The belief in Israel’s moral fallenness could not have taken hold so widely—among Jews or Gentiles—were it not for the work of journalists and publishers, as Hamas knows all too well. Indeed, the terrorist group’s military strategy rests on maximizing civilian casualties in Gaza and then telling the world a tale of Palestinian suffering at the hands of bloodthirsty Israelis. So when yesterday a missile launched from Gaza at Israeli civilians fell short and landed near a hospital (possibly exploding a munitions dump), Hamas rushed to tell journalists that the IDF had bombed a hospital and killed 500 people. The New York Times and other outlets then rushed to amplify this claim without any sort of due diligence. John Podhoretz comments:

The point here is that the media in the United States and elsewhere are desperate—desperate—to blame things on Israel and credulous about doing so in a way that should be shameful to any sense of professionalism—or simple morality—they might possess.

Many decades ago, when Palestinians were massacred by Lebanese militiamen, an Israeli leader was alleged to have muttered, “Goyim kill goyim and they blame the Jews.” For this he was roundly denounced, and, obviously, speaking in such terms about a horrible killing spree was, at the very least, inappropriate. But today, unless the IDF is very wrong, we literally have a situation in which Palestinians [killed] Palestinians by the hundreds—and they blamed, or tried to blame, the Jews.

Yesterday I saw an unconfirmed report that the Biden administration has offered Israel a massive arms deal in exchange for a promise not to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities. Even if the report is incorrect, there is plenty of other evidence that the White House has been trying to dissuade Jerusalem from mounting such an attack. The thinking behind this pressure is hard to fathom, as there is little Israel could do that would better serve American interests in the Middle East than putting some distance between the ayatollahs and nuclear weapons. Aaron MacLean explains why this is so, in the context of a broader discussion of strategic priorities in the Middle East and elsewhere:

If the Iran issue were satisfactorily adjusted in the direction of the American interest, the question of Israel’s security would become more manageable overnight. If a network of American partners enjoyed security against state predation, the proactive suppression of militarily less serious threats like Islamic State would be more easily organized—and indeed, such partners would be less vulnerable to the manipulation of powers external to the region.

[The Biden administration’s] commitment to escalation avoidance has had the odd effect of making the security situation in the region look a great deal as it would if America had actually withdrawn [from the Middle East].

Alternatively, we could project competence by effectively backing our Middle East partners in their competitions against their enemies, who are also our enemies, by ensuring a favorable overall balance of power in the region by means of our partnership network, and by preventing Iran from achieving nuclear status—even if it courts escalation with Iran in the shorter run.