Tachles with Aviel – Media in the service of liars

Lies spread fast, especially in times of conflict. Israel is in a constant battle to present the truth. But is anyone listening?

By Aviel Schneider | | Topics: Hamas, Media Bias
Palestinians living in South Korea and members of civil groups protest against an alleged Israeli bombing of a hospital in Gaza in front of the Israeli embassy in Seoul, South Korea, on October 18, 2023. Photo: EPA-EFE/JEON HEON-KYUN
Palestinians living in South Korea and members of civil groups protest against an alleged Israeli bombing of a hospital in Gaza in front of the Israeli embassy in Seoul, South Korea, on October 18, 2023. Photo: EPA-EFE/JEON HEON-KYUN

I have been working in the media sector for almost 30 years and am always surprised at how willing foreign media outlets are to spread the lies of Palestinian propaganda. They preach to us an objectivity that none of them adhere to. We are not objective either, and I have never claimed to be objective. But we are reporting the truth, Israel did not bomb the hospital in Gaza on Tuesday. Many don’t want to accept the truth because it does not fit their agenda. The majority of the world public does not like the truth if it in any way exonerates Israel.

Israel will have to work hard to convince the world that it was not behind the bombing of the al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza. The first reports from Gaza spoke of 200 dead, then 300, 400, 500 and the sky is the limit. Within minutes, news of a massacre in Gaza shocked the Arab world around us. Through regional Telegram channels we learned about the numerous demonstrations in Jordan, Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Turkey and other Arab countries. The Israeli and US embassies were stormed. Palestinian lies and propaganda were spread with lurid headlines, fake images and false claims. This kind of deceptive campaign always works. Lies spread quickly, but it often takes a long time to expose them as lies. And that is valuable time that is often lost. Later, no one will listen. They will have moved on. That’s why the IDF Spokesman had to react quickly to Hamas’s lies.

“There is no way to quickly know how everything happened, Hamas reacted with lightning speed and immediately declared Israel guilty. And the media is spreading Hamas’s lies,” said the Israeli army spokesman. “It was the Islamic Jihad terrorists who fired rockets from a cemetery at 6:59 p.m. The failed rocket hit the parking lot in front of the hospital, hence the fire damage.”

Burnt cars at Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza City. Photo: Atia Mohammed/Flash90

“If it had been an Israeli attack, there would have been other signs,” the spokesman continued. “There is no crater in the area. There is also no damage to the hospital, but Islamic Jihad and Hamas have launched a campaign claiming the hospital was hit. At this time, Israel has not fired any missiles from sea, air or land.” In addition, the army spokesman made it clear that Israel had detected rocket launches near the hospital and that they had two videos as evidence of how the area around the hospital was hit. Also, the army spokesman presented a conversation between terrorists in which they admitted that the tragedy was caused by Islamic Jihad rockets fired from near the cemetery.

It is the same spectacle of lies as what we saw during the Second Intifada in April 2002, when the Palestinians and PLO leader Yasser Arafat announced in dramatic reports that Israel had killed 500 Palestinians in Jenin. Five days later, when fighting between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian terrorists in the area ended, the Palestinian Authority put the death toll at several thousand. In addition, the Palestinians spread lies at the time that Israel was snatching bodies and that Palestinians were buried in mass graves and under the rubble of destroyed buildings. Israel committed genocide. The media around the world broadcast all of this without the faintest hint of fact-checking.

Later investigations found no evidence to support the lies and allegations of a massacre, and official figures from Palestinian and Israeli sources confirmed that no more than 54 Palestinians, including civilians, were killed in the firefight with Israeli paratroopers. Oops, almost forgot, there were around 30 soldiers killed on our side, too.

Eight years earlier, in February 1994, a Jewish settler from Kiryat Arba named Baruch Goldstein carried out an attack on Muslims in the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron. Dressed in Israeli military uniform, he opened fire on 800 Palestinian Muslims praying during Ramadan, killing 29 and wounding 125.

Israeli soldiers stand at the Ibrahimi Mosque (Cave of the Patriarchs), where Baruch Goldstein, an American-Israeli doctor, carried out the 1994 massacrein the city of Hebron, in which 29 Arabs were killed and 150 others injured. Archive image: Flash90

In the first few hours after Goldstein’s attack, Palestinian media reported hundreds of deaths. Five hundred deaths were reported, and anyone who was hospitalized or died of a heart attack at the time was automatically counted as a victim. That’s not a joke, it really was like that. A massacre in Hebron. True, but not hundreds. Even then, Israel had difficulty explaining this massacre or the attack by a Jew. But the world was convinced that Goldstein had shot hundreds of people. How many bullets are in the magazine of an M-16, and how many magazines can he change? Not only that, Israel admits it was a sin and a Jewish terrorist attack. Israel did not blame the Palestinians, as Hamas does by blaming Israel for the rocket attack. No matter, the lie spreads, and what remains in people’s minds is the number…500 dead in Hebron, 500 dead in Jenin, 500 dead in Gaza, and it’s all a lie.

Just like now. Five hundred dead in a Palestinian hospital in Gaza. Nobody knows whether this number is correct. The hospital was hit by a Palestinian rocket. But no one seems to care. In times of war like these, there is still a lot to come. Be alert and wise. Check what the media tells you, including us. We are here for you.

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One response to “Tachles with Aviel – Media in the service of liars”

  1. psalm100al says:
    October 20, 2023 at 11:19 pm

    Isaiah. 59/14-15
    And judgment is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off: for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter.
    Yea, truth faileth; and he that departeth from evil makeshift himself a prey. And the Lord saw it, and it displeased him that there was no judgment.

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