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A Doctor Spewed Vile and Defamatory Claims That Israel Intentionally Kills Children; CBS and CNN Aired Them
A boy holds a placard as Palestinian Hamas supporters attend a rally against visits by Israelis to the Al-Aqsa mosque, in Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, May 26, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa
Alongside the war in Gaza, Hamas is also waging a propaganda campaign to demonize Israel and Jews in the international arena.
That campaign aims to project Hamas’ genocidal identity and image onto its intended victims: Israel and the Jewish people. The campaign is being executed with the engagement of bad actors and willing dupes from outside Gaza.
The Medical Profession’s Bad Actors
Some of the most dangerous actors engaged in Hamas’ cynical propaganda campaign come from the ranks of medical professionals who have entered the Gaza war zone to care for the injured and sick. No doubt, some are motivated by humanitarian concerns and are disturbed by the medical emergencies, tragedies, and devastation that they witness. They report on the injuries, deaths, and difficulties in delivering medical care in a war zone, but do not go beyond that.
At the same time, however, there are too many bad actors who are motivated by anti-Zionist animus. Beyond reporting on the medical situation in the hospitals they’ve visited, these activists willingly participate in Hamas’ propaganda war, spreading misinformation and falsehoods to demonize the Jewish State and foment hatred of its supporters.
Take, for example, Mark Perlmutter, a physician who travelled to Gaza on a Palestinian American Medical Association mission in April, and who has since been actively engaged in Hamas’ propaganda war. Upon his return to the US, Perlmutter teamed up with Feroze Sidhwa, another participant in the mission, whose anti-Israel activities long predate his becoming a physician.
Perlmutter and Sidhwa did not merely report about humanitarian suffering in Gaza. They launched a media campaign to defame the Jewish State with a salvo of accusations: Israel is guilty of genocide; Israel has committed crimes against humanity; Israel is responsible for the worst cruelty imaginable; the US is complicit in Israel’s crimes. In fact, the only party they did not blame for the situation in Gaza is the party that is responsible for it — Hamas and its affiliated terrorist operatives.
Perlmutter uses his Jewish connection — a Jewish father and surname — to feign expertise on Judaism and endorse tropes that are generally associated with the most vicious, antisemitic circles.
For example, he equates Zionism, which is the idea of Jewish self-determination and an integral part of Judaism, with Nazism. From his X account:
Honesty and truth are cast aside as he spews his extremist, anti-Zionist bile.
For example, to support his false claim that Israel deliberately targets innocent children as part of a genocide, Perlmutter minimizes the number of Hamas combatants, leaders and operatives in Gaza to a preposterous degree, declaring those affiliated with Hamas account for only 0.01% of the Gazan population — i.e. ~200 people:
He falsely casts the war against Hamas as the deadliest conflict for medical workers and journalists that has ever been recorded in history.
But even were one to accept propagandistic casualty counts from pro-Hamas groups at face value, they are still far less than the numbers of medical professionals who were killed in other conflicts such as the Syrian civil war, among others:
What is clear is that Perlmutter is unburdened by the obligation to be truthful; his primary goal is to disseminate anti-Israel propaganda.
The Mainstream Media’s Willing Dupes
Perlmutter would not be able to spread his animus against Israel and Zionists without the willing dupes in the mainstream media who have abdicated their journalistic responsibility to vet pro-Hamas and anti-Zionist propagandists before offering them a platform as authorities on the war. These are the journalists and producers who offer Perlmutter and his ilk a platform to spread false propaganda about an Israeli genocide.
Take, for example the CBS producers who created an entire segment promoting Perlmutter’s claims, or the producers of CNN International’s Amanpour show who, a week and a half later, presented Perlmutter with another platform to increase his audience.
Perlmutter’s Questionable Allegations:
The casualties in Gaza are “almost exclusively children.” (CBS, Sunday Morning, July 21, 2024)
The “focus” is on innocent children, as well as healthcare workers and journalists, who are “specifically targeted.” (CNN’s Amanpour, July 30, 2024)
Even the UN’s OCHA casualty count, which is dependent on Hamas’ debated numbers, show that children account for less than a third of casualties.
Here are some more false claims:
Israel engages “the world’s best snipers” to target Palestinian “toddlers” [as part of its genocidal war]. (CBS, Sunday Morning, July 21, 2024)
“Children were specifically targeted by high velocity rifle bullet wounds.” (CNN’s Amanpour, July 30, 2024)
Perlmutter goes way beyond what’s ascertainable from a medical standpoint. In the absence of any actual evidence, he presents himself as an expert able to determine who the perpetrators are and what their motive is.
According to him, the perpetrators are expert Israeli snipers whose motive is to murder Palestinian children and toddlers.
When asked by a credulous Smith to verify that it is indeed snipers who are shooting children, Perlmutter assertively exclaimed, “Definitively!”
As to his evidence, he declared:
I have children that were shot twice … I have two children that I have photographs of that were shot so perfectly in the chest, I couldn’t put my stethoscope over their heart more accurately. And directly on the side of the head in the same child. No toddler gets shot twice by mistake by the world’s best sniper. And they are dead center shots. (CBS Sunday Morning, July 21, 2024)
His CNN testimony repeats the same evidence, adding several additional embellishments:
We found children … that had high velocity bullet wounds, sniper bullet wounds, rifle wounds that were dead center in the chest. I mentioned to other reporters that I couldn’t put my stethoscope more dead center over a heart than the entrance bullet hole was. There was no back to these children. The bullet had removed their entire torso. There was similar bullet hole in two of the children’s temples. So, they were shot twice. Once was certainly a kill shot. The second one was when they were on the ground. And so, no sniper hits a child, and I’m talking toddlers twice by mistake. (CNN’s Amanpour, July 30, 2024)
Beyond his muddled story — how many children and toddlers with two bullet holes were there? — Perlmutter’s testimony raises multiple questions regarding its veracity.
Perlmutter only saw the children in the hospital after their deaths. How was he able to ascertain the identity of the shooters, the circumstances of the shootings, and the victims’ position when they were shot, based only on the size and location of bullet holes in the body?
Why would a professional army engaged in active combat squander their top military assets — trained snipers and ammunition — to target “children” and “toddlers” instead of adult combatants?
Why would “the world’s best snipers” capable of “dead center shots” require additional shots to confirm their victims’ deaths?
If expert snipers aimed so “perfectly” and “dead center” over the heart, why would they need to adjust their angle or squander extra bullets in targeting a separate part of the body?
If victims were found with shots to different areas of their body, wouldn’t a far more likely scenario be that they were caught in crossfire in a combat zone?
CBS reporter Tracy Smith not only readily accepted Perlmutter’s accusations as truth, but tried to validate them, by invoking other doctors in Gaza who also mentioned “gunshot wounds to children,” as if that was proof enough for the outrageous claim that expert snipers were deliberately targeting toddlers.
That civilians in war zones — either adults or children — may sustain gunshot wounds does not indicate who shot them (Palestinian gunmen or Israeli soldiers) and certainly does not indicate deliberate targeting.
To be fair, CNN’s Senior Global Affairs Analyst Bianna Golodryga, sitting in for Christiane Amanpour, was more circumspect in her interview, noting that it is “quite an extreme allegation to make that these civilians were indeed targeted” and citing the IDF ‘s refutation of the allegations that were also made in the CBS News interview. However, this does not absolve CNN producers for having given Perlmutter a platform to air his outrageous claims.
Ricki Hollander is a senior analyst at CAMERA, Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America, where a version of this article was first published.
The post A Doctor Spewed Vile and Defamatory Claims That Israel Intentionally Kills Children; CBS and CNN Aired Them first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Police Officers Injured as Violent Clashes Erupt at Anti-Israel Nakba Day Rally in Berlin
A Pro-Palestinian demonstrator speaks to a police officer during a protest against Israel to mark the 77th anniversary of the “Nakba,” or catastrophe, in Berlin, Germany, May 15, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Axel Schmidt
Anti-Israel demonstrators clashed violently with Berlin police officers during a march on Thursday, resulting in injuries and heightened tensions throughout the German capital city.
More than 600 police officers were dispatched to contain the “Nakba Day” protest in Berlin’s central Kreuzberg district, where over 50 arrests were made. The demonstrators were recognizing the 77th anniversary of the “nakba,” the Arabic term for “catastrophe” used by Palestinians and anti-Israel activists to refer to the establishment of the modern state of Israel in 1948.
According to local law enforcement, approximately 1,100 people took part in the pro-Hamas rally, which also protested against Israel’s military campaign against the Palestinian terrorist group in the Gaza Strip.
Demonstrators initially intended to march from Südstern Square in the southern part of the capital to the adjacent Neukölln district, but local authorities only allowed the protest to remain stationary.
Even though a local court had ruled that the anti-Israel protest couldn’t move through the city, demonstrators repeatedly attempted to march through the neighborhood. When police intervened to stop them, they were met with insults and violent attacks from the crowd.
Police officers stand guard in front of Pro-Palestinian demonstrators during a protest against Israel to mark the 77th anniversary of the “Nakba” or catastrophe, in Berlin, Germany, May 15, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Axel Schmidt
During the protest, one of the organizers addressed the crowd, declaring, “The nakba is a continuing campaign of ethnic cleansing that has never stopped.”
The demonstration was also marked by antisemitic rhetoric and inflammatory chants, including accusations that the Israeli government and military are “child murderers, women murderers, baby murderers,” as well as the use of the banned slogan, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” The slogan is popular among anti-Israel activists and has been widely interpreted as a call for the destruction of the Jewish state, which is located between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea.
When police intervened to stop the inflammatory rhetoric, they were met with significant violence from the crowd, who reportedly threw bottles, stones, and other objects, and sprayed officers with red paint.
After the incidents, police reported that one officer was pulled into the crowd, forced to the ground, and trampled until he lost consciousness. The 36-year-old officer sustained severe upper body injuries, including a broken arm, and remains hospitalized.
“The attack on a police officer at the demonstration in Kreuzberg is nothing but a cowardly, brutal act of violence,” Berlin Mayor Kai Wegner said in a statement. “Attacks against officers are attacks on law and order and therefore against all of us.”
“Those who misuse the right to demonstrate to spread hate, antisemitic incitement, or violence will face the full force of the law,” the German leader added.
Pro-Palestinian demonstrators during a protest against Israel to mark the 77th anniversary of the “Nakba” or catastrophe, in Berlin, Germany, May 15, 2025. Photo: Screenshot
Local authorities reported that 11 officers and an unspecified number of protesters were injured during the incidents, with the injured demonstrators receiving treatment from the Berlin fire department.
The German-Israeli Society (DIG) condemned the violence and hateful rhetoric, urging authorities to reconsider granting permission for such demonstrations.
“Often, these events are not demonstrations for the rights and the legitimate concerns of Palestinians but merely express outright hatred of Israel,” the group said in a statement.
Germany has experienced a sharp spike in antisemitism amid the war in Gaza. In just the first six months of 2024 alone, the number of antisemitic incidents in Berlin surpassed the total for all of the prior year and reached the highest annual count on record, according to Germany’s Federal Association of Departments for Research and Information on Antisemitism (RIAS).
The figures compiled by RIAS were the highest count for a single year since the federally-funded body began monitoring antisemitic incidents in 2015, showing the German capital averaged nearly eight anti-Jewish outrages a day from January to June last year.
According to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), police registered 5,154 antisemitic incidents in Germany in 2023, a 95 percent increase compared to the previous year.
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Trump Signals Support for Future Iran Trade Deal if Regime Dismantles Nuclear Program
US President Donald speaking in the Roosevelt Room at the White House in Washington, DC on March 3, 2025. Photo: Leah Millis via Reuters Connect
US President Donald Trump on Thursday seemed to signal openness to striking a trade deal with Iran if the Islamist theocracy agrees to dismantle its entire nuclear program.
“Iran wants to trade with us. Okay? If you can believe that. And I’m okay with it. I’m using trade to settle scores and to make peace,” Trump said while speaking to Fox News anchor Bret Baier. “But I’ve told Iran, ‘We make a deal, you’re gonna be really happy.”
However, Trump underscored the urgency in finalizing a nuclear deal with Iran, saying there’s “not plenty of time” to secure an agreement which would dismantle Tehran’s nuclear capabilities.
“There’s not plenty of time. You feel urgency? Well, they’re not gonna have a nuclear weapon. And eventually, they’ll have a nuclear weapon, and then the discussion becomes a much different one,” Trump said.
The US and other Western countries say Iran’s nuclear program is ultimately meant to build nuclear weapons — a claim denied by Tehran, which asserts the program is only geared for peaceful nuclear energy.
Trump on Friday said Iran had a US proposal about its nuclear program and knows it needs to move quickly to resolve the dispute.
“They have a proposal. More importantly, they know they have to move quickly or something bad — something bad’s going to happen,” Trump told reporters aboard Air Force One, according to an audio recording of the remarks.
However, Tehran denied receiving a US proposal yet. According to some reports, Oman, which has been mediating US-Iran nuclear talks in recent weeks, has the proposal and will soon give to the Iranians.
US lawmakers and some Trump administration officials have repeatedly stressed the importance of dismantling Iran’s nuclear program, arguing that Tehran could use a nuclear bomb to permanently entrench its regime and potentially launch a strike at Israel. Some experts also fear Iran could eventually use its expanding ballistic missile program to launch a nuclear warhead at the US.
However, the administration has sent conflicting messages regarding its ongoing nuclear talks with Iran, oscillating between demands for “complete dismantlement” of Tehran’s nuclear program and signaling support for allowing a limited degree of uranium enrichment for “civilian purposes.” Many Republicans and hawkish foreign policy analysts have lamented what they described as similarities between the framework of the Trump administration’s negotiations with Iran and the controversial Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), a 2015 deal negotiated by the former Obama administration which placed temporary restrictions on Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for the lifting of major international sanctions. Trump withdrew the US from the deal during his first term, arguing its terms were bad for American national security.
Trump indicated last Wednesday during a radio interview that he is seeking to “blow up” Iran’s nuclear centrifuges “nicely” through an agreement with Tehran but is also prepared to do so “viciously” in an attack if necessary. That same day, however, when asked by a reporter in the White House whether his administration would allow Iran to maintain an enrichment program as long as it doesn’t enrich uranium to weapons-grade levels, Trump said his team had not decided.
Furthermore, US Special Envoy to the Middle East Steve Witkoff drew backlash last month when, during a Fox News interview, he suggested that Iran would be allowed to pursue a nuclear program for so-called civilian purposes, saying that Iran “does not need to enrich past 3.67 percent.” The next day, Witkoff backtracked on these remarks, writing on X/Twitter that Tehran must “stop and eliminate its nuclear enrichment and weaponization program.”
Iran has claimed that its nuclear program is for civilian purposes rather than building weapons. However, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the UN’s nuclear watchdog, reported last year that Iran had greatly accelerated uranium enrichment to close to weapons grade at its Fordow site dug into a mountain.
The UK, France, and Germany said in a statement at the time that there is no “credible civilian justification” for Iran’s recent nuclear activity, arguing it “gives Iran the capability to rapidly produce sufficient fissile material for multiple nuclear weapons.”
While speaking to Qatari Emir Sheikh Tamim al-Thani on Wednesday, Trump reportedly said that he would like to avoid war with Iran, “because things like that get started and they get out of control. I’ve seen it over and over again … we’re not going to let that happen.”
Trump has threatened Iran with military action and more sanctions if the regime does not agree to a nuclear deal with Washington.
The post Trump Signals Support for Future Iran Trade Deal if Regime Dismantles Nuclear Program first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Harvard, Jewish Activist ‘Shabbos’ Kestenbaum Settle Antisemitism Lawsuit
Alexander “Shabbos” Kestenbaum makes remarks during the fourth annual Countering Antisemitism Summit at the Four Seasons, Feb. 26, 2025. Photo: USA Today Network via Reuters Connect.
Harvard University and Alexander “Shabbos” Kestenbaum have settled a lawsuit in which the former student turned widely known pro-Israel activist accused the institution of violating the US Civil Rights Act of 1964 by permitting antisemitic discrimination and harassment.
The confidential agreement ends what Kestenbaum, an Orthodox Jews, had promised would be a protracted, scorched-earth legal battle revealing alleged malfeasance at the highest levels of Harvard’s administration. So determined was Kestenbaum to discomfit the storied institution and force it to enact long overdue reforms that he declined to participate in an earlier settlement it reached last year with a group of Jewish plaintiffs, of which he was a member, who sued the university in 2024.
Charging ahead, Kestenbaum vowed never to settle and proclaimed that the discovery phase of the case would be so damning to Harvard’s defense that no judge or jury would render a verdict in its favor. Harvard turned that logic against him, requesting a trove of documents containing his communications with advocacy groups, politicians, and US President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign staff during a period of time which saw Kestenbaum’s star rise to meteoric heights as he became a national poster-child for pro-Israel activism.
Harvard argued that the materials are “relevant to his allegations that he experienced harassment and discrimination to which Harvard was deliberately indifferent in violation of Title VI.” Additionally, it sought information related to other groups which have raised awareness of the antisemitism crisis since Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023, massacre across southern Israel, demanding to know, the Harvard Crimson reported, “the ownership, funding, financial backing, management, and structure” of the Louis D. Brandeis Center for Human Rights Under Law, Students Against Antisemitism (SAA), and Jewish Americans for Fairness in Education (JAFE).
Without the materials, Harvard claimed, it would be unable to depose witnesses.
According to the Crimson, the university and Kestenbaum failed to agree on a timeframe for producing the requested documents, prompting it to file in May a motion that would have extracted them via court order. Meanwhile, two anonymous plaintiffs who also declined to be a party to 2024’s settlement came forward to join Kestenbaum’s complaint, which necessitated its being amended at the approval of the judge presiding over the case, Richard Stearns. In filing the motion to modify the suit, the Crimson reported, Kestenbaum’s attorneys asked Stearns to “extend the discovery deadline by at least six months” in the event that he “rejects the motion.”
On April 2, Stearns — who was appointed to the bench in 1993 by former US President Bill Clinton (D) and served as a political operative for and special assistant to Israel critic and former Democratic presidential nominee George McGovern — spurned the amended complaint and granted Harvard its discovery motion, which Kestenbaum’s attorneys had opposed in part by arguing that Harvard too had withheld key documents. Kestenbaum was given five days to submit the contents of correspondence.
On Wednesday, both parties lauded the settlement — which, according to the Crimson, included dismissing Kestenbaum’s case with prejudice — as a step toward eradicating antisemitism at Harvard University, an issue that has cost it billions of dollars in federal funding and undermined its reputation for being a beacon of enlightenment and the standard against which all other higher education institutions are judged.
“Harvard and Mr. Kestenbaum acknowledge each other’s steadfast and important efforts to combat antisemitism at Harvard and elsewhere,” Harvard University spokesman Jason Newton said in a statement.
In a lengthy statement of his own, Kestenbaum expressed gratitude for having helped “lead the student effort combating antisemitism” while accusing Harvard of resorting to duplicitous and intrusive tactics to fend off his allegations.
“Harvard opposed the anonymity of two of its current Jewish students who sought to vindicate their legal rights, and the Harvard Crimson outed them, even before the court could rule on their motion for anonymity. Harvard also issued a 999-page subpoena against Aish Hatorah, my Yeshiva in Israel that has been deeply critical of the university,” he said. “Remarkably, while Harvard sought personal and non-relevant documents between me and my friends, family, and others in the Jewish community, they simultaneously refused to produce virtually any relevant, internal communication that we had asked for during discovery.”
He continued, “I am comforted knowing that as we have now resoled our lawsuit, the Trump administration will carry the baton forward.”
Harvard’s legal troubles continue.
As previously reported by The Algemeiner, the university sued the Trump administration in April to request an injunction that would halt the government’s impounding of $2.26 billion of its federal grants and contracts and an additional $450 billion that was confiscated earlier this week.
In the complaint, shared by interim university president Alan Garber, Harvard says the Trump administration bypassed key procedural steps it must, by law, take before sequestering any federal funds. It also charges that the Trump administration does not aim, as it has publicly pledged, to combat campus antisemitism at Harvard but to impose “viewpoint-based conditions on Harvard’s funding.”
The administration has proposed that Harvard reform in ways that conservatives have long argued will make higher education more meritocratic and less welcoming to anti-Zionists and far-left extremists. Its “demands,” contained in a letter the administration sent to Garber — who subsequently released it to the public — called for “viewpoint diversity in hiring and admissions,” the “discontinuation of [diversity, equity, and inclusion, or DEI, initiatives],” and “reducing forms of governance bloat.” They also implore Harvard to begin “reforming programs with egregious records of antisemitism” and to recalibrate its approach to “student discipline.”
Harvard rejects the Trump administration’s coupling of campus antisemitism with longstanding grievances regarding elite higher education’s alleged “wokeness,” elitism, and overwhelming bias against conservative ideas. Republican lawmakers, for their part, have maintained that it is futile to address campus antisemitism while ignoring the context in which it emerged.
On April 28, a Massachusetts district court judge, appointed to the bench by former US President Barack Obama, granted Harvard its request for the speedy processing of its case and a summary judgement in lieu of a trial, scheduling a hearing for July 21.
The following day, Harvard released its long anticipated report on campus antisemitism and along with it an apology from Garber which acknowledged that school officials failed in key ways to address the hatred to which Jewish students were subjected following the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre
The over 300-page document provided a complete account of antisemitic incidents which transpired on Harvard’s campus in recent years — from the Harvard Palestine Solidarity Committee’s (PSC) endorsement of the Oct. 7 terrorist atrocities to an anti-Zionist faculty group’s sharing an antisemitic cartoon which depicted Jews as murderers of people of color — and said that one source of the problem is the institution’s past refusal to afford Jews the same protections against discrimination enjoyed by other minority groups. It also issued recommendations for improving Jewish life on campus going forward.
“I am sorry for the moments when we failed to meet the high expectations we rightfully set for our community. The grave, extensive impact of the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas assault on Israel and its aftermath had serious repercussions on campus,” Garber said in a statement accompanying the report. “Harvard cannot — and will not — abide bigotry. We will continue to provide for the safety and security of all members of our community and safeguard their freedom from harassment. We will redouble our efforts to ensure that the university is a place where ideas are welcomed, entertained, and contested in the spirt of seeking truth; where argument proceeds without sacrificing dignity; and where mutual respect is the norm.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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