A Tale of Two Hospitals

Did you know that just over a week ago, in the wake of Hamas’ evil terrorist attacks in Israel, a rocket barrage hit an Israeli hospital’s Child Development Center?

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I didn’t. Almost nobody did, because it wasn’t newsworthy. Hamas rockets are sent into Israel all the time and are so frequent that they aren’t even newsworthy. Even the Israeli media barely covered the strike because explosives raining down on Israelis are almost a normal part of life there.

That was October 11.

On October 17th a Hamas rocket hit a different hospital’s parking lot, and the media explosion was heard around the world. Headlines blared, Israel was blamed, protests erupted, Members of Congress demanded a ceasefire, and “misinformation” reporters attacked Israel and her defenders.

The media embraced Hamas’ narrative within minutes of the explosion–and as far as I can tell not one thing Hamas told reporters was remotely true, as should have been expected by everybody. But the media played along, and many still are doing the “both sides” dance despite the fact that we now know that it was a Palestinian Islamic Jihad rocket that misfired and scorched the hospital’s parking lot.

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There has been no accounting of the casualties, but we can be certain that the claimed 500 will be revised down. Hospital staff injured–remember when they were supposedly buried under rubble?–numbered 2-4, depending on the reports.

The same exact event happened: Palestinian terrorists launched rockets that hit hospitals, one intentionally and one accidentally, with the only major difference being the location where the rockets hit. One in Israel, and one in Gaza.

One was ignored entirely; the other was a cause célèbre, with the media blaring in unison about an Israeli airstrike killing 500. The media took the spin from Hamas, checked not a bit of it, and played it up as a war crime committed by evil Israelis.

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The New York Times even, helpfully, inserted a photo of a bombed-out building under a headline blaming Israel for killing 500 innocents. It wasn’t the hospital–it turns out that the hospital wasn’t even hit and was barely scratched–but it sure looked impressive.

This is narrative building. Choosing what is newsworthy, picking who to trust and amplify, and using adjectives, insinuations, half-truths, and accepting outright lies in order to create a version of reality that fits what you want people to see.

You might think that the collapse of the false narrative of the hospital Israel didn’t strike was a failure, but we will see. Rashida Tlaib is still repeating the story, as are people around the world. Those headlines were snapshot and will spread, and millions will accept the idea that we are now witnessing a coverup of an actual Israeli strike.

And, you can rest assured, the MSM will still quote the Gaza Health Ministry as if it weren’t a propaganda outlet for Hamas.

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The reality of just how compromised the MSM is can be seen in how it covered these two similar events. One is ignored, and the other is massaged out of recognition to create an anti-Israel narrative.

This has been happening for years. Billions of people believe that Israel is the aggressor because the MSM has chosen to tell that story. It is false, but it is received wisdom.

Because the MSM is filled with liars.

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David Strom 11:20 AM | November 21, 2024
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