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The Washington Post Gives a Pass to Antisemitic Institutions
A Red Cross vehicle, as part of a convoy believed to be carrying hostages abducted by Hamas terrorists during the Oct. 7 attack on Israel, arrives at the Rafah border, amid a hostages-prisoners swap deal between Hamas and Israel, as seen from southern Gaza, Nov. 24, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa
“Sunlight,” the jurist and Zionist Louis Brandeis famously observed, “is said to be the best of disinfectants.” Yet, one of the world’s leading newspapers, The Washington Post, is failing to shine a light on institutions that are propagating antisemitism, a virus that has resulted in the murder of millions in living memory.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is one such institution. The ICRC has failed Israelis and failed to live up to its mandate. Time and again, the organization has laid its biases bare in the latest iteration of the Israel-Iran war.
The ICRC’s self-described mission is to “ensure humanitarian protection and assistance for victims of war and other situations of violence.” Judged by its own standards, the ICRC has failed spectacularly. The ICRC was MIA after the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre, the largest slaughter of Jewish civilians since the Holocaust, and it has continued to fail both Israelis and Jews ever since.
As Commentary’s Seth Mandel noted in November 2023, the ICRC has “failed to advocate meaningfully for the hostages held by Hamas in Gaza,” appearing “uninterested in gaining access to them or their release.” Hostages have been murdered, raped, and tortured while being held by Hamas and Palestinians in Gaza.
Several hostages who have been released as part of agreements with Israel have spoken of the horrors that they faced. Many were starved and beaten. One elderly woman, 84-year-old Elma Avraham, has been in critical condition since her release. She was reportedly starved. Others have spoken of being literally branded and assaulted. The ICRC has failed to help them.
Indeed, instead of applying pressure on Hamas, the ICRC has blamed Israel. ICRC officials met with Roni and Simon Steinbrecher, whose daughter, Doron, was kidnapped from her apartment in Kfar Aza. The ICRC refused to take medication to Doron.
After refusing to take the medication to her, ICRC officials told her parents to “think about the Palestinian side.” Dor Steinbrecher, Doron’s brother, told CNN’s Jake Tapper that a Red Cross employee even told them to “care more about Arab people on the other side.” Of course, polls show that a majority of Palestinians — almost three in four — support the Hamas massacre that precipitated the war.
Worse still, evidence suggests that the ICRC may be worse than incompetent; they might be complicit in Hamas’ actions.
As Mandel noted, the Red Cross transported supplies and patients to Shifa Hospital in November 2023. And in July 2023, the ICRC even boasted of improvements being made to the hospital in conjunction with a “partnership with the Ministry of Health in Gaza.” Yet, that Ministry is controlled by Hamas. And evidence of Shifa Hospital’s use by Hamas has long been in the public domain. Indeed, as Mandel pointed out, while the ICRC was transporting supplies to Shifa, the hospital was being used not only as a staging ground for Hamas operations, but some Israeli hostages themselves were hidden at Shifa. At least one, an Israeli soldier, seems to have been murdered there.
More evidence, including video footage and testimony of hospital officials, indicates that Shifa, along with several other hospitals in Gaza, was a key base for Hamas operations.
Yet, the Red Cross — which actively cooperated with the Nazis during World War II — has failed to come clean about what it knew and when. And leading newspapers like The Washington Post have failed to hold them to account.
In an otherwise thoughtful and lengthy Jan. 15th account of the hostages’ plight, the Post’s Shira Rubin simply states that “the Red Cross has not been allowed to visit them.” A Jan. 18th report by Jerusalem bureau chief Steve Hendrix and reporters Miriam Berger and Hazem Balousha noted that medicine hasn’t reached hostages in Gaza, but omitted the ICRC’s documented failings. And when it comes to Shifa Hospital, the three Post reporters didn’t ask what the ICRC knew and when they knew it.
Indeed, as the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis (CAMERA) has highlighted, the Post has previously covered for Hamas, obfuscating the terrorist group’s documented use of hospitals. The ICRC is aid dependent, receiving largesse from the United States and elsewhere.
Other supposedly impartial institutions, including the International Court of Justice and the United Nations, have also violated the spirits of their mandates, often propagating antisemitism while Jews are being targeted and murdered en masse. Indeed, UN agencies like UNRWA have been caught supporting Hamas’ terrorist campaign. And here too the Post, with a long and documented history of hiding UNRWA’s antisemitism, has fallen short. In fact, instead of highlighting how Hamas has misused international aid, including from UNRWA, the Post has run front-page “news” articles blaming Israel for Gazans not getting aid. Hamas is literally shooting Gazans attempting to get aid, but the newspaper would rather blame the Jewish state.
But old-fashioned journalism doesn’t seem to interest the Post these days. And readers seem to be taking notice. According to The New York Times, in 2023 alone The Washington Post lost $100 million. The newspaper has been bleeding subscribers. Digital subscriptions are down more than 15 percent since 2021, and their overall digital audience has declined by 28 percent over that same period. The Post has attempted to stanch the bleeding via more than 240 buyouts and layoffs.
Those looking for news are increasingly turning elsewhere. And given the Post’s proclivity for slanted reporting and omitting key facts, one can hardly blame them.
The writer is a Senior Research Analyst for CAMERA, the 65,000-member, Boston-based Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting and Analysis.
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Iranian Media Claims Obtaining ‘Sensitive’ Israeli Intelligence Materials
FILE PHOTO: The atomic symbol and the Iranian flag are seen in this illustration, July 21, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
i24 News – Iranian and Iran-affiliated media claimed on Saturday that the Islamic Republic had obtained a trove of “strategic and sensitive” Israeli intelligence materials related to Israel’s nuclear facilities and defense plans.
“Iran’s intelligence apparatus has obtained a vast quantity of strategic and sensitive information and documents belonging to the Zionist regime,” Iran’s state broadcaster said, referring to Israel in the manner accepted in those Muslim or Arab states that don’t recognize its legitimacy. The statement was also relayed by the Lebanese site Al-Mayadeen, affiliated with the Iran-backed jihadists of Hezbollah.
The reports did not include any details on the documents or how Iran had obtained them.
The intelligence reportedly included “thousands of documents related to that regime’s nuclear plans and facilities,” it added.
According to the reports, “the data haul was extracted during a covert operation and included a vast volume of materials including documents, images, and videos.”
The report comes amid high tensions over Iran’s nuclear program, over which it is in talks with the US administration of President Donald Trump.
Iranian-Israeli tensions reached an all-time high since the October 7 massacre and the subsequent Gaza war, including Iranian rocket fire on Israel and Israeli aerial raids in Iran that devastated much of the regime’s air defenses.
Israel, which regards the prospect of the antisemitic mullah regime obtaining a nuclear weapon as an existential threat, has indicated it could resort to a military strike against Iran’s installations should talks fail to curb uranium enrichment.
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Israel Retrieves Body of Thai Hostage from Gaza
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz looks on, amid the ongoing conflict in Gaza between Israel and Hamas, in Jerusalem, Nov. 7, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
The Israeli military has retrieved the body of a Thai hostage who had been held in Gaza since Hamas’ October 7, 2023 attack, Defense Minister Israel Katz said on Saturday.
Nattapong Pinta’s body was held by a Palestinian terrorist group called the Mujahedeen Brigades, and was recovered from the area of Rafah in southern Gaza, Katz said. His family in Thailand has been notified.
Pinta, an agricultural worker, was abducted from Kibbutz Nir Oz, a small Israeli community near the Gaza border where a quarter of the population was killed or taken hostage during the Hamas attack that triggered the devastating war in Gaza.
Israel’s military said Pinta had been abducted alive and killed by his captors, who had also killed and taken to Gaza the bodies of two more Israeli-American hostages that were retrieved earlier this week.
There was no immediate comment from the Mujahedeen Brigades, who have previously denied killing their captives, or from Hamas. The Israeli military said the Brigades were still holding the body of another foreign national. Only 20 of the 55 remaining hostages are believed to still be alive.
The Mujahedeen Brigades also held and killed Israeli hostage Shiri Bibas and her two young sons, according to Israeli authorities. Their bodies were returned during a two-month ceasefire, which collapsed in March after the two sides could not agree on terms for extending it to a second phase.
Israel has since expanded its offensive across the Gaza Strip as US, Qatari and Egyptian-led efforts to secure another ceasefire have faltered.
US-BACKED AID GROUP HALTS DISTRIBUTIONS
The United Nations has warned that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli blockade of the enclave, with the rate of young children suffering from acute malnutrition nearly tripling.
Aid distribution was halted on Friday after the US-and Israeli-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation said overcrowding had made it unsafe to continue operations. It was unclear whether aid had resumed on Saturday.
The GHF began distributing food packages in Gaza at the end of May, overseeing a new model of aid distribution which the United Nations says is neither impartial nor neutral. It says it has provided around 9 million meals so far.
The Israeli military said on Saturday that 350 trucks of humanitarian aid belonging to U.N. and other international relief groups were transferred this week via the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza.
The war erupted after Hamas-led terrorists took 251 hostages and killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, in the October 7, 2023 attack, Israel’s single deadliest day.
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US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say
Palestinians carry aid supplies which they received from the US-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, in the central Gaza Strip, May 29, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Ramadan Abed/File Photo
The State Department is weighing giving $500 million to the new foundation providing aid to war-shattered Gaza, according to two knowledgeable sources and two former US officials, a move that would involve the US more deeply in a controversial aid effort that has been beset by violence and chaos.
The sources and former US officials, all of whom requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, said that money for Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF) would come from the US Agency for International Development (USAID), which is being folded into the US State Department.
The plan has met resistance from some US officials concerned with the deadly shootings of Palestinians near aid distribution sites and the competence of the GHF, the two sources said.
The GHF, which has been fiercely criticized by humanitarian organizations, including the United Nations, for an alleged lack of neutrality, began distributing aid last week amid warnings that most of Gaza’s 2.3 million population is at risk of famine after an 11-week Israeli aid blockade, which was lifted on May 19 when limited deliveries were allowed to resume.
The foundation has seen senior personnel quit and had to pause handouts twice this week after crowds overwhelmed its distribution hubs.
The State Department and GHF did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Reuters has been unable to establish who is currently funding the GHF operations, which began in Gaza last week. The GHF uses private US security and logistics companies to transport aid into Gaza for distribution at so-called secure distribution sites.
On Thursday, Reuters reported that a Chicago-based private equity firm, McNally Capital, has an “economic interest” in the for-profit US contractor overseeing the logistics and security of GHF’s aid distribution hubs in the enclave.
While US President Donald Trump’s administration and Israel say they don’t finance the GHF operation, both have been pressing the United Nations and international aid groups to work with it.
The US and Israel argue that aid distributed by a long-established U.N. aid network was diverted to Hamas. Hamas has denied that.
USAID has been all but dismantled. Some 80 percent of its programs have been canceled and its staff face termination as part of President Donald Trump’s drive to align US foreign policy with his “America First” agenda.
One source with knowledge of the matter and one former senior official said the proposal to give the $500 million to GHF has been championed by acting deputy USAID Administrator Ken Jackson, who has helped oversee the agency’s dismemberment.
The source said that Israel requested the funds to underwrite GHF’s operations for 180 days.
The Israeli government did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The two sources said that some US officials have concerns with the plan because of the overcrowding that has affected the aid distribution hubs run by GHF’s contractor, and violence nearby.
Those officials also want well-established non-governmental organizations experienced in running aid operations in Gaza and elsewhere to be involved in the operation if the State Department approves the funds for GHF, a position that Israel likely will oppose, the sources said.
The post US Mulls Giving Millions to Controversial Gaza Aid Foundation, Sources Say first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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