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‘The IDF is Worse Than Hamas’: Jessica Burbank’s Anti-Israel Disinformation Campaign
An aerial view shows the bodies of victims of an attack following a mass infiltration by Hamas gunmen from the Gaza Strip lying on the ground in Kibbutz Kfar Aza, in southern Israel, Oct. 10, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Ilan Rosenberg
“Rising” is a popular online news program produced by The Hill, which features hosts and commentators from across the political spectrum discussing current events at home and around the world.
Since Hamas’ brutal invasion of Israel on October 7, and the subsequent Israeli war against the Gaza-based terrorist organization, the Middle East has been a consistent topic of discussion on Rising, with some defending the Jewish State and others opposing its military activities.
One of the most vocal anti-Israel commentators on Rising over the past few months has been Jessica Burbank, one of the program’s co-hosts.
In various segments, Burbank has spread a litany of falsehoods and misrepresentations of Israel, the IDF, and Hamas, that are based on unfounded statistics, misleading statements, and absurd analyses.
In a recent Rising piece about a New York Times article that chronicled the use of sexual violence by Hamas during the October 7 attack, Jessica Burbank quipped that the report “feels like intentional propaganda,” as the Times amplifies these claims against Hamas but doesn’t do the same for “very well-documented accounts of sexual abuse and violence by Israelis on Palestinians.”
According to Burbank, “One in 10 women in Gaza have experienced some kind of abuse from Israeli soldiers. And it’s even higher in younger age women, where it’s as high as 23 percent [who] have experienced sexual abuse from Israeli soldiers in the occupied territory.”
While Burbank presents these statistics as established fact, a Google search for the source of these numbers was unable to turn up any reference to these specific claims at all.
What did turn up were several articles on the rarity of sexual violence between Israeli soldiers and Palestinian women.
This is not the only time that Jessica Burbank has represented unfounded statistics as fact.
Later in that same segment, she claimed that “43 babies died in the [Al Shifa Hospital] NICU when Israeli forces decided to raid and attack that hospital.”
This seems to be based on mid-November reports that 39 premature babies were at risk as the IDF prepared to enter Shifa hospital in order to rout the Hamas fighters who were using it as a base. However, only days later, it was announced that 31 of these babies had successfully been moved from Gaza City to a safe hospital in the southern city of Rafah, with 12 being further moved to Egypt for treatment.
Not only did the vast majority of these babies not die, as Burbank claims, but the precise number of 43 seems to be entirely made up.
In another segment, Jessica Burbank repeatedly made the outlandish claim that Israel killed “31,000 civilians” during the Great March of Return in 2018. At one point, she even referred to those partaking in the March as “peaceful protesters who were protesting their land being stolen by Israel.”
In fact, according to the UN’s high estimate, between March 2018 and April 2019, 279 Palestinians had been killed. And, despite Burbank’s presentation of these Palestinians as “peaceful protesters,” it is believed that between 50% to 80% of those killed were members of Hamas or another Gaza-based terror organization.
However, it’s not surprising that Burbank might consider a Hamas member to be a “peaceful protester.”
After all, in her analysis, Burbank is dismissive of Hamas’ genocidal intent, preferring to view Israel and the IDF as the much greater enemy of peace in the region.
In one segment, Burbank put it as bluntly as saying that, “The current Israeli government is a terrorist organization. If you want to call Hamas a terrorist organization, the Israeli government is that times 10.” Further in the piece, she doubled down by claiming that “The IDF is far worse as a terrorist organization [than Hamas].”
In another segment, Burbank echoed former US President Jimmy Carter’s false assertion from 2015 that Hamas leaders were more in favor of peace than Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
It should be clear to any viewer that any opinion by Jessica Burbank on the issue of Hamas should be taken with heaps of salt, as she is dismissive of the brutality of Hamas’ terrorism and rationalizes the October 7 atrocities.
In reference to October 7, Burbank remarked, “Yes, they have killed 1,400 innocent people. Violence is always bad. But we have to understand it in the context of the Israeli government committing acts of terrorism.”
In another piece, she expanded on this, claiming that “What we have now is the culmination of many years of an apartheid state, of an occupation, and of peace not being present.”
Alongside her rationalization of Hamas’ terrorist activities, she has also shamelessly diminished the weight of this terrorism, claiming that, in contrast to Hamas, Israel is holding the “entire population of Gaza hostage.” To put it in Burbank’s cruelly simplistic words, “You want to talk about the 50 hostages that Hamas took versus the 1.1 million people living in Gaza right now…”
Burbank’s general understanding of Hamas and Israel seems to be so flawed that she once claimed that “Hamas doesn’t even operate” in the West Bank, something that any amateur analyst of the region could tell you is factually incorrect.
And Hamas is not the only organization whose violence Jessica Burbank prefers to whitewash.
Regarding harassment of international shipping in the Red Sea by the Yemen-based Houthi movement, Burbank remarked, “When I think about what the rebels are doing, I mean, Israel has the support of the US military. You know, Palestine does not. And so, Yemen seems to be one of the only countries that is actually supporting Palestine on this side of the war.”
She then went on to compare the Houthis to anti-Israel protesters who attempted to block Israel-bound ships in US docks, finishing with “I can see anyone interested in peace wanting to prevent weapons from getting in the hands of the people who are using them the most.”
Aside from her soapbox on Rising, Jessica Burbank also spreads her misinformation and derogatory view of the Jewish state on social media.
Two days after the October 7 attack, Burbank tweeted, “US propaganda machine doing a hell of a job convincing people it’s justified to condemn Russian expansion and support Ukrainian resistance while simultaneously supporting Israeli expansion and condemning Palestinian resistance,” falsely comparing Israel to Russia.
A few weeks later, she tweeted that the sole purpose of putting up posters of Israeli hostages around the world is for “drama” and to record people tearing them down.
For Jessica Burbank, it is unreasonable to assume that the posters are for awareness purposes, and there must be some nefarious reason behind it.
Burbank uncritically shared a now-discredited piece by the Middle East Eye that claimed that Israel was going to “flood Hamas tunnels with nerve gas under US navy supervision.”
A week later, she tweeted that Israel was committing a “genocide” in Gaza and that she was “sick of hearing ‘Israel has a right to defend itself’ while not affording that same moral permission to Palestinians,” grossly equating a state army with an internationally-recognized terrorist organization.
I’m sick of hearing “Israel has a right to defend itself” while not affording that same moral permission to Palestinians. Thousands of people dying and leaders call for a pause. Not an end. A pause in a genocide. This statement is not brave nor just. It’s sad. And it’s complicit. https://t.co/wp0OUBTGGO
— Jessica (Ka) Burbank (@JessicaLBurbank) November 4, 2023
In late December, Burbank also retweeted a post which spread the unsubstantiated claim that Israel was engaging in organ harvesting of Palestinians in Gaza.
On TikTok and in her substack, Jessica Burbank has also perpetuated a conspiracy theory tying the 1956 Suez War (which Israel fought in order to erase the threat of Egyptian-backed Palestinian terrorists crossing over and killing Israeli civilians — a fact that Burbank ignores), and the current Gaza conflict to a 1960s US plan to build a canal through Israel, connecting the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea.
As Fathom Journal has pointed out, the plan was rejected in the 1960s and this notion of Israel acting on behalf of a 60-odd-year US imperialist scheme has sprung up recently as just another anti-Israel conspiracy. This has not stopped Burbank from spreading it as fact online.
There is nothing wrong with a news program sharing multiple points of view on a topic as contentious as the current war between Israel and Hamas.
However, by providing a platform to Burbank, The Hill is legitimizing the spread of her disinformation, which is propped up by blatantly false statistics and misleading analysis.
As her popularity on Rising grows and she becomes more influential, Burbank’s alternative view of reality becomes all the more dangerous.
The author is a contributor to HonestReporting, a Jerusalem-based media watchdog with a focus on antisemitism and anti-Israel bias — where a version of this article first appeared.
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Drexel University Professor Stole Signs From Synagogue, Police Say
Illustrative: People pass a cluster of signs outside a pro-Hamas encampment at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. on April 28, 2024. Photo: Max Herman via Reuters Connect
A Drexel University professor allegedly participated in a mass theft of items from a synagogue in a suburb outside Philadelphia, a local NBC affiliate reported on Tuesday.
Mariana Chilton, 56, a professor of health management and policy at Drexel, has been accused of stealing pro-Israel signs from the Main Line Reform Temple in Lower Merion Township, traveling there from her neighborhood of residency, Wynnewood, Pennsylvania. Chilton allegedly drove the getaway car while two other accomplices, Sarah Prickett and Sam Penn — who is from New York — trespassed the synagogue and absconded with the loot.
“We are just taking them because we feel like it is a representative of genocide,” Chilton told law enforcement after being caught in the act, the report stated. She then, after offering to “just put them back,” refused to identify herself and comply with other lawful orders.
Video evidence provided by a local resident placed Chilton and her accomplices at the scene of the crime, and a Main Line Reform Temple official identified the signs recovered from her car as the temple’s property. That was enough for law enforcement to charge her with several offenses, including conspiracy and theft. She is also charged with driving without a license and not registering her vehicle.
Drexel University has not responded to The Algemeiner‘s request for comment for this story.
Experts have told The Algemeiner in the past academic year that while the conduct of anti-Zionist students should be reported on, the role of faculty in fostering and engaging in antisemitic acts should be closely scrutinized. Last semester, anti-Zionist faculty attached themselves to anti-Israel, pro-Hamas demonstrations, sometimes breaking the law by preventing officers from dispersing unauthorized demonstrations and detaining lawbreakers.
At Northeastern University in Boston, professors formed a human barrier around a student encampment to stop its dismantling by officers, and at Columbia University, anti-Zionist faculty at the school, as well its affiliate Barnard College, staged a walkout in support of the demonstrations and demanded the abeyance of disciplinary sanctions against anti-Zionist students — dozens of whom cheered Hamas and threatened more massacres of Jews similar to Oct. 7 — who violated school rules.
Chilton’s case is unlike any other reported in the past year, however. While dozens of professors have been accused of abusing their Jewish students and encouraging their classmates to bully and shame them, none are alleged to have resorted to stealing from a Jewish house of worship to make their point.
Mass participation of faculty in pro-Hamas demonstrations marks an inflection point in American history, Asaf Romirowsky, an expert on the Middle East and executive director of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East, told The Algemeiner in April.
Since the 1960s, he explained, far-left “scholar activists” have gradually seized control of the higher education system, tailoring admissions processes and the curricula to foster ideological radicalism and conformity, which students then carry with them into careers in government, law, corporate America, and education. This system, he concluded, must be challenged.
“The cost of trading scholarship for political propagandizing has been a zeal and pride among faculty who esteem and cheer terrorism, a historical development which is quite telling and indicative of the evolution of the Marxist ideology which has been seeping into the academy since the 1960s,” Romirowsky said. “The message is very clear to all of us who are looking on from the outside at this, and institutions have to begin drawing a red line. The protests are not about free speech. They are about supporting terrorism, about calling for a genocide of Jews.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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White House Cites Biden Clash With Netanyahu Over Iran as Proof of President’s Mental Fitness
US President Joe Biden hosts the 2023 Teacher of the Year event at the White House in Washington, US, April 24, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
Amid growing concerns over US President Joe Biden’s mental fitness, key White House officials are suggesting his foreign policy discussions with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, including a clash over how to respond to Iran’s unprecedented military attack on the Israeli homeland earlier this year, serve as evidence that he is still capable of leading from the Oval Office.
Biden and Netanyahu engaged in a heated back-and-forth in the immediate aftermath of Iran launching a massive missile and drone salvo at Israel in April, according to a new report by the New York Times. The US and other allies helped Israel shoot down nearly every drone and missile. The attack caused only one injury.
However, the Times revealed that while Netanyahu initially wanted to respond to Iran in a forceful way, Biden threatened to withhold US support in the event of a major Israeli retaliatory strike, arguing it would risk sparking a regional conflict in the Middle East.
“Aides present in the Situation Room the night that Iran hurled a barrage of missiles and drones at Israel portrayed a president in commanding form, lecturing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by phone to avoid a retaliatory escalation that would have inflamed the Middle East,” the Times reported. “‘Let me be crystal clear,’ Mr. Biden said. ‘If you launch a big attack on Iran, you’re on your own.’”
“Mr. Netanyahu pushed back hard, citing the need to respond in kind to deter future attacks,” the report continued. “‘You do this,’ Mr. Biden said forcefully, ‘and I’m out.’ Ultimately, the aides noted, Mr. Netanyahu scaled back his response.”
Israel’s military response was small and appeared aimed at minimizing the risk of escalation.
The Times report, headlined “Biden’s Lapses Are Said to Be Increasingly Common and Worrisome,” came on the heels of Biden delivering a widely-panned presidential debate performance last Thursday against former US President Donald Trump. Biden’s performance, which oftentimes appeared incoherent and muddled, set off alarm bells in Democratic circles, sending the president’s allies scrambling to extinguish concerns over his age and mental acuity.
While highlighting rising concerns, the news story also noted instances in which, according to aides, Biden appeared coherent and capable, citing the exchange with Netanyahu and his handling of the Iranian missile attack more broadly as one such example.
However, an anonymous Biden administration official told the Times that they are unsure whether Biden could hold his own against adversarial foreign leaders such as Vladimir Putin of Russia.
On Wednesday, the White House directly attributed quotes to Netanyahu in which the Israeli premier reportedly said he found Biden “very clear and very focused” during his visit to Israel following the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas. According to a White House spokesperson, Netanyahu also reportedly cited the “more than a dozen phone conversations, extended conversations with President Biden” as evidence of the commander-in-chief’s vitality.
“Some White House officials adamantly rejected the suggestion of a president not up to handling tough foreign counterparts and told the story of the night Iran attacked Israel in April,” the New York Times reported. “Mr. Biden and his top national security officials were in the Situation Room for hours, bracing for the attack, which came around midnight. Biden was updated in real time as the forces he ordered into the region began shooting down Iranian missiles and drones. He peppered leaders with questions throughout the response.”
During its first direct attack on Israeli territory, Iran in April launched roughly 300 missiles and drones at the Jewish state.
Leading up to the attack, Iranian officials had promised revenge for an airstrike on Iran’s consulate in Damascus, Syria that they attributed to Israel. The strike killed seven members of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), a widely designated terrorist organization, including two senior commanders. One of the commanders allegedly helped plan the Hamas terrorist group’s Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel.
Israel has neither confirmed nor denied involvement in the incident.
“After it was over, and almost all of the missiles and drones had been shot down, Mr. Biden called Mr. Netanyahu to persuade him not to escalate. ‘Take the win,’” Mr. Biden told the prime minister, without reading from a script or extensive notes, according to two people in the room. In the end, Mr. Netanyahu opted for a much smaller and proportionate response that effectively ended the hostilities,” the article added.
Days later, Israel responded to the Iranian aggression by launching a modest missile attack on an airbase near Isfahan. The Jewish state sought to show that it could effectively target key strategic locations in Iran while not escalating the conflict any further. Netanyahu insisted on launching a retaliatory attack against Iran, arguing that ignoring the Iranian strikes would incentivize more attacks against the Jewish state.
IRGC Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh said that Iran is waiting for “the opportunity” to launch a new round of strikes against Israel, Iranian media reported on Tuesday, potentially boosting Netanyahu’s argument that a smaller response would invite further attacks.
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Journalist at US-Based Nonprofit Promoted Stabbing Israelis, Depicted Rescued Hostage as Pig Drinking Blood: Report
Palestinian terrorists ride an Israeli military vehicle that was seized by gunmen who infiltrated areas of southern Israel, in the northern Gaza Strip, Oct. 7, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Ahmed Zakot
A journalist at a US-based nonprofit posted tutorials on how to commit stabbing attacks and depicted a rescued Israeli hostage as a pig drinking blood, according to newly surfaced social media posts.
Eitan Fischberger, a communications analyst and former Israel Defense Forces (IDF) staff sergeant who first broke the story on X/Twitter, alleged that Mahmoud Ajjour, a correspondent for The Palestine Chronicle, posted disturbing images and videos to his Instagram page.
Fischberger posted screenshots and screen recordings of the posts.
According to The Chronicle‘s website, Ajjour is a photojournalist and correspondent for the outlet, which is a US-based 501c3, or nonprofit organization.
One of the posted images depicted Noa Argamani — an Israeli who was kidnapped from the Nova music festival during Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attacks in southern Israel, and then rescued in an IDF special operation last month — as a pig drinking blood from a Coca-Cola bottle.
Here, for example, Ajjour posted a picture of Israeli hostage Noa Argamani, portrayed as a pig drinking the blood of Palestinians.
Noa, as you recall, was freed by Israeli forces in the same rescue operation in which Ajjour’s terrorist colleague was killed pic.twitter.com/oiLCqekxbl
— Eitan Fischberger (@EFischberger) June 30, 2024
In Oct. 2015, Ajjour posted a picture of a masked Palestinian holding up a knife, with the caption, “I declare it a revolution.”
That time — from approximately Sept. 2015 to June 2016 — was referred to as the “knife intifada,” as there was an uptick in Palestinian terrorist attacks, particularly using knives, against Israelis in Jerusalem, along with other parts of Israel and the West Bank.
Ajjour also seems mighty fine endorsing stabbing attacks pic.twitter.com/xi2MnZVddl
— Eitan Fischberger (@EFischberger) June 30, 2024
During that same month, Ajjour also reportedly posted a two-part tutorial on how to carry out stabbings with the caption, “May Allah protect them,” likely referring to those who were engaging in such attacks.
So much, in fact, that he uploaded a two-part instruction video showing off some best practices for stabbing Israelis pic.twitter.com/Z12rVo4Enx
— Eitan Fischberger (@EFischberger) June 30, 2024
Then, in 2023, after the son of a Hamas preacher was killed when a device he was trying to launch at Israel exploded, Ajjour mourned his death on Instagram. “Your father’s legacy is proud of you,” he wrote alongside a picture that included what appeared to be a Hamas flag.
And here, Ajjour mourns the death of Bara’a al-Zard, son of Hamas preacher Wael al-Zard.
Silly Bara’a died in an explosion caused by a device he was trying to launch at Israeli forces near the Gaza security fencehttps://t.co/vZR6IW0shF pic.twitter.com/ipQw55BYd7
— Eitan Fischberger (@EFischberger) June 30, 2024
This is not the first time a journalist from The Palestine Chronicle was alleged to have either supported or partaken in terrorism.
Abdallah Aljamal, who was a correspondent for The Chronicle, allegedly held three Israeli hostages in his home, according to the Israeli government. He was killed during a raid that rescued four hostages, including Argamani. After the allegations came to light, The Chronicle changed Aljamal’s status on its website from a correspondent to a contributor.
The Palestine Chronicle did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
Fichberger wrote that he wants the US House Ways and Means Committee to investigate The Chronicle for what seems to have become a pattern.
“If The Chronicle is let off the hook for employing an actual terrorist hostage-taker, it would prove that the American counter-terror legal apparatus really is irreparably broken,” he wrote.
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