How Islamist and Radical-Left Media Spread Lies about Hamas’s Crimes

Aug. 29 2024

Readers of Mosaic are likely familiar with the combination of distortion, credulousness, and confusion that characterizes so much of the coverage of the Gaza war in the mainstream press. But far worse is what can be found in what the British journalist John Ware dubs the alternative media—hard-left, obsessively anti-Israel, and usually anti-Semitic outlets that have persistently denied that Hamas slaughtered civilians, raped women, and engaged in other acts of unspeakable barbarity. They take their cues from Hamas itself, which both distributed video of the atrocities and sent its representatives to claim they never happened on the BBC.

Backing up this campaign of lies are such Islamist outlets as Al-Hiwar TV, which Ware describes as a “Muslim Brotherhood-aligned TV station broadcasting daily to the Arab diaspora from its London studios.” And then there are Hamas sympathizers with academic pedigrees, which the alternative and mainstream media cite as respected authorities:

Khalid El-Awaisi, a lecturer in early Muslim history/Islamic Jerusalem studies at University of Aberdeen, told Muslims at the Masjid-e-Umar [mosque] in Bradford on October 21: “What you heard about attacks on concerts, and all this nonsense, it turns out to be lies.”

One wonders most of all why one of Scotland’s leading universities has a professorship in “Islamic Jerusalem studies” and what precisely that means.

The last part of the equation are such U.S.-based outlets as Max Blumenthal’s Grayzone (famous for denying atrocities committed by Bashar al-Assad and Vladimir Putin), Mondoweiss, and Electronic Intifada. Ware presents a careful forensic dissection of their arguments, which makes for difficult reading. He concludes:

The alternative media are likely to play an increasingly influential role in how the conflict now plays out in Britain and elsewhere. For it is their journalism which the growing number of Hamas sympathizers and apologists here hope will resonate most closely with British Muslims, a large and growing constituency. The fact that six months into the war, a poll showed 76 percent of British Muslims had yet to accept that Hamas had committed murder and rape on October 7 should ring alarm bells. Muslim university graduates were slightly more in denial than non-graduates.

Read more at Fathom

More about: Hamas, Islamism, Media, United Kingdom

After Taking Steps toward Reconciliation, Turkey Has Again Turned on Israel

“The Israeli government, blinded by Zionist delusions, seizes not only the UN Security Council but all structures whose mission is to protect peace, human rights, freedom of the press, and democracy,” declared the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a speech on Wednesday. Such over-the-top anti-Israel rhetoric has become par for the course from the Turkish head of state since Hamas’s attack on Israel last year, after which relations between Jerusalem and Ankara have been in what Hay Eytan Cohen Yanarocak describes as “free fall.”

While Erdogan has always treated Israel with a measure of hostility, the past few years had seen steps to reconciliation. Yanarocak explains this sharp change of direction, which is about much more than the situation in Gaza:

The losses at the March 31, 2024 Turkish municipal elections were an unbearable blow for Erdoğan. . . . In retrospect it appears that Erdoğan’s previous willingness to continue trade relations with Israel pushed some of his once-loyal supporters toward other Islamist political parties, such as the New Welfare Party. To counter this trend, Erdoğan halted trade relations, aiming to neutralize one of the key political tools available to his Islamist rivals.

Unsurprisingly, this decision had a negative impact on Turkish [companies] engaged in trade with Israel. To maintain their long-standing trade relationships, these companies found alternative ways to conduct business through intermediary Mediterranean ports.

The government in Ankara also appears to be concerned about the changing balance of power in the region. The weakening of Iran and Hizballah could create an unfavorable situation for the Assad regime in Syria, [empowering Turkish separatists there]. While Ankara is not fond of the mullahs, its core concern remains Iran’s territorial integrity. From Turkey’s perspective, the disintegration of Iran could set a dangerous precedent for secessionists within its own borders.

Read more at Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security

More about: Iran, Israel diplomacy, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey