HAMAS (Ḥarakat al-Muqāwamah al-ʾIslāmiyyah, or Islamic Resistance Movement, or, as the word means in Arabic, “enthusiasm”) bears all the blame for civilian deaths in Gaza. They did more than start the war in Gaza. (In fact they’ve been at war with Israel since their founding, as their charter demands.) They do indeed launch rockets, and even run their war, from civilian areas. And they try to stop reporters from telling that story. Meanwhile, the world ignores Israeli efforts to keep the misery to a minimum.

Reporting from a war zone

Can anyone file credible reports from inside a country that started a war of aggression against a democratic republic? The very idea should strike anyone as absurd. Does anyone remember reading dispatches in The New York Times from inside Imperial Germany during World War One, or Nazi Germany during World War Two? Of course not. No one was ever in a position to file any. Nor from Imperial Japan during World War Two, either. In that second war, especially, not a word came out of Germany or Japan, except the words of Lord Haw-haw and Tokyo Rose, respectively.

But General Giap, commanding general for the Democratic Republic of Viet Nam, invented the idea of getting on the news of his truly democratic opponents. The first Western “reports,” such as they were, from Giap’s side of the line came, of course, from Jane Fonda. Many enemies of freedom would follow his example.

HAMAS is the latest example. They issue press passes. They want people to cover the war from their side of the battle front. Or so they say. In fact they use Western reporters as their propagandists, as General Giap used Jane Fonda.

Jane Fonda might, or might not, have been a willing accomplice. But modern Western reporters are simply dupes. And sometimes they give in to bullying. Bullying they would never tolerate from their own governments. (Or would they?)

HAMAS bullying and the real story

The Times of Israel describes the kind of bullying that goes on in Gaza during this war. For instance:

Photographers who had taken pictures of Hamas operatives in compromising circumstances — gunmen preparing to shoot rockets from within civilian structures, and/or fighting in civilian clothing — were then approached by Hamas men, bullied and had their equipment taken away.

According to the Times, a French journalist reported this happening to him. But the outlet where he reported it, scrubbed the account. (It did not stay up long enough for the Wayback Machine to save it before the scrub.)

And what sorts of things would they report, if they dared? Perhaps that Shifa Hospital, in Gaza City, serves as the command-and-control for the HAMAS rocket and infiltration operations. That would be like the U.S. military running a war from the basement of Bellevue Hospital in New York City.

Of course HAMAS can do nothing about things the Jerusalem Post, among other outlets, reported for years. Things like HAMAS using child labor to dig those infamous tunnels that lead into Israel and, until recently, Egypt.

Do Western reporters even care? Maybe not. A group calling itself Reporters Without Borders published this article describing, as they put it, the hazards of reporting from inside Gaza. In it they lay all the blame on the Israel Defense Forces. They say not a word about HAMAS running their war from civilian areas, storing rockets in U.N. Relief Works Agency schools, putting on civilian clothes, or threatening reporters who uncover the truth.

Israel offers to help

The IDF have managed to get their story out about the extraordinary efforts they make to tell civilians to get away from the fighting. No other army does this.

Two days ago, YNet News had this story few in the West have heard about yet. The Ministry of Health prepared millions of shekels’ worth of medical supplies for Gaza civilians. They planned to deliver this to the Palestinian Authority in Ramallah. They hoped the P.A. would deliver this to Gaza.

And the P. A. refused to accept it.

According to YNet, the Health Ministry would keep trying. But the IDF set up a field hospital near the Erez border crossing. Anyone from Gaza who needs treatment can get it there.

Again, what other army does that? But HAMAS doesn’t want you to know that. (Nor the P.A. either, but that’s another story.)

What hurts worse, is that Western reporters don’t want to tell the story. They would rather believe ill of the one force for civilization in the Middle East, and let the force for its destruction tell them what to believe and say.

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