With Israel eager to restrict the spread of Covid-19, it's no surprise that the government moved to impose restrictions, including on protests, so much of the media either published the news matter-of-factly, or didn't cover it at all.
Perhaps because, with a complete lockdown under way, the lifting of the exemption for political protests is not as outrageous as @Guardian would have us believe.
Regardless, the @Guardian and others have the right to cover whichever stories they choose. What is less legitimate, however, is the contrived manner in which internal critics of Israeli government policies are repeatedly given a platform far exceeding their own significance.
This tendency, taken together with the blurring of the lines between news reporting and news analysis, leads to an ongoing stream of negative news content from some media outlets.
This has a real, distortionary effect on the public's opinion of Israel.
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🧵 1/ The @nytimes just profiled Twitch streamer Hasan Piker, nephew of Young Turks founder Cenk Uygur. Apparently antisemitism runs in the family—not that you'd know it from this glowing piece labeling him a "progressive." Yes, the guy who called Hamas massacres "resistance."
2/ The NYT goes to great lengths to sanitize Piker’s bigotry, claiming he "criticized the Israeli government" and "challenged norms." Apparently, calling Orthodox Jews "inbred" and dehumanizing a Jew who disagreed with him as a "bloodthirsty pig dog" are just norm-challenging.
3/ NYT calls Piker’s antisemitism mere "diatribes against the Zionist movement"—an absurdly tame way to describe a man who excused Hamas's rape and murder spree on Oct 7, saying "Palestinian resistance is not perfect." Apparently mass rape is a minor misstep to NYT’s new darling.
Hamas built an underground city. We built the map.🧵
Our new tool geo-locates 37 miles of Hamas’ tunnel network using open-source data—marking the first interactive map exposing the terror grid beneath Gaza.
Hamas spent 15 years and $1 billion creating this underground empire—built under hospitals, homes, schools, mosques, and graveyards.
Israel gets blamed for destruction.
But Hamas built terror into Gaza’s civilian infrastructure.
🧵1/
How does a publicly funded outlet like @abcnews get away with broadcasting this Easter-week pile of propaganda?
Let’s break it down — because reporter @MattDoran91 clearly needs a crash course in journalism, not just social media scrolling.
2/ ABC reports that Christians were “corralled” and “beaten” by Israeli police outside the Church of the Holy Sepulchre — all apparently based on one viral video Doran spotted on social media.
3/ Doran claims Palestinian Christians were “pushed, shoved, and threatened.” Based on what?
What didn’t make it in? A police statement. Or the viral posts debunking earlier footage. Or the weeks of planning to safely host thousands at the Holy Fire ceremony.
🦁 ZIONIST BEASTS?
From bees to boars, sharks to spy eagles—some media outlets and influencers are convinced Mossad has turned the animal kingdom into a covert ops unit.
Let’s look at some of the wildest animal conspiracy theories.🧵
As Jews celebrate Passover at the Western Wall, @Independent's version of an @AP story is littered with historical & geographical inaccuracies.
Elevating the status of the Wall omits the Jewish connection to its actual holiest site - the Temple Mount.
Let's take a look. 🧵
Judaism's holiest site is the Temple Mt. The Western Wall is the holiest site where Jews are currently allowed to pray.
King Solomon's Temple stood, not on the area of the Western Wall, but on the Temple Mt. itself.
And "Cohen's blessing?" Time to stop using Google Translate!🤣
The paved area of the Western Wall Plaza is not a remnant of the Second Temple. It is simply the area adjacent to the Western Wall, which, itself, is the remnant of a retaining wall of the Temple Mount.
Hamas uses hospitals as shields—and the media lets them.
Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza was the latest example. Hamas turned it into a command center. Israel struck it. And the headlines? They focused on “lack of evidence.”
Let’s break it down.🧵
Instead of asking why Hamas was exploiting a hospital for terror operations, outlets like NPR, NYT, and CNN focused on the IDF not “offering proof” fast enough.
The media’s instinct to doubt Israel—rather than question Hamas—tells you everything.
This isn’t the first time.
Back in October 2023, Hamas blamed Israel for bombing Al-Ahli and claimed hundreds of deaths.
But U.S. intel showed it was a misfired rocket by Palestinian Islamic Jihad. And the media still ran with Hamas’ version.