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Hamas’ Friends in the Media

Israelis take cover from Palestinian rockets (AP)
November 15, 2012

Global media are portraying the terrorist group Hamas as the victim as Operation Pillar of Defense, the state of Israel’s attempt to stop rocket attacks from the Gaza Strip, gets underway.

The Thursday cover of the Washington Post featured a picture of a Gaza man clutching the dead body of his infant son at a hospital, as the Post caption says, "after an Israeli airstrike in Gaza City."

However, the implication that the child died at the hands of Israelis has never been verified by credible sources. Hamas has fired hundreds of crude, unguided rockets from Gaza at Israel over the past 24 hours, and it is common for some of those rockets to land in Gaza.

Hamas is also known for its "work accidents" in residential areas from mishandling weapons and explosives. The Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and West Bank are also known to have manipulated, and in some cases invented, accounts of civilian casualties because of the media sympathy such stories generate.

It is unclear how the infant in the photo died. For the Washington Post, however, the verdict is in: Israel did it.

Similarly, the New York Times' first story on the Israeli operation insinuated that Hamas rocket attacks had been simply made up by Israel as a pretext for attacking. The paper said that Hamas' longstanding goal of destroying the Jewish State was merely an Israeli assertion. It called Israel's long-delayed response to ceaseless rocket attacks on its civilians "a ferocious assault."

The BBC reported live from Gaza by filming a parade of "wounded" Palestinians who were obviously play-acting for the cameras. The practice has become so common practice that pro-Israel activists have made up a name for it: Pallywood.

Honest Reporting, a media watchdog, shows one "wounded" man from the BBC broadcast walking around confidently only moments after he was carried through the streets, his body limp, by several helpers.