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When Journalists Spread Social Media Disinformation to Attack Israel
Beit Hanoun, Gaza Strip, March 5, 2025. REUTERS/Mahmoud Al-Basos
News consumers were told about inflammatory leaflets that Israel dropped on Gaza last Wednesday night.
According to reports by ABC and the The Telegraph, the leaflets stated that “The world map will not change if all the people of Gaza vanish.” An online post by a Washington Post columnist charged that the flyer constitutes “genocidal intent.”
Their evidence? Social media said so.
It might not be a surprise, then, that the two news outlets later walk backed their claims, while the Post columnist, Shadi Hamid, quietly deleted his post on X.com.
The ABC article now opens with an editors’ note: “An earlier version of this article said that the IDF had dropped leaflets with disturbing messaging. ABC News has not been able to confirm the authenticity of these leaflets. The IDF denies dropping these leaflets.”
CORRECTION: Earlier report of leaflets with disturbing message in Gaza cannot be confirmed; the IDF has denied dropping them.https://t.co/w6noxC1Amn
— ABC News (@ABC) March 20, 2025
The Telegraph, too, deleted its claim. Its piece now states, “It was reported earlier that Israel had dropped leaflets on Gaza,” and that “The IDF has denied this.”
Not only did Israeli officials deny the authenticity of the leaflet, but the photo shared by so many social media users, of a leaflet purportedly dropped over the last week in Gaza, was the exact same photo posted a month ago. And already then, Israel had denied responsibility for the leaflet.
The media retractions didn’t come in time to stop the spread. Haaretz, for example, extensively quoted from ABC’s own extensive quotes of the flyer. (It later added a paragraph reporting on the ABC editor’s note, but it didn’t change its text and didn’t acknowledge that ABC had actually withdrawn its claim.)
Meanwhile, the claim was echoed in the British Parliament. During a March 20 debate at the House of Commons, Conservative Party politician Kit Malthouse told his peers: “Of course it’s been reported that leaflets were dropped across Gaza last night threatening extermination.” And yet another echo, as the media then reported on Malthouse’s charges.
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Israel did drop a different leaflet over Gaza –the standard variety calling on Palestinians in a combat zones to evacuate for their own safety. Ironically, even as Israel was attacked as dropping a leaflet it didn’t drop, Al Jazeera accused the country of failing to drop the leaflets that it did, in fact, drop.
Echoes of Amsterdam
This is hardly the first time the media rushed to accept and amplify anti-Israel disinformation from social media.
As Jews and Israelis were being attacked in Amsterdam last November, an anonymous X.com user posted video purportedly showing “an Amsterdam taxi driver attacked and abused” by Israelis.
His allegation was echoed not only by a collection of anti-Israel social media users (including a Guardian columnist) — but also by the Dutch media network RTL News. From RTL, it spread to USA Today, Reuters, Yahoo News, the Jewish Chronicle, and others.
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The viral clip was scrubbed of its audio. As it had to be — in the unedited footage, the attackers are heard shouting “Palestine!” while the victims, after picking themselves up from the ground, speak to each other in Hebrew. In other words, this wasn’t an attack by Israelis on taxi drivers but the opposite: An assault against Israelis by taxi drivers.
Instead of filtering out social media’s disinformation about anti-Jewish violence, journalists worked to spread it. (To be fair, it was also journalists who exposed RTL’s falsehood.)
Other bad actors on social media posted a mistranslated clip that they falsely claimed showed Israelis in Amsterdam singing gleefully about child casualties in Gaza. As with the mischaracterized clip of the assault, the purpose was to justify the Amsterdam “Jew hunt.” And here, too, news outlets that have elsewhere warned about social media disinformation acted to uncritically spread it. The New York Times, the Guardian, and others told their readers about the non-existent video. Only after CAMERA challenged them to produce evidence did they admit they had seen no such footage.
Social media will inevitably be used as an accelerant for misinformation. Responsible journalism would help stop the spread — if only that were inevitable.
Gilead Ini is a Senior Research Analyst at CAMERA, the foremost media watchdog organization focused on coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
The post When Journalists Spread Social Media Disinformation to Attack Israel first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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‘With or Without Russia’s Help’: Iran Pledges to Block South Caucasus Route Opened Up By Peace Deal
U.S. President Donald Trump speaks during a cabinet meeting at the White House in Washington, D.C., U.S., July 8, 2025. Photo: Kevin Lamarque via Reuters Connect.
i24 News – Iran will block the establishment of a US-backed transit corridor in the South Caucasus region with or without Moscow’s help, a senior adviser to Iran’s supreme leader was quoted as saying on Saturday by the Iran International website, one day after the historic peace agreement between Azerbaijan and Armenia.
“Mr. Trump thinks the Caucasus is a piece of real estate he can lease for 99 years,” Ali Akbar Velayati said of the so-called Zangezur corridor, the establishment of which is stipulated in the peace deal unveiled on Friday by US President Donald Trump. The White House said the transit route would facilitate greater exports of energy and other resources.
“This passage will not become a gateway for Trump’s mercenaries — it will become their graveyard,” the Khamenei advisor added.
Baku and Yerevan have been at loggerheads since the late 1980s when Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous Azerbaijani region mostly populated by ethnic Armenians, broke away from Azerbaijan with support from Armenia. Azerbaijan took back full control of the region in 2023, prompting or forcing almost all of the territory’s 100,000 ethnic Armenians to flee to Armenia.
Yet that painful history was put to the side on Friday at the White House, as Trump oversaw a signing ceremony, flanked by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.
The peace deal with Azerbaijan—a pro-Western ally of Israel—is expected to pull Armenia out of the Russian and Iranian sphere of influence and could transform the South Caucasus, an energy-producing region neighboring Russia, Europe, Turkey and Iran.
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UK Police Arrest 150 at Protest for Banned Palestine Action Group
People holding signs sit during a rally organised by Defend Our Juries, challenging the British government’s proscription of “Palestine Action” under anti-terrorism laws, in Parliament Square, in London, Britain, August 9, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Jaimi Joy
London’s Metropolitan Police said on Saturday it had arrested 150 people at a protest against Britain’s decision to ban the group Palestine Action, adding it was making further arrests.
Officers made arrests after crowds, waving placards expressing support for the group, gathered in Parliament Square, the force said on X.
Protesters, some wearing black and white Palestinian scarves, chanted “shame on you” and “hands off Gaza,” and held signs such as “I oppose genocide. I support Palestine Action,” video taken by Reuters at the scene showed.
In July, British lawmakers banned Palestine Action under anti-terrorism legislation after some of its members broke into a Royal Air Force base and damaged planes in protest against Britain’s support for Israel.
The ban makes it a crime to be a member of the group, carrying a maximum sentence of 14 years in prison.
The co-founder of Palestine Action, Huda Ammori, last week won a bid to bring a legal challenge against the ban.
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‘No Leniency’: Iran Announces Arrest of 20 ‘Zionist Agents’
Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi addresses a special session of the Human Rights Council at the United Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, June 20, 2025. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
i24 News – Iranian authorities have in recent months arrested 20 people charged with being “Israeli Mossad operatives,” the judiciary said, adding that the Islamic regime will mete out the harshest punishments.
“The judiciary will show no leniency toward spies and agents of the Zionist regime, and with firm rulings, will make an example of them all,” spokesperson Asghar Jahangiri told Iranian media. However, it is understood that an unspecified number of detainees were released, apparently after the charges against them could not be substantiated.
The Islamic Republic was left reeling by a devastating 12-day war with Israel earlier in the summer that left a significant proportion of its military arsenal in ruins and dealt a serious setback to its uranium enrichment program. The fallout included an uptick in executions of Iranians convicted of spying for Israel, with at least eight death sentences carried out in recent months. Hit with international sanctions, the country is in dire economic straights, with frequent energy outages and skyrocketing unemployment.
In recent weeks Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi affirmed that Tehran cannot give up on its nuclear enrichment program even as it was severely damaged during the war.
“It is stopped because, yes, damages are serious and severe. But obviously we cannot give up of enrichment because it is an achievement of our own scientists. And now, more than that, it is a question of national pride,” the official told Fox News.