This week, we got a grim insight into this unholiest of hook-ups between our own bourgeois anti-fascists and Gaza’s religious fascists. A story emerged about members of the Israel Defence Forces raping women in al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza City. It sounded hellish. Women were brutalised in front of male family members. Some women were summarily executed. One of the rape victims was five months pregnant. Al Jazeera splashed with the horror story and it spread with staggering speed through activist circles online. It was signal-boosted by some in the mainstream media too, including the Guardian’s Owen Jones.
There was only one problem: there wasn’t so much as a sliver of proof these atrocities took place. The terrible tale came from an interview with one woman. She said she witnessed IDF troops ‘raping women [and] then killing them and burning entire families alive’. It now seems she made the whole thing up, in the hope that her ‘incorrect talk’ might ‘arouse the nation’s fervour’ – that is, drum up yet more hate for Israel. Al Jazeera has taken down its report about the hell in the hospital and a former director of the channel, Yasser Abuhilalah, has flat-out said it was fake. It was ‘fabricated’, he says.
There are so many lingering questions about this atrocity story, this war myth. Chief among them: why did so many on social media fall for it? Even the most rudimentary interrogation of the lady’s claims should have set alarm bells ringing. For example, why was there only one witness to this supposedly hospital-wide ravaging by the wicked IDF? Why would troops burn alive families in a building they want to secure and occupy? Where would they do that? None of it made sense. But many seemed content to park their critical faculties and let the fabrication wash over them.
It is a testament to the intensity of activists’ Israelophobia, their increasingly unhinged loathing for the Jewish State, that many were quick to believe the IDF had behaved in the most monstrous fashion imaginable. The problem here wasn’t just naivety – it was bigotry. It wasn’t just a dearth of critical thinking that enticed some to gulp down with glee what was clearly a tall tale – it was an overabundance of prejudicial thinking, specifically Israelophobic thinking. Drunk on the anti-Israel ideology, ensnared by the warped belief that Israel is a uniquely barbarous nation, woke activists have made themselves into wide-open receptacles for Hamas bullsh*t.
In fact, in this case it seems even Hamas felt compelled to rein in the untruths. Yasser Abuhilalah says it was ‘Hamas investigations’ that determined the woman’s story ‘was fabricated’. Jihad Khelles, a pro-Hamas preacher in Gaza, also damned the story as irresponsible. Tales like this create ‘panic and fear’, he said. It seems some in Hamas circles were concerned – not unreasonably – that Gazans who hear horrific tales about rape in hospitals might decide to avoid hospitals. Which would obviously make their lot even worse. Clearly, Hamas knows the truth about al-Shifa – namely, that those crazy Jews haven’t really turned it into a fascistic abyss where Arabs are burnt alive.
This appears to be a rare case of Hamas recognising that its demented propaganda might do more harm than good. And so, no doubt reluctantly, it let out the truth. The hospital is okay. You can go there. It really says something when Hamas has to temper a story that woke Westerners keenly believed. Listen, when a neo-fascist movement, a movement founded to slaughter Jews, has to tell you to calm down, you know you’ve crossed to the dark side. We now have a situation where Millennials and Gen Zers who for so long posed as anti-fascist are having their knuckles rapped by fascists for going too far.
Lord Haw-Haw was the nickname given to William Joyce and others who broadcast Nazi propaganda in the UK during the Second World War. The Lord Haw-Haws of Hamas haven’t reached quite that level. They haven’t set up underground radio stations devoted to reading out loud every Hamas press release. But, consciously or otherwise, they do Hamas’s bidding. Spread its propaganda, hawk its lies. The activist class and much of the supposedly liberal media treat Hamas claims as good coin while being showily sceptical of everything Israel says. To such an extent that even the obvious fiction of organised rape on hospital wards was swiftly believed.
It happens over and over again. When al-Ahli Hospital was bombed last year, much of the media parroted the Hamas line that Israel did it. It later transpired that it might have been a misfired rocket from Islamic Jihad. When Hamas says more than ‘30,000 Palestinians’ have been killed, the media repeats it like a mantra. It doesn’t stop to ask not only whether the numbers are reliable, but also how many of the dead are Hamas terrorists. The idea that Israel has ‘murdered 30,000 Palestinians’ is a fiction, another war lie, essentially. The truth is that Israel is at war with Hamas, and thus it has slain many Hamas members, and in the process, as in every war in history, civilians have sadly died, too. It is rare indeed to hear such truths from the West’s Smart Set whose flapping hate for Israel has driven them into the arms of Hamas.
Some on the woke left have gone further than spewing the Hamas line – they’ve openly celebrated Hamas’s crimes. A ‘day of celebration’ is how one British left-winger described Hamas’s racist butchery of 7 October. A Cornell professor said he found Hamas’s pogrom ‘exhilarating’. A lecturer at the University of California, Irvine said Hamas’s attack had exposed ‘the Zionists’ for the ‘bloodthirsty animals that they are’. At George Washington University, ‘Glory to our martyrs’ was projected on to a wall. And there you had it: right-on campuses that spent the past two decades fearmongering about ‘rape culture’ were now cheering on mass rape.
This week’s fabricated story about rape at al-Shifa Hospital raises a chilling question: why are some quick to believe accusations of rape made by Palestinians and equally quick to discount and deny accusations of rape made by Israelis? Some of the same people who ate up the fake story about IDF rapists were dismissive of the far more substantiated reports about Hamas using rape as a weapon of war on 7 October. ‘If there was rape and sexual violence committed, we don’t see this on the footage’, they said in the aftermath of that racist pogrom. No one wants to hear this question, I know, but we have to ask it: why do they have to see a Jewish woman being raped before they’ll believe it happened?
‘Believe women’, many on the left said for years. They’ve changed their tune. Now it’s ‘Believe Palestinian women but not Israeli women’. Now it’s ‘Believe some women’. Now it’s ‘Believe it when Israelis are accused of rape but not when Israelis say they’ve suffered rape’. Actually, it’s worse. In lapping up Hamas’s claims, in embracing every horror story Hamas hawks about the Jewish State, the woke left has adopted a whole new rallying cry: ‘Believe fascists.’
Brendan O’Neill is spiked’s chief political writer and blogs regularly on Spiked where this article was sourced.
There was only one problem: there wasn’t so much as a sliver of proof these atrocities took place. The terrible tale came from an interview with one woman. She said she witnessed IDF troops ‘raping women [and] then killing them and burning entire families alive’. It now seems she made the whole thing up, in the hope that her ‘incorrect talk’ might ‘arouse the nation’s fervour’ – that is, drum up yet more hate for Israel. Al Jazeera has taken down its report about the hell in the hospital and a former director of the channel, Yasser Abuhilalah, has flat-out said it was fake. It was ‘fabricated’, he says.
There are so many lingering questions about this atrocity story, this war myth. Chief among them: why did so many on social media fall for it? Even the most rudimentary interrogation of the lady’s claims should have set alarm bells ringing. For example, why was there only one witness to this supposedly hospital-wide ravaging by the wicked IDF? Why would troops burn alive families in a building they want to secure and occupy? Where would they do that? None of it made sense. But many seemed content to park their critical faculties and let the fabrication wash over them.
It is a testament to the intensity of activists’ Israelophobia, their increasingly unhinged loathing for the Jewish State, that many were quick to believe the IDF had behaved in the most monstrous fashion imaginable. The problem here wasn’t just naivety – it was bigotry. It wasn’t just a dearth of critical thinking that enticed some to gulp down with glee what was clearly a tall tale – it was an overabundance of prejudicial thinking, specifically Israelophobic thinking. Drunk on the anti-Israel ideology, ensnared by the warped belief that Israel is a uniquely barbarous nation, woke activists have made themselves into wide-open receptacles for Hamas bullsh*t.
In fact, in this case it seems even Hamas felt compelled to rein in the untruths. Yasser Abuhilalah says it was ‘Hamas investigations’ that determined the woman’s story ‘was fabricated’. Jihad Khelles, a pro-Hamas preacher in Gaza, also damned the story as irresponsible. Tales like this create ‘panic and fear’, he said. It seems some in Hamas circles were concerned – not unreasonably – that Gazans who hear horrific tales about rape in hospitals might decide to avoid hospitals. Which would obviously make their lot even worse. Clearly, Hamas knows the truth about al-Shifa – namely, that those crazy Jews haven’t really turned it into a fascistic abyss where Arabs are burnt alive.
This appears to be a rare case of Hamas recognising that its demented propaganda might do more harm than good. And so, no doubt reluctantly, it let out the truth. The hospital is okay. You can go there. It really says something when Hamas has to temper a story that woke Westerners keenly believed. Listen, when a neo-fascist movement, a movement founded to slaughter Jews, has to tell you to calm down, you know you’ve crossed to the dark side. We now have a situation where Millennials and Gen Zers who for so long posed as anti-fascist are having their knuckles rapped by fascists for going too far.
Lord Haw-Haw was the nickname given to William Joyce and others who broadcast Nazi propaganda in the UK during the Second World War. The Lord Haw-Haws of Hamas haven’t reached quite that level. They haven’t set up underground radio stations devoted to reading out loud every Hamas press release. But, consciously or otherwise, they do Hamas’s bidding. Spread its propaganda, hawk its lies. The activist class and much of the supposedly liberal media treat Hamas claims as good coin while being showily sceptical of everything Israel says. To such an extent that even the obvious fiction of organised rape on hospital wards was swiftly believed.
It happens over and over again. When al-Ahli Hospital was bombed last year, much of the media parroted the Hamas line that Israel did it. It later transpired that it might have been a misfired rocket from Islamic Jihad. When Hamas says more than ‘30,000 Palestinians’ have been killed, the media repeats it like a mantra. It doesn’t stop to ask not only whether the numbers are reliable, but also how many of the dead are Hamas terrorists. The idea that Israel has ‘murdered 30,000 Palestinians’ is a fiction, another war lie, essentially. The truth is that Israel is at war with Hamas, and thus it has slain many Hamas members, and in the process, as in every war in history, civilians have sadly died, too. It is rare indeed to hear such truths from the West’s Smart Set whose flapping hate for Israel has driven them into the arms of Hamas.
Some on the woke left have gone further than spewing the Hamas line – they’ve openly celebrated Hamas’s crimes. A ‘day of celebration’ is how one British left-winger described Hamas’s racist butchery of 7 October. A Cornell professor said he found Hamas’s pogrom ‘exhilarating’. A lecturer at the University of California, Irvine said Hamas’s attack had exposed ‘the Zionists’ for the ‘bloodthirsty animals that they are’. At George Washington University, ‘Glory to our martyrs’ was projected on to a wall. And there you had it: right-on campuses that spent the past two decades fearmongering about ‘rape culture’ were now cheering on mass rape.
This week’s fabricated story about rape at al-Shifa Hospital raises a chilling question: why are some quick to believe accusations of rape made by Palestinians and equally quick to discount and deny accusations of rape made by Israelis? Some of the same people who ate up the fake story about IDF rapists were dismissive of the far more substantiated reports about Hamas using rape as a weapon of war on 7 October. ‘If there was rape and sexual violence committed, we don’t see this on the footage’, they said in the aftermath of that racist pogrom. No one wants to hear this question, I know, but we have to ask it: why do they have to see a Jewish woman being raped before they’ll believe it happened?
‘Believe women’, many on the left said for years. They’ve changed their tune. Now it’s ‘Believe Palestinian women but not Israeli women’. Now it’s ‘Believe some women’. Now it’s ‘Believe it when Israelis are accused of rape but not when Israelis say they’ve suffered rape’. Actually, it’s worse. In lapping up Hamas’s claims, in embracing every horror story Hamas hawks about the Jewish State, the woke left has adopted a whole new rallying cry: ‘Believe fascists.’
Brendan O’Neill is spiked’s chief political writer and blogs regularly on Spiked where this article was sourced.
5 comments:
If you tell a lie often enough, you become Israel.
People have become so easily deceived and misinformed. Doesn't matter how much evidence you show them - they still believe the lie.
Hamas, and other islamic terrorists smirk at the stupidity of the West, and how easy it is to win them over - even to the point where their demonic behaviour is not only excused, but embraced.
Israel should have acted quicker. The sooner they wipe our hamas, and take over the governance of the Palestinians, people that were kicked out of other nations because of the trouble they caused and given part of Israels land, and that are educated by UNRWA - (that despicable organization that should be dissolved and it's leaders imprisoned) - to hate Jews - the better.
How utterly ignorant - or perhaps intentional, (if the UN's present day behaviour is anything to go by), that the West annexed part of Israels lands and gave them to a people that had long hated them.
A price will be paid for such stuidity - and unfortunately it's Israel that is presently paying that price.
The woke left have become totalitarian in their thought patterns, totally intolerant of dissent from their very narrow world view. But I cannot understand why they support Islamic extremism and hate both the Jewish extremist minority (which has a lot of ideological common ground with Islamic extremism), and the mainstream Israeli population who are very much modern Western liberal democratics in their attitudes as well as the 'progressive' Israelis who share much of the modern woke agenda. It can only come back to anti-Semitic bigotry.
Ben, Palestinians ARE SEMITES!!! Their country has been slowly stolen by Israelis. What part of HAMAS is not and Arab terrorist organisation do you not understand?
Israel has lost control of the narrative, Israel can no longer hide behind the holocaust.
Israel has a fascist creed it is Zionism.
Israel is not a liberal western society. There is no left in Israel there is no centre either. There is the Right, the Extreme Right the ultra Right and the Fascists.
Why is any of this so hard to grasp for any thinking person?
al geezera itself is nowt more than a propaganda megaphone for hamas and its assorted hangers on all backed by equally septic Iran .
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