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The Media’s Reaction to Al Jazeera’s Oct. 7 Documentary Is Revealing
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
Al Jazeera’s latest feature-length documentary, titled October 7, holds few surprises.
Those familiar with the Qatari-owned media organization will know that it has become among the biggest sources of disinformation since the start of the war, with Al Jazeera just days ago fabricating a story that accused IDF soldiers of raping Palestinian women.
According to Al Jazeera, its so-called “Investigative Unit” carried out a forensic analysis of the day of the Hamas massacre — including “examining seven hours of footage from CCTV, dashcams, personal phones and headcams of dead Hamas fighters” — and concluded that “many of the worst stories that came out in the days following the attack were false.”
“This was especially true of atrocities that were used repeatedly by politicians in Israel and the West to justify the ferocity of the bombardment of the Gaza Strip, such as the mass killing of babies and allegations of widespread and systematic rape,” adds a description of the film on YouTube.
It would be a time-consuming task to refute the package of lies that comprise the full hour-long documentary — from the malicious claim that Israel killed numerous Israeli civilians and hostages on October 7, to Al Jazeera disputing whether Hamas terrorists raped Israeli victims.
HonestReporting has previously criticized Western media organizations for using Al Jazeera’s material, pointing out that a number of its journalists have been unmasked as Hamas terrorists.
And given the lack of attention the October 7 documentary received in the international press, many organizations appear to be heeding these warnings about Al Jazeera’s credibility.
Far from creating the stir that Al Jazeera likely imagined, media outlets have steered clear of making any reference to the film.
Indeed, the biggest indicator of Al Jazeera’s plummeting credibility can be found in who did comment on the documentary, including well-known conspiracists, antisemites, and anti-Israel activists.
For example, Guardian columnist Owen Jones, who in December released a 25-minute camera monologue in which he questioned the extent of Hamas’ war crimes, ludicrously described Al Jazeera’s propaganda as “undoubtedly the most accurate account of what happened that day…”
A new Al Jazeera documentary on 7th October is the most definitive account of what happened that terrible day.
That is:
– Hamas and other armed groups committed grave war crimes and killed hundreds of innocent civilians.
– Some of the most extreme claims about atrocities that… pic.twitter.com/tJoBy5zzaw
— Owen Jones (@OwenJones84) March 23, 2024
Naturally, Jones fails to say why it is “undoubtedly” the most accurate account of October 7; he cannot say why Al Jazeera’s hit piece should be believed over the countless testimonies of survivors who witnessed the atrocities first-hand.
Jones has been described by his former Guardian colleague Hadley Freeman as a “propagandist,” who raised a “cynical eyebrow at dead naked Israeli women, all the while parroting unquestioningly claims from Hamas.”
Meanwhile, former MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan shared a post on X (formerly Twitter) written by ex-Daily Mail journalist Peter Oborne that claims the “scrupulous documentary” exposes the “failure of the British media to examine the Israeli narrative.”
Oborne, whose antisemitism has placed him on HonestReporting’s radar for many years, linked to his op-ed in The Middle East Eye in which he suggested Hamas was unfairly painted as “subhuman barbarians.”
Other so-called journalists to endorse Al Jazeera’s foul attempt at whitewashing the events of October 7 include Asa Winstanley, a writer for the notorious anti-Israel hate site Electronic Intifada, whose membership of the UK’s Labour Party was suspended over his antisemitism; Jeremy Scahill, the current editor of alternative news outlet The Intercept; and Michael Walker, a host for Novara Media, a leftwing news site that has repeatedly defended Palestinian terrorism.
A trend can be observed when looking at the individuals who endorsed Al Jazeera’s documentary: each of them has a history of espousing anti-Israel rhetoric and/or demonizing Jews.
The fact that not a single mainstream media outlet has covered the release of Al Jazeera’s film speaks volumes. No organization wanted to be seen promoting what is clearly an attempt to distort the horrors of October 7 and deny the magnitude of Hamas’ crimes.
There’s an old saying that you can judge a man by the company he keeps. It is not surprising, then, that any respectable journalist would want to avoid being associated with the aforementioned individuals.
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 The Media’s Reaction to Al Jazeera’s Oct. 7 Documentary Is Revealing 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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