Why do so many media outlets regard the claims of Hamas as legitimate? By Gemma Tonini.
Each time I hear or read the Hamas health ministry or Gaza health ministry being cited as a credible source, I experience something of a mental gag response.
It’s not just that they’re quoted but, rather, the air of legitimacy they’ve been afforded. Why, after what Hamas’s terrorists did, how they did it, the glee, unabashed pride and joy with which they murdered, mutilated, raped and kidnapped, has the group been afforded the privilege of legitimacy? How have the words of a globally declared terrorist organisation been afforded the weight of trust and credibility given by many left-leaning news organisations?
It’s as if October 7 never happened. As if there aren’t still 240 innocent hostages being held and, let’s be brutally truthful here, more than likely terribly abused in the dark bowels of Gaza. On what planet do we afford legitimacy to these monsters? I’m old enough to remember that negotiation is a privilege terrorists don’t deserve.
US President Joe Biden has gone on the record as saying he has no confidence in the casualty figures being released by the Hamas-controlled Gaza ministry of health. Why would anyone? I don’t know about you but I’d tend to not believe the organisation that celebrated the rape and mutilation of women and children. I’d tend to not give legitimacy or credibility to the terror organisation that openly and proudly said Jews and Christians the world over needed to be wiped out. If Hamas said the sky was blue, I’d be inclined to believe it was overcast.
It is to the immense shame of many in the media that when Hamas told the world the Israelis had bombed al-Ahli Arab Hospital in Gaza City, those claims were simply and instantly repeated. No questions, no caveats and, it would appear, no effort to verify. As has now been confirmed, the blast came from a failed rocket launch by the Palestinians and it landed in car park. Still, too many continue PR for Hamas, lending legitimacy to a group of savages that deserves none. The West, it seems, has many a useful idiot.
By contrast, the only functioning democracy in the region must go to extraordinary lengths to prove the truth of what it says. The Israeli government, at every turn, is met with suspicion and a greater burden of proof. It’s as if the massacre of October 7 has already become dim in people’s minds. …
Every time a claim is made by a Hamas mouthpiece, there must be a moment of pause to say these are the people who mutilate children in front their parents. These are the people who say Jews and Christians shouldn’t exist. These are the people who build and run military bases under hospitals and schools, a truth that was strongly condemned this week by the EU.
And every time someone tells you (as someone tried to tell me this week) that while what Hamas did was bad, it’s complicated, remind them why it’s not.
It’s not just in this dirty, necessary war that we see false legitimacy given to those undeserving. It happened during the Covid pandemic; people who were consistently and wildly inaccurate were frequently platformed and amplified against common sense and reason. It happens in the area of climate. In 2006, a former US vice-president warned the planet would be toast by 2016. No proof. Just ideology.
Short answer: Because they want to, because it’s trendy, and because they are misinformed wokies.
