for instance, used freelancer Hassan Eslaiah, who provided video from the October 7th attack, suggesting he went along for parts of the ghastly ride.

“He captured images of a burning Israeli tank and filmed the terrorist infiltrators entering Kibbutz Kfar Azza, as can be seen in a video,” according to National Review. In Arabic, Eslaiah said: “Everyone who were inside this tank were kidnapped, everyone who were inside the tank were kidnapped a short while ago by al-Qassam Brigades [Hamas’ armed wing], as we have seen with our own eyes.”

Hassan Eslaiah being kissed by a Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, source: TheWrap

After an image of Eslaiah being kissed by a Hamas leader was distributed by HonestReporting, a pro-Israel outlet, both CNN and AP cut ties to him. Earlier, The New York Times was outed for using the work of Soliman Hijjy, a photographer who had been fired by the outlet a while ago because he had praised Hitler on social media. It’s not clear if the paper still uses his work, as his last archived efforts came around the time his rehiring drew critical headlines. That work perpetuated the fiction that an Israeli missile had hit the Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza.

Beyond such partisan efforts and misinformation, getting true representations is tougher in this war because of AI-generated imagery that goes beyond crude Photoshopped efforts. Reuters reported, for instance, about how a photo of Atletico Madrid fans purportedly displayed a giant Palestinian flag. It was a fake. Similarly, Reuters fact checkers turned up a false image of Argentinian soccer star Lionel Messi holding such a flag.

Much of this is spread via social media, particularly on X, formerly known as Twitter. As RFA (Radio Free Asia) reported, a “verified user” on X falsely claimed that The Wall Street Journal had reported that U.S.-made bombs were dropped on Gaza’s AI-Ahli Hospital. This lie got nearly six times more views than the newspaper’s genuine tweet about the story earlier that day. (RFA is a U.S. government-funded news outlet whose Asia Fact Check Lab seeks to expose disinformation).

In Indonesia, which has the world’s largest Muslim population, misinformation is rife. Voice of America, another U.S.-government information service, found that millions there watched a video on X entitled “Armed Hamas men infiltrate an Israeli music festival using a paraglider and launch a massive attack resulting in numerous casualties.” As VOA reported, the video was later revealed to depict Egyptian paratroopers flying over the Egyptian Military Academy in Cairo.

London Armistice Day March, source: Getty Images, via NPR

Given all the distortions, it’s no wonder tens of thousands came out on Armistice Day, Nov. 11, to march in London, calling for “Freedom for Palestine.” While police pegged the size of the crowd at 300,000, organizers claimed 800,000, likely another example of misinformation.

A day later, in Paris, a crowd estimated by police to total 105,000 marched with leading French politicians to decry the wave of antisemitism that has gripped France. The country has recorded more than a thousand incidents since October 7th, including the stabbing a Jewish woman in her home in Lyon. Antisemitic incidents have also occurred in Austria, Germany and Spain.

The raft of antisemitic incidents around the world gives the lie to the distinction some intellectuals make between antisemitism and anti-Zionism. How can slurs or physical attacks on Jewish institutions and on Jews be regarded as criticisms of Zionism, but not of Jews? They are one and the same.

As the Israel-Hamas war proceeds, sorting the real from the unreal will be an ongoing challenge. And, to defenders of terrorism, the facts may not matter much. They all too easily can rationalize away the existence of Hamas tunnels beneath apartment buildings and hospitals, perhaps seeing them as desperate measures by desperate people.

But it is sheer hypocrisy for the terrorists to prevent civilians from leaving areas when the Israel Defense Forces have told them to leave because of planned attacks. It seems the group values Palestinian deaths more than lives, seeing their own people as props in grisly propaganda.

Their lack of value for life in general is clear in documents found on the bodies of terrorists who attacked on October 7th. As The Washington Post reported, in one kibbutz town a dead terrorist carried a notebook with hand-scrawled Quranic verses and orders that read, “Kill as many people and take as many hostages as possible.”

Intelligence officials, piecing together tidbits such as that, have concluded that Hamas planned “not just to kill and capture Israelis, but to spark a conflagration that would sweep the region and lead to a wider conflict.” The group, apparently seeking just the sort of bloodshed now seen in Gaza, wanted “to strike a blow of historic proportions, in the expectation that the group’s actions would compel an overwhelming Israeli response.”

It is all rather sadly reminiscent of the title of a book about jihadists in Britain published a few years ago. The title: “We Love Death as you Love Life.” The quote hails from interviews given in 2014 by a pair of Hamas leaders: Muhammad Deif said: “Today you [Israelis] are fighting divine soldiers, who love death for Allah like you love life, and who compete among themselves for Martyrdom like you flee from death.” And Ismail Haniyeh said: “We love death like our enemies love life! We love Martyrdom, the way in which [Hamas] leaders died.”

Is Free Speech Really Free?

Taking stances can cost one a job

Doxxing truck, source: Harvard Crimson

As anti-Israel forces on and off campuses continue to protest, some employers are launching counterprotests of their own – firing or refusing to hire those who go public with pro-Palestine stances. The trend reflects an unsettling truism about free speech: it may be anything but “free,” as speakers have to live with the consequences.

Take, for instance, the cases of two global law firms – New York-based Davis, Polk & Wardwell and Chicago-based Winston & Strawn. Davis Polk revoked job offers to three law students at Columbia and Harvard because they were leaders in student organizations that had backed letters blaming Israel for Hamas’s savage Oct. 7 attacks. Similarly, Winston & Strawn revoked an offer to an NYU student, the former president of the school’s University Bar Association, who had written a message to the group, saying “Israel bears full responsibility for this tremendous loss of life.”

Neil Barr, chair and managing partner of Davis Polk, told The New York Times that the firm did not want to employ anyone who endorsed the Hamas atrocities.

“The views expressed in certain of the statements signed by law school student organizations in recent days are in direct contravention of our firm’s value system,” the firm said in a statement. To ensure that “we continue to maintain a supportive and inclusive work environment, the student leaders responsible for signing on to these statements are no longer welcome in our firm.”

Davis Polk noted that in two of the cases, it was considering reversing course and hiring them because they said they had not endorsed the criticism of Israel. The letters blaming Israel for Hamas’s attack did not include individual names. It’s not clear what the law firm knew or didn’t know about the students, other than that they were leaders in the group or groups that backed the statements.

Ryna Workman, source: ABC News

As for the NYU student who lost an offer at Winston & Strawn, that person has doubled down on the criticism of Israel. Ryna Workman, who appeared on ABC defending Palestine and criticizing Israel, was caught on camera covering up posters of Israelis kidnapped by Hamas with pro-Palestine signs. Appallingly, Workman repeatedly ducked questions about whether she – or “they” as Workman prefers – had any empathy for Israeli victims.

Workman was ousted by NYU law school Dean Troy McKenzie as head of the student bar association. Other members of the group had quickly distanced themselves from Workman, saying they mourned “the tremendous loss of human life,” while sidestepping any specific condemnation of Hamas. Subsequently, all members of the association quit, saying they feared for their safety, and the group disbanded.

As many American business leaders remain horrified by the Hamas atrocities, some say they will refuse to hire students who take stances similar to Workman’s. Some major Wall Street investors, including hedge fund chief William Ackman, have called on companies to blacklist members of groups that have taken pro-Hamas stances. Ackman, a Harvard graduate, also demanded that Harvard release the names of such students.

As reported by Forbes, Ackman tweeted that “a number of CEOs” approached him, asking for the student names to ensure “none of us inadvertently hire any of their members.” One CEO, Jonathan Neman of the healthy fast casual chain Sweetgreen, responded to Ackman’s post on X, saying he “would like to know so I know never to hire these people,” to which healthcare services company EasyHealth CEO David Duel responded: “Same.”

David Velasco, source: ArtReview

Still other outfits have canned those who refused to condemn Hamas or backed Palestinians. Artforum fired its top editor, David Velasco, after a call for a ceasefire, signed by thousands of artists, appeared on the publication’s website.

“We support Palestinian liberation and call for an end to the killing and harming of all civilians, an immediate ceasefire, the passage of humanitarian aid into Gaza, and the end of the complicity of our governing bodies in grave human rights violations and war crimes,” the letter said.

As reported by ARTNews, a sister publication, Artforum publishers Danielle McConnell and Kate Koza in a statement wrote, “On Thursday, October 19, an open letter regarding the crisis in the Middle East was shared on Artforum’s website and social platforms without our, or the requisite senior members of the editorial team’s, prior knowledge. This was not consistent with Artforum’s editorial process. Had the appropriate members of the editorial team been consulted, the letter would have been presented as a news item with the relevant context.”

Velasco was fired soon after high-profile dealers, artists, and other signed another letter that referred to “an uninformed letter signed by artists who do not represent the artistic community at large,” ARTNews reported. This new letter, titled “A United Call from the Art World: Advocating for Humanity,” referred to the Hamas attack, but not to Gazans caught up in the warfare.

For his part, Velasco, who had worked at the publication since 2005 and served as editor since 2017, was unrepentant in comments in The New York Times. “I have no regrets,” he told the paper. I’m disappointed that a magazine that has always stood for freedom of speech and the voices of artists has bent to outside pressure.”

As the Times reported, the initial letter was widely condemned, drawing responses by figures in the art world. On WhatsApp, campaigns were organized to dissuade advertisers from working with the magazine.

Similar actions are occurring at other media outlets. The board of the British-based biomedical and life sciences journal eLife fired editor-in-chief Michael Eisen, after he praised The Onion for a satirical post headlined “Dying Gazans Criticized For Not Using Last Words To Condemn Hamas.”

As reported by NBC News, Eisen, who is Jewish and has family in Israel, posted that he had been fired “for retweeting a @TheOnion piece that calls out indifference to the lives of Palestinian civilians,” he wrote on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.

“I expressed my opinion, an opinion about the way that American institutions, especially universities, have been kind of not expressing equal concern for the deaths of Palestinians as they have Israelis, which I think is a moral mistake and a political mistake,” Eisen told NBC. “I don’t think that Israeli scientists should feel like the scientific community does not have their backs. The support has been very strong — I thought it was obvious. People don’t always express themselves well in these situations. I wish I made clear how I empathized with them, too.”

Similarly, PhillyVoice.com canned a sports reporter after he tweeted his “solidarity” with Palestine. The Philadelphia 76ers organization tweeted on X: “We stand with the people of Israel and join them in mourning the hundreds of innocent lives lost to terrorism at the hands of Hamas,” along with the hashtag #StandWithIsrael. As The Guardian reported, journalist Jackson Frank, who covered the team, responded: “This post sucks! Solidarity with Palestine always.”

And then there are the doxxing trucks. Operated by the group Accuracy in Media, these mobile billboards have shown up at campuses including Columbia, Harvard and Penn showcasing the faces of members of anti-Israel campus groups. The trucks are emblazoned with legends such as “Harvard’s Leading Antisemites.”

Adam Guillette, source: C-Span

While AIM leader Adam Guillette argues the trucks merely “amplify” information, they have drawn heat as amounting to harassment. The Harvard Hillel Jewish center “strongly condemns any attempt to threaten and intimidate” students who signed the letter, Harvard’s student newspaper the Harvard Crimson reported. And the University of California Berkeley law school dean Erwin Chemerinsky called the truck “despicable,” the New York Times reported. Columbia University president Minouche Shafik issued a statement before the latest truck appeared on the university’s campus, saying some Columbia students “have been victims” of doxxing, calling it a “form of online harassment” that will “not be tolerated,” according to Forbes.

Some demonstrators at Drexel and Penn universities covered their faces and declined to speak publicly, saying they feared being targeted by university officials or losing financial aid, according to The Philadelphia Inquirer. Some noted the doxxing trucks and pointed to a man filming demonstrators on his phone. A Penn alumna at the rally complained, “The surveillance, harassment, and intimidate of these young people is like no other.”

In the academic world, few would dispute that the free exchange of ideas – even noxious ones – should be free of punishment. Students, especially, should be able to speak their views and debate without fear.

However, employers are also free to shun those whose views they find reprehensible. The world off campus is a lot harsher.

As the New York Times reported, in another social media post, hedge fund manager Ackman said he was “100% in support of free speech.” But, he added, “one should be prepared to stand up and be personally accountable for his or her views.”

If Not Now, When?

Dissension on campuses over the Mideast makes for a teachable moment

Demonstrators at Columbia University, source: Getty Images via NBC New York

As backers of Israel and Palestine mount increasingly strident opposing demonstrations on campuses and angry donors withhold their funds, educators find themselves in a bind more difficult than anything they’ve seen since the Vietnam War. For university leaders and academics, the Mideast war raises troubling issues of free speech and the teaching of history, and matters of simple civility. It even poses threats of physical danger.

Consider Columbia University, which cancelled its annual fundraising campaign because of turmoil on the campus. An Israeli student suffered minor injuries on Oct. 12 after a young woman hit him with a stick, breaking a finger, when he approached her as she tore down posters of Israelis kidnapped by Hamas in its Oct. 7 assault. The university also closed its campus to the public because of competing rallies on its grounds.

The school drew international headlines when Columbia business school professor, Shai Davidai, on Oct. 18 delivered an impassioned video in which he decried the university’s president for failing to speak out against student groups that support Hamas. Davidai, an Israeli, said such groups look on his 2-year-old and 7-year-old children as legitimate targets in the war. “You can be pro-Israel and pro-Palestine and anti-terror,” he said. “I know, because I am.”

On the same day, Columbia’s president, Minouche Shafik, appeared to strive for even-handedness in a statement:

“Unfortunately, some are using this moment to spread antisemitism, Islamophobia, bigotry against Palestinians and Israelis, and various other forms of hate,” said Shafik, an Egyptian-born British-American economist. “I have been disheartened that some of this abhorrent rhetoric is coming from members of our community, including members of our faculty and staff. Especially at a time of pain and anger, we must avoid language that vilifies, threatens, or stereotypes entire groups of people.”

While conspicuously avoiding any criticism of Hamas, she blasted so-called doxxing efforts, in which students have been shamed publicly for supporting statements that blamed Israel for the Hamas attack. A group recently drove a truck near the Columbia campus displaying the names and faces of such students on a mobile billboard. A similar truck had appeared near Harvard University and was condemned by the campus Hillel, among others.

Pro-Israel rally, source: The Philadelphia Inquirer

Then there’s the University of Pennsylvania, where leading Jewish donors were first incensed about a Sept. 23 Palestinian literary conference that featured prominent antisemites and later were enraged at the administration’s slowness in condemning the Oct. 7 Hamas atrocities in southern Israel. University officials waited three days before issuing a statement calling the assault “horrific” and “abhorrent” – a reaction some donors regarded as too little, too late. Donors of tens of millions of dollars are now withholding funds and demanding that administrators resign.

Meanwhile, hundreds of Penn, Drexel and Temple University pro-Palestinian students on Oct. 25 rallied against what they argued was a lopsided pro-Israel atmosphere on their campuses. “Folks have to censor what they say,” a Drexel graduate student told The Philadelphia Inquirer. “They have to not speak about certain things because they’re afraid of how professors will react, they’re afraid of how the administration will react – and the reason this fear exists is because they’ve seen it happen to others.”

All this has been red meat for opportunistic politicians, who are calling for deportations of any students who support Hamas.

“In the wake of the attacks on Israel, Americans have been disgusted to see the open support for terrorists among the legions of foreign nationals on college campuses. They’re teaching your children hate,” former President Donald J. Trump said in a speech in Iowa. “Under the Trump administration, we will revoke the student visas of radical anti-American and antisemitic foreigners at our colleges and universities, and we will send them straight back home.”

Others parroted his sentiments. On “The Megyn Kelly Show,” Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said that “any of those students who are here on visas, those visas should be canceled, and they should be repatriated back to their home country. That’s a no-brainer.” As reported by The Chronicle of Higher Education, he told a Fox News interviewer, “You don’t have a right to be here on a visa. You don’t have a right to be studying in the United States.”

Florida officials went even further. The head of the Florida state university system, Chancellor Ray Rodrigues, acting in conjunction with DeSantis, ordered campus chapters of Students for Justice in Palestine to shut down. Rodrigues’s letter said it was felony in Florida to support a terrorist organization. As reported by Inside Higher Ed, the University of Florida and the University of South Florida host such chapters, though other campuses may have chapters that are not recognized as official student organizations.

Ben Sasse, source: CNN   

Several university officials, particularly in Ivy League schools, have been criticized either for refusing to condemn the terrorists who attacked Israel on Oct. 7 or for doing so late. This came in stark contrast to an email to alums from University of Florida President Ben Sasse, a former U.S. senator from Nebraska, who earned national attention for his blunt reaction shortly after the attack.

“I will not tiptoe around this simple fact: What Hamas did is evil and there is no defense for terrorism,” Sasse wrote. “This shouldn’t be hard. Sadly, too many people in elite academia have been so weakened by their moral confusion that, when they see videos of raped women, hear of a beheaded baby, or learn of a grandmother murdered in her home, the first reaction of some is to ‘provide context’ and try to blame the raped women, beheaded baby, or the murdered grandmother. In other grotesque cases, they express simple support for the terrorists.… This thinking isn’t just wrong, it’s sickening. It’s dehumanizing. It is beneath people called to educate our next generation of Americans.”

Sasse added that he expected anti-Israel demonstrations on campus, which he promised would be protected as a matter of free speech. And, indeed, pro-Palestinian students staged a walkout and demonstration on Oct. 25. During that protest, one man briefly tried to lead the chants, shouting, “Long Live Hamas,” the public radio station WUFT reported. But, as it reported: “The large crowd then became silent, with audible pushback coming from within the group. The man then left in anger.” An organizer said the man was not part of the event.

At some schools, such as Manhattan College and Fordham University, interfaith organizations have tried to bring pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel students together to try to find common ground, an effort met with mixed results, according to Inside Higher Ed. Fordham’s Muslim Student Association, for instance, refused to take part in a vigil planned after the Hamas attack as a symbol of solidarity with Palestinians, arguing that there have been no such vigils for long-suffering Palestinians.

As Israel bombards Gaza and seems to be inching toward an invasion aimed at uprooting Hamas, competing passions on university campuses are sure to grow. They will test the ability of university leaders to be morally clear about such matters as Hamas’s savagery, as well as compassion for Gazans who have long suffered under the terrorist group and who now are suffering more as a result of its actions.

Indeed, the war sadly raises the need on campuses for better education about the Mideast conflict, a bloody story of two peoples with legitimate claims to the same land – much as either might deny the other’s claim. Well-schooled academics should refute Palestinian claims that Israel is a case of “colonization” by Jews, who after all have been in the land for millennia. But they also need to recognize and teach about the rights of Palestinians who should be able to share the land.

Some of the most illuminating views on the Mideast recently have come from New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, who touched on the campus demonstrations. He chided pro-Palestinian protesters for the “anti-colonial” pap they espouse, even as he criticized Israeli West Bank settlements that he has no use for. Friedman wrote: “These progressive demonstrators seem to believe that all of Israel is a colonial enterprise — not just the West Bank settlements — and therefore the Jewish people do not have the right either to self-determination or self-defense in their ancestral homeland, whether it’s within post-1967 borders or pre-1967 ones.”

“To reduce this incredibly complex struggle of two peoples for the same land to a colonial war is to commit intellectual fraud,” he wrote. “Or as the Israeli writer Yossi Klein Halevi put it in The Times of Israel on Wednesday: ‘To blame the occupation and its consequences wholly on Israel is to dismiss the history of Israeli peace offers and Palestinian rejection. To label Israel as one more colonialist creation is to distort the unique story of the homecoming of an uprooted people, a majority of whom were refugees from destroyed Jewish communities in the Middle East.’”

Ned Lazarus, source: WJLA

And then there are insightful scholars such as Ned Lazarus of George Washington University, an international affairs professor who had long worked for Seeds of Peace in Jerusalem. There, he promoted peaceful conflict resolution between Palestinians and Israelis, and he has since written extensively about Israeli-Palestinian peace-building efforts. He bemoans the loss of innocent lives in Gaza, but in clear-eyed fashion he fixes the blame for that squarely on Hamas.

In a recent Atlantic piece, Lazarus sadly wrote: “I don’t see how the cycle of hatred, killing, and suffering ends while there is a fundamentalist terrorist organization explicitly dedicated to the destruction of Israel and the killing of Jews—read its 1988 founding charter; the message is not subtle—equipped with legions of fighters ready to kill and die to achieve its goals, an arsenal of missiles, and a powerful state sponsor, Iran, that enables its violence and shares its explicitly genocidal agenda.”

The war is testing the rights of all on campuses to free speech, even when their arguments may be ill-informed, wrong-headed and blind to Hamas depravity. As the folks at the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression put it, tearing down posters on campuses or otherwise stifling expression is misguided and unacceptable.

“While FIRE takes no stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, we staunchly support free speech and oppose censorship in all its forms,” the group said. “In doing so, we oppose tearing down expressive materials and meeting speech with violence, no matter how upsetting public discourse or current events may be. Such tactics stifle debate and chill conversation, and they have no place anywhere in a free country, least of all on a college campus.” 

Unsettling as the campus protests are, they also present a teaching moment for anyone who cares about innocents on both sides and who cares about history and justice. Some may argue that now is not the moment; emotions are running high and raw. But, if not now, when?

When Journalists Write about Terrorists

What are the “rules of war” for media?

Alison Leigh Cowan, source: The New York Times

Alison Leigh Cowan, a veteran of BusinessWeek and The New York Times, puts the Times in the crosshairs this week for its coverage of Gaza. In an unsettling piece in Commentary, she cites a pair of “grave journalistic errors.” Noting she had spent 27 years as a reporter and editor at the paper, she observes that the outlet’s “brazen self-assuredness and moral blindness in moments like these is breaking my heart.”

The issues she raises are troubling ones for the Times, in particular, and for journalism in general.

First, Cowan blasts the paper for rehiring a freelance videographer, Soliman Hijjy, an admirer of Adolf Hitler. On Facebook, a few years ago, he had posted such messages as, “How great you are, Hitler.” As reported by National Review, he also posted a photo of himself in the Middle East with the caption: “In a state of harmony as Hitler was during the Holocaust.” That same year, the NR reported, he also said he was “in tune like Hitler during the Holocaust.”

Soliman Hijjy, source: New York Post

For such sins, the Times had fired Hijjy a year ago. But, desperate for someone who could file material from Gaza, the paper turned to him again after the Hamas atrocities of Oct. 7 and it got what it asked for, sympathetic coverage from the Palestinian side. Hijjy’s work had been saluted in publications such as The Electronic Intifada, a Chicago-based outfit that has been described as a “cyberpropaganda” source for Palestinians. Presumably, the Times editors saw his pro-Palestinian work as balancing its other coverage.

Never mind that Hijjy was lambasted by Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, Gilad Erdan. Erdan derided the Times for spreading antisemitism through such hires: “The @nytimes has just rehired a NAZI. Let that sink in. Soliman Hijjy praises Hitler, and the NYT rehired him,” Erdan posted on X. “We all saw how the NYT immediately parroted Hamas’ lies regarding the al-Ahli hospital (which Hijjy contributed to) and still refuses to retract these fabrications.”

Indeed, the inaccurate Oct. 17 hospital explosion coverage — including the videographer’s efforts — reflects terribly on the Times and other media outlets influenced by it. It also draws Cowan’s fury and disappointment.

As she recounts, the Times issued an alert that day, citing the anything-but-independent Palestinian Health Ministry in Gaza in saying “an Israeli strike hit the Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City, killing at least 200 Palestinians.” The paper repeatedly used the words “massacre” and “carnage,” Cowan noted.

The loaded language and mislaid blame helped fuel a furor in Arab world and undergirded Palestinian protests on campuses across the U.S. It sank a meeting between President Biden and Arab leaders.

Cowan criticizes the paper for updates larded with such potent terms. They characterized the “attack” as “staggering,” “horrific” and “devastating,” and a possible act of “genocide.” Hardly the neutral language the Times claims to prefer.

Then, too much later, came the corrections. A day after the blast, the paper added a correction to an update, saying: “An earlier version of this article described incorrectly a video filmed by a woman at the hospital after the blast. The hospital itself was not ruined; its parking lot was damaged most heavily in the blast.” 

Subsequent reports in the Times and elsewhere carried the news that U.S. (and Israeli) authorities had determined that the “strike” at the hospital was in fact the effect of a misfired Islamic Jihad rocket. Because it relied on Hamas, the early reporting was simply wrong. Of course, the damage wrought by the poor reporting had been done and Hamas had enjoyed a propaganda boon.

After that, it took the newspaper six days to issue its wan mea culpa. It published an editor’s note on Oct. 23, saying it had relied too heavily on Hamas sources, and didn’t make it clear that its information was unverified – i.e., it had run material without knowing it was true or not, a cardinal sin in journalism. In language far more subdued than the terms used in the hospital explosion reports, the note said: “Times editors should have taken more care with the initial presentation, and been more explicit about what information could be verified.” No apology, no statement of regret.

It may be that journalists can’t be expected to avoid taking sides in a war. That’s especially the case when they report on atrocities such as the Oct. 7 horrors committed by Hamas in southern Israel – events that truly deserve to be called massacres. If they have hearts, they can’t avoid being appalled by the ugliness, as Graeme Wood of The Atlantic was when he viewed video of the attacks that originated with Hamas and was then screen for reporters by the Israel Defense Forces.

Graeme Wood, source: The Atlantic

“The videos show pure, predatory sadism; no effort to spare those who pose no threat; and an eagerness to kill nearly matched by eagerness to disfigure the bodies of the victims,” Wood reported. “In several clips, the Hamas killers fire shots into the heads of people who are already dead. They count corpses, taking their time, and then shoot them again. Some of the clips I had not previously seen simply show the victims in a state of terror as they wait to be murdered, or covered with bits of their friends and loved ones as they are loaded into trucks and brought to Gaza as hostages.”

Were those videos propaganda by the IDF? Clearly, they didn’t originate with the Israelis and weren’t false. Certainly, such imagery reinforced the view that Israelis had been subjected to extraordinary viciousness. And certainly, the IDF released the assemblage of them – albeit only to journalists who were not allowed to record them with cameras – in hopes that the screening would engender support for the Israeli military actions to come.

But that’s not the same as the lies Hamas fomented over the hospital explosion. Tragically and disgustingly, the videos were genuine.

Journalists, especially those covering wars, need to walk fine lines. Thus, many avoid using terms such as “terrorist,” instead opting for the seemingly neutral “militants.” However, what should one reasonably call the Hamas “fighters” who conducted the Oct. 7 massacres? Clearly, those men murdered innocents and clearly they were using terror as their weapon of choice. Also, Hamas is regarded by the U.S. and other countries as a terrorist group.

Not surprisingly, the neutral language has drawn criticism. Rachael Thomas, a member of the Canadian Parliament, slammed the Canadian Broadcasting Company for failing to take sides against the horrors of Oct. 7 and for avoiding terms such as “terrorist.” Her demand for a review of the CBC’s coverage failed after some members argued – sensibly – that Parliament shouldn’t police what members of a free press do.

In fairness, war journalists have to be mindful of the language they use, as well as the stories they tell. Hamas, in particular, has a history of intimidating journalists who stray too far from their views of the conflict. The group’s tactics have in the past drawn condemnation from the Foreign Press Association. For their own safety, journalists have to strive toward neutrality, at least publicly.

Thomas Friedman, source: The New York Times

Even as many journalists develop sympathies, the best can be relied on to deliver true and accurate accounts and fair analysis. Journalist-turned-commentator Thomas Friedman supports Israel’s right to exist, for instance, but he also takes issue regularly with the country’s policies. Indeed, he fears that impending military action in Gaza by the IDF could backfire disastrously. And Bret Stephens lays the blame for the many deaths – recently and to come — squarely on the heads of Hamas, a conclusion that even Palestinian sympathizers would be hard-pressed to deny, if they are intellectually honest.

Both Friedman and Stephens offer their insights as columnists for The New York Times. Before becoming an opinion-writer, Friedman was a distinguished shoe-leather journalist covering the Mideast. For his part, before joining the Times, Stephens was a foreign affairs columnist and deputy editorial page editor at The Wall Street Journal, where he won the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary in 2013. From 2002 to 2004, he was editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post.

No Hitler-loving videographer could equal their work, of course.

Cowan acknowledges the good work of many war correspondents, but she also sagely warns about the dangers of swallowing inaccuracies any side might provide. “We all stand in the debt of courageous correspondents who pursue the most dangerous and searing wartime stories out there,” she writes. “But journalism’s warriors must stick to the facts and leave the making of propaganda to someone else.”

Does the Truth Matter?

In the Israel-Palestine conflict facts can be elusive and, maybe, pointless

Aftermath of attack on Al Ahli Hospital, source: Newsweek

In war, it’s said, truth is the first casualty. Indeed, the late journalist and professor Phillip Knightly wrote a book about misinformation in wartime that is must-reading for serious reporters. Given the Al Ahli hospital explosion in Gaza, his work is especially apt.

The explosion, which American and Israeli intelligence officials have persuasively contended was triggered by a misfired Islamic Jihad rocket, has been a PR bonanza for Hamas. Across that Arab world, Anti-Israeli forces rushed to embrace the terrorist claims that only an Israeli missile could have caused the disaster, dismissing Israeli counterclaims out of hand. Even as American intelligence sources confirmed those counterclaims, the fury has continued.

But the effects went well beyond the demonstrations. Several Arab leaders cancelled their planned meeting with President Biden, depriving everyone involved of a chance for face-to-face diplomacy that could have been helpful. Outside of Israel, the explosion also pushed into the background the Hamas atrocities of Oct. 7, the killings of more than 1,400 people, where the terrorist group exulted in savagery unprecedented in the long conflict. The 199 people children, elderly and others taken hostage have all but disappeared from the headlines.

American media outlets are striving to verify the American and Israeli findings about the explosion. That is as it should be. Ever since the Pentagon Papers, at least, independent verification is essential, and skepticism is warranted. Persuasive as the latest evidence seems to be, checking is crucial, especially as misinformation has abounded in this war.

However, the sad reality is that the truth may not matter except, maybe, as a historical point of interest. Even if Islamic Jihad’s ineptitude was at fault, Israel’s critics will likely argue that the assault Israel has mounted on Gaza is the underlying cause and, thus, the blame falls to Israel. Of course, Israel would not be bombarding Gaza if not for the attack by Hamas to begin with, something the anti-Israel forces appallingly ignore.

The reality is that in the eyes of its haters, Israel can do nothing right. Indeed, they deny its right to exist. The fashionable argument, which appears all too often on Linked In, X and elsewhere, is that Israelis are just Western colonizers (an absurd but common contention in Palestinian academic circles in the U.S., one that ignores the long history Jews have had in the land).    

Source: WGN, Chicago

Moreover, the inability of Palestinian sympathizers to demonstrate even a shred of compassion for Israelis is simply stunning. The claims of some that they are rallying against “genocide” of the Palestinian people is obscene in light of a true genocide, the Holocaust.

It bears repeating that Hamas and Islamic Jihad have one purpose. That is to kill Jews (or at least drive them out of the land). And, staggeringly, they think nothing of sacrificing their own people as they pursue this. Thus, their efforts to discourage Gazans from evacuating areas Israel has said they should leave, reportedly even to the extent of blocking them. The heartlessness of the terrorists – much like that of ISIS – knows no bounds. Their misuse of Islam to justify their murderousness leaves one agog.

Tragically, many more people will die in this war on both sides. Israel seems determined to uproot Hamas and Islamic Jihad, perhaps through a ground invasion and, one hopes, a short-lived occupation. Even critics of the likely invasion, such as Thomas Friedman, implicitly acknowledge that replacing the terrorists with a legitimate government could be helpful (I would suggest essential).

Source: WFAA

Of course, the enormous question is, what comes after the terrorists are crushed or routed militarily? Who will run Gaza and care for its 2 million people, most of whom are innocents trapped in what critics understandably call an open-air prison? Certainly, Israel doesn’t want to be responsible for the place again. Indeed, if not for Hamas and Islamic Jihad, Gaza would likely be a more open and accessible place, with arrangements such as that of the West Bank, whose residents can work in Israel. Since Israel left Gaza in 2005, Hamas has squandered any opportunity to build its economy and move toward peaceful coexistence.

Some observers, such as Bret Stephens, argue that moderate Arab regimes could replace the terrorists in overseeing Gaza. Indeed, given the overtures Saudi Arabia had been making toward Israel, the kingdom could play a powerful role there, along with Jordan and, perhaps, Egypt. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if such nations rose to aid their fellow-Arabs? It appears that President Biden is thinking along those lines, at least in terms of the need to vanquish Hamas.

Even as Jewish-Arab strife enters its second century in and around Israel, it remains the case that wars do end in time – sometimes more quickly than one can imagine. Just look at Germany, Japan and the U.S. and the rest of Europe not so long ago. Is it Pollyannish to think that horrific ugliness Hamas has committed — and the response it is generating it — could ultimately lead to some sort of resolution? Might this battle over Gaza be a final one, or close to it? Might the innocents in Gaza get humane government?

First, though, a lot more ugliness is imminent. And it will be the media’s job to report on it – as fully, accurately and thoroughly as possible. That job involves sorting through inevitable misinformation and outlets such as the Associated PressReuters and The New York Times are doing their best to combat it. Fact-checking is necessary, but whether it makes a difference in hard-set public attitudes is arguable.

Where are the Palestinians Appalled by Hamas?

Some students on U.S. campuses appear extraordinarily callous

Demonstrators at Cambridge City Hall, Source: Boston Herald

As Palestinian voices have grown more strident at universities all across the country in recent years, misinformation has flourished. But the latest spate of statements from organizations on campuses ranging from Ohio State to Harvard reflects astonishing insensitivity to the brutality and immorality of Hamas.

At Ohio State, the campus affiliate of the Students for Justice for Palestine praised the “heroic resistance in Gaza.” At Harvard, over 30 student organizations signed a letter written by the Harvard Undergraduate Palestine Solidarity Committee and Harvard Graduate Students for Palestine saying they “hold the Israeli regime entirely responsible for all unfolding violence,” as reported by Inside Higher Ed.

At the University of Pennsylvania, a group has called for a protest against an alleged “pro-Israel narrative” at media outlets including the NPR affiliate WHYY. At the University of Virginia, Students for Justice in Palestine celebrated the Hamas attacks as “a step towards a free Palestine,” as reported by the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

At Tufts University, a Jewish student leader, Micah Gritz, told The Hill that the “campus environment” has been “horrifying.” He added: “On campus, we’re seeing students either turn a blind eye to the conflict, or we’re seeing those who are openly celebrating our pain, you know, glorifying it, justifying it … They’re casting the murder of Jews and Israelis as progressive, as liberation. It’s just honestly very, very scary as a Jewish student on campus who has friends and family in Israel.”

The moral blindness among some members of Palestinian student groups leaves one aghast. Have they not seen the horrors inflicted on innocents by Hamas? Surely, they cannot truly celebrate the ghastliness, as reported by The New York Times and media around the world.

Certainly, Palestinians have reason to protest conditions in the West Bank and in Gaza and to demand better. But for them to side with the wanton murderers of Hamas beggars belief – especially when the terrorists have done nothing to improve the lot of Gazans since Israel left the area in 2005. Instead, the group has focused on building rockets and arming their deluded followers. Siding with such vicious murderers boggles the mind.

Where are the Palestinian voices on campus calling for an end to Hamas terrorism, demanding an end to its undemocratic tyranny in Gaza? Where are the Palestinians calling for peaceful coexistence with Israel (a prospect Hamas has all but destroyed for now)? Where are the Palestinians at U.S. universities decrying the savagery of recent days? Where are the Palestinians condemning Hamas for the awful retaliation to come, as Israel moves on Gaza to root out terrorists who surely knew they would bring such devastation on their own people?

Lucy Aharish, source: The Forward

Some Arabs have courageously spoken out against the actions of the terrorists. Perhaps the most eloquent is Lucy Aharish, an Arab-Israeli who spoke of “our beloved country” – Israel – and lambasted those who failed to condemn the Hamas attack. Hear her moving comments here.

Have similar sentiments been stifled, with Palestinians cowed into submission, as so many Gazans have been suppressed by Hamas? Public support for the terrorists has been common around the world, as The Times of Israel has reported: “From Ramallah to Beirut, Damascus, Baghdad and Cairo, people have distributed candies, danced and chanted prayers in support of the ‘resistance’ to Israel’s long-standing control of Palestinian land.”

And yet, backing for Hamas is hardly universal in Gaza. Half of Gazans agreed with the statement “Hamas should stop calling for Israel’s destruction, and instead accept a permanent two-state solution based on the 1967 borders” in a poll by The Washington Institute. As the FIKRA Forum reported: “In fact, Gazan frustration with Hamas governance is clear; most Gazans expressed a preference for PA administration and security officials over Hamas—the majority of Gazans (70%) supported a proposal of the PA sending ‘officials and security officers to Gaza to take over the administration there, with Hamas giving up separate armed units,’ including 47% who strongly agreed. Nor is this a new view—this proposal has had majority support in Gaza since first polled by The Washington Institute in 2014.”

Is anti-Hamas sentiment more common among Palestinians on campus than the latest headline-grabbing pronouncements by some groups suggest? Are they too fearful to speak out? A member of the Palestinian Solidarity Committee at Indiana University, asking for anonymity out of safety concerns, told the student newspaper: “We just stand for peace, it’s an emotional conflict … We don’t represent Hamas, and we don’t condone the actions of Hamas. But we also don’t condone the actions of the Israeli military. We do not want to see Palestinian children or Israeli children killed in this siege. It is a tragic event, and we hope things deescalate as soon as they can.”

One can only hope that there are other Palestinian students in the U.S. with more humanity than some of their local leaders and spokespeople appear to have. Surely, there are more Palestinians at such schools who share the revulsion of most in the civilized world. It would be heartening to hear more from them.

The Media and the Mideast

Journalists report on the horrors perpetrated by Hamas

Music festival attack aftermath, source: Wall Street Journal

It is so terribly difficult to write about the atrocities in Israel. For anyone who embraces idea of the Jewish homeland and her people, the horrors perpetrated by Hamas are beyond awful.

One hears echoes of the Gestapo in the maniacal, indiscriminate killings of hundreds at a music festival, in the raids on people’s houses all across the south, in the stealing of people from their children, in the stealing of children. In the rocket attacks, one hears the whistle of V-2s in London.

But even for non-Jews or those with no connection to Israel, the sheer monstrousness and inhumanity defies explanation. How could these terrorists be so heartless, so savage? Reared on hatred and propaganda, they acted like animals. And, as Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said of the severe and growing Israeli response, “We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly.” 

Hamas officials not only bear the stain of killing hundreds in Israel but will now have blood on their hands for the noncombatant Palestinians killed or to be killed in response. As the organization’s leaders cower in bunkers and safe hiding places, they are in effect victimizing their own people.

Journalistically, covering all this has been a huge challenge. The counts of dead and wounded climbed almost by the hour in the first few days and surely will never be precise. It seems inevitable that the figures will rise over coming days, perhaps weeks. And conveying the ugliness without tipping into gory displays – the violence porn that is Hamas’s wont – is a difficult task.

Hamas flooded social media with gruesome images of killings and kidnappings, of dragging bodies of Jewish noncombatants through their streets. No doubt, in coming days it will fill the media with videos of hostages as the terrorists use them as bargaining chips or tools to demoralize Israelis. Their sadism seems to know no bounds; their sense of morality is nonexistent.

Meanwhile, Israelis desperate to learn the fates of such hostages are posting images of them in pleas for their safety. How can one not feel for such innocents?

Israelis kidnapped by Hamas, source: Yuval Cohen, Facebook

While most accounts so far reflect the revulsion most journalists seem to feel about the actions of these terrorists, it is likely that in coming days we will see efforts to be “balanced,” to attempt to be evenhanded. Journalists are trained, of course, to see all sides and to reflect all sides in their coverage, and that’s usually a good thing.

But this “bothsidesism” can be blind to the causes of news events and thus be misleading.

For instance, an editor at The Colorado Sun in an email to subscribers wrote: “… it’s hard not to ache for those in Israel and Palestine as we see footage of the increasing violence in the region. In this somber time as we mourn those who were killed, let’s get caught up on the Colorado news and hope for a quick resolution to the tragedy and horror half a world away.”

Aside from the saccharine sentiments and naivete revealed in hoping for a “quick resolution” to a problem over a century in the making, the “ache” for those in Israel and Palestine neatly masks the truth about who the aggressor here has been. And the reference to “increasing violence in the region” is a feeble way of making note of a mass murder by terrorists. The news outlet needs to tell it like it is, perhaps by reporting well on the reactions of Coloradans whose loved ones were killed or kidnapped by Hamas.

Yes, media must report the reactions of Palestinians, even of terrorist supporters. Yes, sympathy is appropriate in such accounts for noncombatant Gazans, many of whom have been and will now be killed thanks to the acts of the terrorists. But the perpetrators of these awful acts must be identified as the aggressors and their cruelty must be noted at each turn, even if only in the questioning of their sympathizers.

Philadelphia demonstration, source: The Philadelphia Inquirer

The Philadelphia Inquirer rightly gave prominence to the reactions of Jews to the monstrousness, even as it also covered Palestinian sympathizers. But it failed to probe and question the feelings of those sympathizers.

How could a couple hundred such sympathizers demonstrating for Palestine in Rittenhouse Square justify the murders of hundreds of innocents? Simply reporting their chants in favor of a Palestine “from the river to the sea” – a phrase used to deny Israel’s right to exist — and recording assertions by a spokesperson saying the demonstration “was about all oppressed people” was not enough. Why was she not pressed about the immorality of the attacks?

Straight and full reporting of the events will be criticized, although it’s essential. Heather Cox Richardson, a scholar and one of my favorite Substack commentators, did so in an Oct. 7 piece that simply recounted what had happened. She was criticized for that, writing in a more recent piece: “The volume of hate mail about last Saturday’s letter, pretty evenly divided between those accusing me of backing one side and those accusing me of backing the other, is about the highest I’ve ever received, but I was trying simply to present the verified events of Saturday alone, with a focus on how they affected the United States.”

As Israel moves against Gaza, the suffering of Gazans will be appropriately covered. And there will be analyses of the bloody history of both sides, including coverage of times when noncombatant Palestinians have been killed by Israeli soldiers as they sought to root out terrorists. That is reasonable, as one shows all sides.

However, a crucial distinction must be made. The killing of civilians is not Israeli policy. Tragically, they get in the way at times. Tragically, there are mistakes – usually owned up to by Israel.

The difference is that, for Hamas, murdering Israeli civilians is an end in itself. That is what the group is about, as it seeks to drive Jews from the land. There can be no more stark illustration of that than its actions at the music festival and in the terrorizing of people in their homes, something Jews, the media and the world should never forget as this sad story unfolds.