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Gaza Terrorist Spokesperson Reveals How Media Falls for Terror Group’s Lies
People inspect the area of Al-Ahli hospital where Palestinians were killed in a blast from an errant Islamic Palestinian Jihad rocket meant for Israel, in Gaza City, Oct. 18, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Ahmed Zakot
When Pinocchio lied, his nose grew longer. His falsehoods were too obvious to be ignored.
But media outlets barely raised an eyebrow after a Big Lie was exposed last week, perhaps because it also exposed them as wooden marionettes.
On Monday, April 8, it was revealed that Gaza terror organizations have been deliberately spreading false narratives on the Israel-Hamas war, and that international media outlets have been playing an unwitting, or even willing, role in enabling this mass manipulation.
Unsurprisingly, the foreign press ignored the exposure, even though everyone received the announcement distributed by the IDF.
Israel released a video that showed the interrogation of Palestinian Islamic Jihad spokesperson, Tariq Salami Otha Abu Shlouf, who had been captured during the IDF’s recent raid on Gaza’s Shifa hospital.
During his conversation with the interrogator, which amounts to an incriminating account concerning news coverage of Gaza, Abu Shlouf reveals how the well-oiled media manipulation machine of Islamic Jihad and Hamas operates:
Top figures in the group decide on a beneficial narrative, such as focusing on the humanitarian angle rather than the military one.
The message is circulated to news outlets.
Reporters uncritically echo what the terror group says, to avoid harming ties with sources.
The chilling testimony of an Islamic Jihad spox revealed how terrorist orgs manipulated the media to blame Israel for acts it did not do in this war.
It’s a day after the IDF released the testimony & neither @AP nor @Reuters have mentioned him at all. pic.twitter.com/eKT3IXeR5b
— HonestReporting (@HonestReporting) April 9, 2024
Abu Shlouf references the Al-Ahli hospital incident as an example: he admits his group decided to falsely blame Israel for the deadly strike, in order to erase the fact it had been caused by an Islamic Jihad rocket — a fact known to local reporters.
He also tells the interrogator how the “humanitarian angle” is being pushed to pliant reporters, with specific messages fed to international news outlets:
Abu Shlouf: The international media differs from the Arab ones, they focus on humanitarian issues, we don’t speak to them in the language of violence, destruction, and revenge. They come and say “let’s talk for a minute or two, but only talk to me about the humanitarian side, meaning, for instance, you’d say “it’s our right to live,” “we want the situation to return to normal, and our children to live like other children in the world,” “we have the right to receive capabilities and institutions.” This is the humanitarian side. And the other side, some of the international media organizations automatically address events like al-Ahli, when an event happens, they turn to us.
He adds that terrorist officials even vet news stories before publication. And he describes how “interviews” are conducted with international media reporters:
Abu Shlouf: They like to do interviews with figures from the political bureau, senior figures, like Khaled al-Batsh. There were a few international media outlets that conducted interviews with him. He sits with someone, then the journalist starts asking him questions, because it’s under the table, the humanitarian situation doesn’t interest the journalist. Only three things interest him: was the fallen rocket yours? Khaled al-Batsh, of course, answers him “No, it’s from the occupation.” Of course, the journalist knows that the rocket is indeed ours and not yours.
Interrogator: Even though the journalist knows, does he still echo what is said by the organization [Islamic Jihad]?
Abu Shlouf: Yes, because they ask him to review the article before publication, telling him to send it to us before he can publish it so we can review it.
Interrogator: And if it’s not to your liking, it doesn’t get published?
Abu Shlouf: No, of course not, because he [the journalist] needs us for more interviews.
Media outlets might argue that Abu Shlouf’s account as an IDF prisoner had been given under duress. But it seems — even with the video cuts — that rather than giving short answers, he willingly provided elaborate details and names. And that also suggests it’s true.
The foreign press can also argue that what he said about al-Ahli and terrorists’ use of hospitals and ambulances isn’t new. But that’s why it may be even more incriminating, as further proof that Gaza reporters have most likely known about it all along and kept silent.
The unavoidable conclusion from Abu Shlouf’s account is this: People in his position are constantly contacted by foreign press reporters to quote data, request interviews, and get reactions. So the editorial line on Gaza news is not being decided by the local reporter or his/her editors in Jerusalem or London. It first passes through the terrorists’ filter.
Is this not worth reporting? Don’t news consumers deserve to know the truth?
These questions are important because media outlets have published many stories focused on their Gaza reporters throughout the war — from their personal safety concerns to their electricity challenges. But when it now comes to focusing on the actual work they do, the media silence is deafening.
This is also defining the foreign press’ inability to carry out any self-reflection. If they care so much about the truth they purport to pursue, these media outlets ought to be the first to acknowledge that a huge shadow of doubt has just been cast on the professionalism of every reporter in the Hamas-run Strip. And it also hovers over their vetting procedures of new hires in Gaza.
HonestReporting has questioned the journalistic ethics of Gazan reporters since the beginning of the war. We exposed how some of them infiltrated into Israel with Hamas on October 7, as hundreds of Israelis were slaughtered.
Now, when it’s become even clearer that everything we see and read from Gaza is being manipulated by terrorist propagandists, it’s time for a media reckoning.
Pinocchio managed to transform into a responsible human being.
Why can’t journalists covering Gaza see who is pulling their strings, and do the same?
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.
The post Gaza Terrorist Spokesperson Reveals How Media Falls for Terror Group’s Lies first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Israel Destroyed Top Secret Iranian Nuclear Weapons Site
FILE PHOTO: The atomic symbol and the Iranian flag are seen in this illustration, July 21, 2022. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration/File Photo
JNS.org – The Israeli airstrikes on Iran last month destroyed a secret nuclear weapons research facility in Parchin, 19 miles southeast of Tehran, Axios reported on Friday.
The clandestine site held sophisticated equipment used for testing explosives needed to detonate nuclear devices, the report read, citing three US officials, one current Israeli official and one former Israeli official.
The Washington-based Institute for Science and International Security acquired high-resolution satellite imagery of the facility, which showed that it was completely destroyed in Israel’s Oct. 26 attack.
Israeli and US intelligence agencies began noticing activity in the Taleghan 2 facility in the Parchin military complex in early 2024, which had been largely inactive since 2003, when the Islamic Republic froze its military nuclear program, according to Axios.
One unnamed US official quoted in the report said: “[The Iranians] conducted scientific activity that could lay the ground for the production of a nuclear weapon. It was a top secret thing. A small part of the Iranian government knew about this, but most of the Iranian government didn’t.”
Although President Joe Biden asked Jerusalem not to target Tehran’s nuclear facilities, the site in Parchin was chosen as a target because it was not part of Iran’s declared nuclear program.
This placed the mullah regime in a position where admitting a hit to the site would expose its efforts to resume activity forbidden by the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.
Moreover, “The strike was a not so subtle message that the Israelis have significant insight into the Iranian system even when it comes to things that were kept top secret and known to a very small group of people in the Iranian government,” the report cited a US official as saying.
Last week, Rafael Grossi, the director of the United Nations’ International Atomic Energy Agency, visited Iran for the first time since May.
He is expected to meet with his agency’s board of governors in Vienna this week for a vote on a resolution to censure Tehran for its lack of cooperation with the U.N. nuclear watchdog.
Speaking about the tensions between Israel and Iran, Grossi said during a news conference in Tehran on Thursday that the Islamic Republic’s “nuclear installations should not be attacked.”
Earlier in the week, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz suggested that Iran’s nuclear facilities may be targeted.
Iran is “more exposed than ever to strikes on its nuclear facilities. We have the opportunity to achieve our most important goal—to thwart and eliminate the existential threat to the State of Israel,” Katz said.
Israel’s two assaults against Iran’s air defense system this year have left the country vulnerable to future attacks, with all four of Tehran’s Russian-made S-300 surface-to-air missile batteries destroyed, according to U.S. media.
On April 19, Israel took out one of the S-300 systems in response to Tehran’s first-ever direct attack against the Jewish state. On Oct. 26, in response to a second Iranian attack, Israel targeted 20 sites in Iran, destroying the remaining three.
“The majority of Iran’s air defense was taken out,” a senior Israeli official told Fox News.
The post Israel Destroyed Top Secret Iranian Nuclear Weapons Site first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Yemen’s Houthis Say They Attacked ‘Vital Target’ in Israel’s Eilat
Houthi-mobilized fighters ride atop a car in Sanaa, Yemen, Sept. 21, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Khaled Abdullah
Yemen’s Houthi forces attacked “a vital target” in Israel’s Red Sea port city of Eilat with a number of drones, the Iran-aligned group’s military spokesperson Yahya Saree said on Saturday.
The terrorist group has launched dozens of attacks on international shipping in the Red Sea region since November in solidarity with Hamas.
“These operations will not stop until the aggression stops, the siege on the Gaza Strip is lifted, and the aggression on Lebanon stops,” Saree added in a televised speech.
The Houthi attacks have upended global trade by forcing ship owners to reroute vessels away from the vital Suez Canal shortcut, and drawn retaliatory U.S. and British strikes since February.
The post Yemen’s Houthis Say They Attacked ‘Vital Target’ in Israel’s Eilat first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Muslims from ‘Abandon Harris’ Campaign Gutted by Pro-Israel Cabinet Picks
US Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, US, Sept. 10, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
JNS.org – Muslim leaders in the United Stated who called for supporting President-elect Donald Trump at the expense of Democrat runner Kamala Harris are deeply disappointed with the former president’s Cabinet nominees, Reuters reported on Thursday.
“It’s like he’s going on Zionist overdrive,” Abandon Harris campaign co-founder Hassan Abdel Salam, a former professor at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities, said about Trump’s recently announced picks.
“We were always extremely skeptical. … Obviously we’re still waiting to see where the administration will go, but it does look like our community has been played,” Abdel Salam told Reuters.
Rabiul Chowdhury, a Philadelphia investor who chaired the Abandon Harris campaign in Pennsylvania and co-founded Muslims for Trump, was cited as saying: “Trump won because of us and we’re not happy with his secretary of state pick and others.”
Some political strategists believe that the Muslim vote for Trump, or the renunciation of Harris, helped tilt several swing states such as Michigan in the favor of the Republican candidate.
“It seems like this administration has been packed entirely with neoconservatives and extremely pro-Israel, pro-war people, which is a failure on the side of President Trump, to the pro-peace and anti-war movement,” said Rexhinaldo Nazarko, executive director of the American Muslim Engagement and Empowerment Network.
On Wednesday, Trump named Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) as his choice to be secretary of state.
Rubio is known for his staunch pro-Israel stance, including calling on Jerusalem earlier this year to destroy “every element” of Hamas and dubbing the Gaza-based terrorist organization as “vicious animals.”
Rubio joins a slew of pro-Israel officials Trump has tapped since he won the U.S. election, including former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee as ambassador to Israel and Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) as his U.N. ambassador with a seat in the Cabinet.
Blaise Misztal, vice president for policy at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America (JINSA), told JNS that Trump’s focus so early in the transition process on Israel-related foreign policy picks is a mark of how his second administration will approach the region.
“That, in and of itself, signals that President Trump and his administration are going to take the region, the Middle East, the threats confronting Israel, seriously and take the U.S. friendship with Israel seriously,” Misztal said.
“The people that we’ve seen are known to be tremendously strong friends of Israel, first and foremost, but also very clear-eyed about the threats that the United States and Israel face together in the region.”
Before the election on Nov. 5, Trump promised Arab and Muslim voters he would restore stability in Lebanon and the Middle East, while criticizing the current administration’s regional policies during campaign stops targeting Muslim communities in Michigan.
Trump recently addressed Lebanese Americans, stating, “Your friends and family in Lebanon deserve to live in peace, prosperity and harmony with their neighbors, and this can only happen when there is peace and stability in the Middle East.”
Israel has been at war for more than a year on its southern and northern borders, ever since Hamas led a surprise attack on communities near the Gaza Strip border on Oct. 7, 2023, murdering some 1,200 people and abducting 251 more into the Palestinian enclave. A day later, Hezbollah joined Hamas’s efforts by firing rockets into Israel’s north.
The post Muslims from ‘Abandon Harris’ Campaign Gutted by Pro-Israel Cabinet Picks first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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