Thread: The latest episode of @Vice on Gaza + Jerusalem truly deserves a proper fisking. But just focusing on the segment's treatment of Hamas, for a moment.
"The party is very popular," the reporter tells us from a rally. I wonder why. Perhaps Gazans feel pressure to show their fealty to Hamas? Because this is their idea of justice for suspected "traitors."
npr.org/sections/paral…
npr.org/sections/paral…
At another point in the segment, during a celebration of a Hamas anniversary, the reporter meets children dressed up in camouflage and carrying toy machine guns.
She asks a father: Can you tell me about your kids' outfits? "It's so hopefully they end up like the heroes of the Izz ad-Din al-Qassam Brigades." If you are coming to this subject cold, you might not know that these are the heroes he's referring to:
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Izz_ad-Di…
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Izz_ad-Di…
The reporter gets a sit down with Mahmoud al-Zahar, a co-founder of Hamas. This is a man who has called the Holocaust a “lie." He has said "the most important thing in the Jewish religion is Jewish money.” He also has some fascinating ideas about Truman: timesofisrael.com/hamas-official…
Here's Zahar on gay people: "You in the West do not live like human beings. You do not even live like animals. You accept homosexuality. And now you criticize us?” The penalty for being gay in Gaza is death. Even if you are a Hamas commander:
nytimes.com/2016/03/02/wor…
nytimes.com/2016/03/02/wor…
The idea that a progressive news outlet would fail to ask about any of this, let alone raise it as context for viewers, is mind blowing to me.
Imagine getting an interview with Zahar and credulously asking him about protests while completely ignoring the fact that Hamas throws gay people off buildings, tortures its citizens, and openly calls for genocide of the Jews. amnesty.org/en/latest/news…
