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It’s Not ‘Israel’s War in Gaza’ — It’s the Israel-Hamas War; But the Media Is Trying to Harm Israel
A youth march calling for the return of the kidnapped in Gaza. Organized by the youth of Kfar Aza. December 27, 2023.
What should we call the current conflict between Israel and Hamas?
In a war between two nations, a hyphenated noun phrase, like the “Spanish-American War” and the “Iran-Iraq War,” is the way to go.
Even though the terrorist organization that runs the Gaza Strip is not a nation state, logic dictates that we should call the conflict now approaching the one-year mark either the “Hamas-Israel War” or the “Israel-Hamas War.”
But the world’s media has taken sides, so instead of logical, objective language, journalists and editors have concocted a way to indemnify Hamas and blame Israel for the conflict by calling it “Israel’s war in Gaza.” It is a disingenuous phrase, and it is ubiquitous.
The most virulent of Israel-hating media outlets take it a step further with the term “Israel’s war on Gaza” (The Middle East Eye, The Electronic Intifada, and Al-Jazeera), but “Israel’s war in Gaza” is the term of choice among the establishment left-wing media.
CNN, naturally, is always ready with “The latest on Israel’s war in Gaza,” or a warning about how “Israel’s war in Gaza has exposed a deepening global divide.”
The Associated Press in January published its “Key takeaways from the U.N. court’s ruling on Israel’s war in Gaza.”
The New York Times might avoid the term in its headlines, but from its mainstay writers like Thomas Friedman to its daily briefings, it is very comfortable with the phrase.
April was a busy month for the phrase as, ABC explained how “Israel’s war in Gaza became a political flashpoint,” PBS declared that “Israel’s War in Gaza becomes a major U.S. election issue,” and NPR showed “How 6 months of Israel’s War in Gaza have upended the Middle East.”
Also in April, no less than seven scribes at USA Today co-authored a story titled “30,000-plus lives lost: Visualizing the death and destruction of Israel’s war in Gaza,” while Axios announced that the “Tide turned sharply against Israel’s war in Gaza.”
In May, Reuters wrote about a “Nurse in New York fired after calling Israel’s war in Gaza ‘genocide’” and NBC tweeted a dire warning that, “Students protesting Israel’s war in Gaza have faced disciplinary action including suspension or expulsion. They may also face financial setbacks, experts say.”
In June, Vox looked to the future with “the next phase of Israel’s war in Gaza, explained.”
In August, a Washington Post headline screamed: “More than 40,000 killed in Israel’s War in Gaza, Health Ministry Says,” noting in the article that “the 40,000 figure is probably an undercount.”
Currently, The Washington Post seems to be in league with The Electronic Intifada, as it has begun labeling its war coverage the “Israel-Gaza War,” as though Israel is at war with the entire Gaza Strip rather than Hamas, ignoring the facts that Israel has established safe-travel zones, provided relief, and even sent texts to Gazans telling them that to avoid areas where attacks against a Hamas command centers will occur.
British outlets also prefer the term “Israel’s war in Gaza.”
The BBC began an article in December with the sentence, “Israel’s war in Gaza may take ‘more than several months,’” and The Guardian frantically warned in January that “Emissions from Israel’s war in Gaza have ‘immense’ effect on climate catastrophe.”
Politico gave Elizabeth Warren a platform to bloviate with the headline, “Elizabeth Warren says she believes Israel’s war in Gaza will legally be considered a genocide.”
Popular specialist outlets prefer the term too.
At Foreign Affairs, Mohammad Shtayyeh pontificates on “The Best Way to End Israel’s War in Gaza,” while the Atlantic Council ominously warns that “For Israel’s war in Gaza, vengeance is a downward spiral.”
Ten days after the Hamas attack, The Economist published a war news briefing titled “Mapping Israel’s War in Gaza.” In November 2023, it treated its readers to a piece ominously titled “The pace of Israel’s war in Gaza far exceeds previous conflicts.”
Israel’s most popular left-leaning outlet, Haaretz, ran an article in March with the title “Even Jews Who Oppose Israel’s War in Gaza Can’t Escape It.”
Niche outlets also get in on the action.
The scientists at Scientific American worry that “Israel’s War in Gaza Is Creating Enormous Hidden Health Problems.”
In February, The New Statesman pondered “The fractured reality of Israel’s war in Gaza.”
The Coalition for Women in Journalism ran a piece in August titled, “I have been forcibly displaced 12 times by Israel’s war in Gaza.”
On the far left, Slate wonders, “Is Israel’s War in Gaza Strengthening Hamas?” while the loonies at Mother Jones worry about “The Staggering Carbon Footprint of Israel’s War in Gaza.”
If the phrasing of “Israel’s war in Gaza” is familiar, it should be.
The nearly identical term has seeped into the media culture since February 2022 when “Russia’s war in Ukraine” became the term universally used to describe what might otherwise be called the “Russia-Ukraine War.”
Virtually every outlet that uses the term “Israel’s war in Gaza” also uses the term “Russia’s war in Ukraine,” including Reuters, the Associated Press, The Washington Post, New York Times, USA Today, CNN, NBC, MSNBC, ABC, PBS,NPR, Vox, Axios, and Politico.
The British media too (the BBC, and The Guardian) call it “Russia’s war in Ukraine.”
The term is also favored by the popular specialist outlets, including Foreign Affairs, Atlantic Council, and The Economist.
And niche outlets also use the term, including Scientific American, Nature, Slate, Mother Jones, The New Statesman, and the Coalition for Women in Journalism.
The parallels here are unavoidable and wrong. The term “Russia’s war in Ukraine” fits because Russia invaded Ukraine. It was the belligerent party that launched a war of aggression, largely against civilians.
The term “Israel’s war in Gaza,” however, does not fit because it implies that Israel rather than Hamas is the belligerent party, when in fact Hamas broke a ceasefire with Israel on October 7, 2023.
Hamas was the belligerent party that launched a war of aggression, largely against civilians.
For most of the media, the phrasing is meant to be a subtle, almost subliminal way to blame Israel for the war.
Objectively, the media should use the term Robert Satloff uses at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy uses: the “Hamas-Israel War.”
Better yet, “Israel’s effort to destroy the terrorist organization Hamas.”
Better still, though a bit wordy, “Israel’s attempt to free Israeli and American hostages from the terrorist organization Hamas.”
Israel is winning on the physical battlefield where terrorist cowards lurk in subterranean Gaza abusing their captives, but it is losing on the verbal battlefield where keyboard cowards lurk in newsrooms and dingy cubicles, abusing their readers with Newspeak blather and agitprop bias.
Chief Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT) Political Correspondent A.J. Caschetta is a principal lecturer at the Rochester Institute of Technology and a fellow at Campus Watch, a project of the Middle East Forum where he is also a Milstein fellow. A version of this article was originally published by IPT.
The post It’s Not ‘Israel’s War in Gaza’ — It’s the Israel-Hamas War; But the Media Is Trying to Harm Israel first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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As Gaza War Continues, Hamas Calls for Global Protests While Israel Marks Breakthroughs in Medical Innovation
A pro-Hamas march in London, United Kingdom, Feb. 17, 2024. Photo: Chrissa Giannakoudi via Reuters Connect
As the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas calls for global protests amid stalled Gaza ceasefire talks, Israel has broken new ground despite the ongoing conflict, achieving a major medical breakthrough in synthetic human kidney development.
The contrast illustrates a stark contrast between the priorities of Hamas, an international designated terrorist group that has ruled Gaza for nearly two decades, and Israel, the lone democracy in the Middle East that has long been a leader in tech and medical innovation.
On Wednesday, Hamas urged worldwide protests in support of Palestinians, calling on the international community “to denounce Israel’s genocidal war and starvation policy in Gaza.”
“We call for continuing and escalating the popular pressure in all cities and squares on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday … through rallies, demonstrations and sit-ins outside the embassies of the Israeli regime and its allies, particularly in the US,” the statement read.
The Palestinian terrorist group also called to expose what it described as “the terrorism of the Zio-Nazi occupation against defenseless civilians.”
Hamas’s latest move against Israel comes amid stalled indirect negotiations over a proposed 60-day ceasefire and hostage release deal, which collapsed last month after the group vowed it would not disarm unless an independent Palestinian state is established — rejecting a key Israeli demand to end the war in Gaza.
In its statement, Hamas demanded the opening of all border crossings to allow immediate aid into the war-torn enclave and urged a global condemnation of “the international community’s inaction on the Israeli crimes.”
Amid mounting international pressure to address the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, Israel announced new measures to facilitate the delivery of aid, including temporary pauses in fighting in certain areas and the creation of protected routes for aid convoys.
Israeli officials have previously accused Hamas of diverting aid for terrorist activities and selling supplies at inflated prices to civilians, while also blaming the United Nations and other foreign organizations for enabling this diversion.
Hamas’s statement also emphasized that the “global resistance movement must continue until Israeli aggression on Gaza ends and the siege on the coastal strip is lifted.”
Meanwhile, as Israel faces escalating hostilities and the heavy toll of war, the Jewish state continues to push the boundaries of innovation and resilience, achieving new medical breakthroughs while confronting ongoing challenges.
In a major medical breakthrough, scientists at Sheba Medical Center and Tel Aviv University have successfully grown a synthetic 3D miniature human kidney in a lab using specialized stem cells derived from kidney tissue — one of the most promising advances in regenerative medicine.
Dr. Dror Harats, chairman of Sheba’s Research Authority, described this achievement as a reflection of Israel’s leading role in global medical innovation.
“Despite growing efforts to isolate Israel from international science, breakthroughs like this prove our impact is both lasting and essential,” he said.
In a landmark study, a team from Sheba’s Safra Children’s Hospital and Tel Aviv University’s Sagol Center for Regenerative Medicine created synthetic kidney organs that matured and remained stable for 34 weeks — the longest-lasting and most refined kidney organoids developed to date.
Nearly a decade ago, the research team became the first to successfully isolate human kidney tissue stem cells — the cells responsible for the organ’s development and growth.
Previous attempts to grow kidneys in a lab using general-purpose stem cells were short-lived, typically lasting only a few weeks and often producing unwanted cell types that compromised research accuracy.
However, this Israeli research team used stem cells taken directly from kidney tissue — cells that naturally develop into kidney parts — allowing them to create a much purer and more stable model with key features found in real kidneys.
This medical breakthrough could have far-reaching implications, redefining the current understanding of kidney diseases and advancing the development of innovative treatments.
Researchers believe the model could help assess how medications impact fetal kidneys during pregnancy and move science closer to repairing or replacing damaged kidney tissue with lab-grown cells.
The discovery came days after researchers from Hebrew University of Jerusalem and international partners discovered a way to boost the immune system’s cancer-fighting ability by reprogramming how T cells, which are white blood cells critical to the immune system, produce energy.
The researchers explained in a study published in the peer-reviewed Nature Communications that disabling a protein known as Ant2 in T cells greatly enhances their effectiveness against tumors.
“By disabling Ant2, we triggered a complete shift in how T cells produce and use energy,” Prof. Michael Berger of Hebrew University’s Faculty of Medicine, who co-led the study with doctorate student Omri Yosef, told the Tazpit Press Service. “This reprogramming made them significantly better at recognizing and killing cancer cells.”
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Netherlands to Push EU to Suspend Israel Trade Deal but Won’t Recognize Palestinian State ‘At This Time’
Netherlands Foreign Affairs Minister Caspar Veldkamp addresses a press conference, in New Delhi on April 1, 2025. Photo: ANI Photo/Sanjay Sharma via Reuters Connect
The Netherlands is spearheading efforts to suspend the European Union-Israel trade agreement amid rising EU criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza, while simultaneously refusing to recognize a Palestinian state, contrasting with other member states as international pressure mounts.
On Thursday, Dutch Foreign Minister Caspar Veldkamp announced that the Netherlands will push the EU to suspend the trade component of the EU-Israel Association Agreement — a pact governing the EU’s political and economic ties with the Jewish state.
This latest anti-Israel initiative follows a recent EU-commissioned report accusing Israel of committing “indiscriminate attacks … starvation … torture … [and] apartheid” against Palestinians in Gaza during its military campaign against Hamas, an internationally designated terrorist group.
Following calls from a majority of EU member states for a formal investigation, this report built on Belgium’s recent decision to review Israel’s compliance with the trade agreement, a process initiated by the Netherlands and led by EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Kaja Kallas.
According to the report, “there are indications that Israel would be in breach of its human rights obligations” under the 25-year-old EU-Israel Association Agreement.
While the document acknowledges the reality of violence by Hamas, it states that this issue lies outside its scope — failing to address the Palestinian terrorist group’s role in sparking the current war with its bloody rampage across southern Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.
Israeli officials have slammed the report as factually incorrect and morally flawed, noting that Hamas embeds its military infrastructure within civilian targets and Israel’s army takes extensive precautions to try and avoid civilian casualties.
In a Dutch parliamentary debate on Gaza on Thursday, Veldkamp also announced that the government would not recognize a Palestinian state for now — a position that stands in sharp contrast to the recent moves by several other EU member states to extend recognition.
“The Netherlands is not planning to recognize a Palestinian state at this time,” the Dutch diplomat said.
“This war has ceased to be a just war and is now leading to the erosion of Israel’s own security and identity,” he continued.
This latest decision goes against the position of several EU member states, including France, which has committed to recognizing Palestinian statehood in September.
The United Kingdom has likewise indicated it will do so unless Israel acts to ease the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and agrees to a ceasefire.
For its part, Germany said it was not planning to recognize a Palestinian state in the short term, and Italy argued that recognition must occur simultaneously with the recognition of Israel by the new entity.
Spain, Norway, Ireland, and Slovenia all recognized a Palestinian state last year.
Israel has been facing growing pressure from several EU member states seeking to undermine its defensive campaign against the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas in Gaza.
On Thursday, European Commission Vice President Teresa Ribera strongly condemned Israel’s actions in the war-torn enclave, describing the situation as a “grave violation of human dignity.”
“What we are seeing is a concrete population being targeted, killed and condemned to starve to death,” Ribera told Politico. “If it is not genocide, it looks very much like the definition used to express its meaning.”
Until now, the European Commission has refrained from accusing Israel of genocide, but Ribera’s comments mark one of the strongest European condemnations since the outbreak of the war in Gaza.
She also called on the EU to take decisive action by considering the suspension of its trade agreement with Israel and the implementation of sanctions, while emphasizing that such measures would require unanimous approval from all member states.
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Graduate Student Unions Promoting Antisemitism, Reform Group Says
Students listen to a speech at a protest encampment at Stanford University in Stanford, California US, on April 26, 2024. Photo: Carlos Barria via Reuters Connect.
Higher-education-based unions controlled by United Electrical, Radio, and Machine Workers of America (UE) are rife with antisemitism and anti-Zionist discrimination, according to a new letter imploring the US Congress’s House Committee on Education and the Workforce to address the matter.
“Tracing its roots to communism in the 1930s, the UE is a radical, pro-Hamas labor union that has a long history of antisemitism,” the National Right to Work Foundation (NRTW), one of the US’s leading labor reform groups, wrote on July 30 in a message obtained by The Algemeiner. “The UE openly supports the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement, which is designed to cripple and destroy Israel economically. Today, the UE furthers its antisemitic agenda by unionizing graduate students on college campuses and using its exclusive representation powers to create a hostile environment for Jewish students. The hostile environment includes demanding compulsory dues to fund the UE’s abhorrent activities.”
NRTW went on to describe a litany of alleged injustices to which UE members subject Jewish student-employees in the US’s most prestigious institutions of higher education, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to Cornell University. At MIT, the letter said, “union officers” aided a riotous group which illegally occupied a section of campus with a “Gaza Solidarity Encampment,” participating in the demonstration and even denying access to campus buildings. UE members at Stanford University, meanwhile, allegedly denied religious accommodations to Jewish students who requested exemption from union dues over that branch’s supporting the BDS movement. And Cornell University UE was accused of denying religious exemptions in several cases as well and followed up the rejection with an intrusive “questionnaire” which probed Jewish students for “legally-irrelevant information.”
The situation requires federal oversight and intervention, NRTW said, including Congress’s possibly clarifying that student-employees are not traditional employees and are therefore afforded protections under sections of the Civil Rights Act which apply to the campus.
“These continuing patterns of antisemitism are illegal, immoral, and must be stopped,” the letter continued. “We encourage you to do all that is in your power to investigate and help bring an end to the UE and its affiliates’ nonstop harassment and intimidation of Jewish students … The Trump administration can also use tools available to it under Title VI and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act against colleges who work with unions to create a hostile environment for Jewish students.”
July’s letter is not the first time NRTW has publicized alleged antisemitic abuse in unions representing higher education employees.
In 2024, it represented a group of six City University of New York (CUNY) professors, five of whom are Jewish, who sued to be “freed” from CUNY’s Professional Staff Congress (PSC-CUNY) over its passing a resolution during Israel’s May 2021 war with Hamas which declared solidarity with Palestinians and accused the Jewish state of ethnic cleansing, apartheid, and crimes against humanity. The group contested New York State’s “Taylor Law,” which it said chained the professors to the union’s “bargaining unit” and denied their right to freedom of speech and association by forcing them to be represented in negotiations by an organization they claim holds antisemitic views.
That same year, NRTW prevailed in a discrimination suit filed to exempt another cohort of Jewish MIT students from paying dues to the Graduate Student Union (GSU). The students had attempted to resist financially supporting GSU’s anti-Zionism, but the union bosses attempted to coerce their compliance, telling them that “no principles, teachings, or tenets of Judaism prohibit membership in or the payment of dues or fees” to the union.
“All Americans should have a right to protect their money from going to union bosses they don’t support, whether those objections are based on religion, politics, or any other reason,” NRTW said at the time.
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.