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Home » TIME magazine and the poor Gazans

TIME magazine and the poor Gazans

The New Neo Posted on by

Here’s an article from TIME that’s an example of the reporting on Israel and Gaza:

The Gaza Strip has endured seemingly endless tragedy. As Israel wages its war to root out Hamas in the aftermath of the latter’s Oct. 7 massacre, which killed 1,400 in Israel, at least 3,700 Palestinians in Gaza have been killed. A blast at Al-Ahli hospital where many Gazans had sought refuge resulted in the loss of as many as hundreds of lives.

“Endless tragedy,” so much of it at their own hands and because of what they themselves have done.

Like most of the MSM, TIME reports on the number of Gazans killed so far since October 7th. Where do they get these figures – which vary from paper to paper, but are usually presented as some sort of verified truth although the source is rarely given? When given, the source is usually the Gazan health ministry, which lied about the hospital strike and one can assume has reason to lie about the total death toll as well.

What’s more, we also know that the hospital attack from an errant Palestinian rocket was not a one-off; Palestinian rockets are known to commonly fall inside Gaza and injure or kill civilians there. To Hamas, it’s all good, because all dead bodies can be blamed on Israel and outlets such as TIME will report it uncritically. What the real figure of dead killed by Israel might be is unknown.

In that TIME article there is no description of the horrific October 7th massacre; just the death toll. And that death toll is merely compared to the supposed number of Palestinians killed by Israel, the latter number being higher. Nor is there any statement about how many of those Palestinians killed were Hamas and how many civilians, or whether the number has been substantiated in any way. The entire statistic is reported in a manner most favorable to the narrative of Palestinian suffering being greater than that of the Israelis, and that Palestinian suffering is being caused by acts of the Israelis.

There’s much more, including interviews with many Palestinians, all of whom are remarkably attractive. The first interview is with a doctor who was at the al-Ahi hospital when the errant rocket hit the parking lot. It contains a description of the terrible burns and wounds, some suffered by children. It does at least say the parking lot was hit rather than the hospital itself – without acknowledging the original lie that traveled around the world. But there isn’t any mention of who launched the rocket, and because of that omission a reader would ordinarily think that it was Israel.

There is no attempt by the reporters to confirm anything their subjects say. The people are just quoted uncritically, and the reader is given no reason to distrust the information they offer. It is really a remarkable piece of MSM propaganda in the service of Palestine and Hamas.

Comments

<i>TIME</i> magazine and the poor Gazans — 42 Comments

  1. Honestly it’s somewhat amazing to me that Time magazine still exists at all, even if it’s purely digital (or at least I assume so, as it seems pretty unlikely that they’re still producing an actual physical magazine). But I know that this is just one example of the general dishonest tenor of the MSM regarding this current conflict. What I don’t know is how effective this sort of nonsense still is at influencing public opinion. Do most people still uncritically believe this sort of “reporting”? I know that public trust in the media isn’t exactly high at the moment, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’ll outright disbelieve or just distrust a given narrative pumped out by the MSM yet.

  2. I have a serious question for you, Neo, and for your commenters: why is the American media so eager to paint the USA in a bad light? It cannot be only that they are all liberal — there must be some liberals who observe journalistic practices even if not doing so would give them a juicier story? Seriously?

  3. time has a history of bad faith, going back to 1982 (checks notes) when they went after Ariel Sharon, very quickly in the war on terror, they drifted into moral equivalency in Iraq, with Bobby Ghosh and Michael Ware among the worst of these,

  4. F:

    Like Bari Weiss, those journalists lose their jobs. Or these days, they don’t get hired in the first place. The MSM has decided to dedicate itself to leftist multi- culti virtue signaling. They were probably raised on Zinn’s version of history and don’t want to be confused with America-loving rubes.

  6. Time Magazine is an example of Iowahawk’s description of killing a respected brand, skinning it and wearing the skin as a suit.

  8. F –

    American Progressivism is all about oppressors versus oppressed. Freeing the former is the great cause, and the end justifies the means. Any terrible acts against the latter as part of the great cause are the fault of the latter, who have brought it up on themselves.

  9. Leftism is a mental illness suffered by those subjected to decades of indoctrination and pressure to conform. And what are so called progressives progressing towards? Readers of this blog are likely to know and it is nothing like what most progressives think. Hell on earth. Just had to get that off my chest.
    Edit: what I fail to understand are people like some of my so called friends, successful and wealthy and seemingly intelligent, who refuse to vote in a way that serves their own and the country’s interests. The “I hate Donald Trump” crowd. Heck, I doubt I would want to hang out with Trump, but you bet I will be voting for him against whatever fellow traveler the Dems put up next year.

  10. Doctor’s offices used to have piles of old, weekly news magazines. Decades ago I used to look through them, to see their coverage of events that were current when they were written, but now months old. You could judge what was said at the time and compare it to how events unfolded when you knew further details.

    Time magazine was the worse. It rarely got things correct. Newsweek was better, and US News and World Report was the best. Crappy reporting has been around forever, with Time Magazine maintaining its place on the bottom.

  11. I apologize for the length. Please feel free to edit or delete. This is a first for me, posting on any site, but I have been impressed with Neo and many of those who post on this site. I have learned much from you all. So, here it goes. I wanted to share with you all, my friends, some thoughts from over 35 years of studying terrorism in, and from, the Middle East.

    As Israel moves to its ground invasion of Gaza, the question that seems to capture a lot of attention, often under the misinterpretation of the “proportionality” doctrine under the laws of war, is Hamas’s documented, and threatened, use of civilians as human shields. Recently, smarter people than I have referred to these practices as “human sacrifices,” a term that is not far from wrong. However, there is another layer to the tactic favored by Hamas that should be explored.

    By now, only the most fringe of partisan groups fail to acknowledge that Hamas has employed ambulances to move its military leaders in Gaza, setting up its military operational headquarters at the al-Shifa hospital, using mosques to protect its tunnel entrances, using UNRWA schools to hide rockets, and dressing up as civilian women in Shejaiyya. All of these tactics are clear violations by Hamas of international laws of war and all are being employed by Hamas in this latest conflict. But none of these tactics present a comparable level of moral degradation to that of Hamas using the Palestinian people, including children, as human shields to protect its fighters, missiles, tunnels, and munitions. You don’t need the niceties of a treaty or convention to cast the use of children as shields as crimes against humanity.

    Hamas’ past use of Palestinian children as human shields in response to Israel’s Operation Protective Edge, and the group’s present use in Operation Swords of Iron, is not a desperate effort to fend off an invader or some thoughtless defensive measure, as despicable as that would be in its own right, but a calculated military tactic developed by the Hamas’ military wing, the al Qassam brigade, over several years and pre-authorized in a series of religious verdicts issued by neo-Jihadist religious authorities close to the organization. These neo-Jihadist religious authorities embrace a fusion of a puritanical and revivalist brand of Wahhabism with the politico-social philosophy of the militant wing of the Muslim Brotherhood. Recall that Hamas is the Palestinian chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood. And they, along with the terrorists, are absolutely necessary for Hamas to sustain itself as a terrorist organization. Instead of missiles, bombs, and suicide vests, their weapon of choice is the fatwa.

    For terrorist organizations like Hamas, which seeks to disguise its murder and mayhem in a patina of religious authenticity, the fatawa (pl. for fatwa) plays a significant operational, tactical, and strategic role by seeking to provide religious cover and justification to otherwise despicable, violent acts. This religious authority serves two distinct but related purposes: internal authority for operational and recruiting purposes and external legitimacy for recruiting, financial, and other support purposes. Furthermore, this concept of authority has a direct effect on target selection and tactics, and lends legitimacy to the group among nonviolent, but sympathetic, populations.

    The typical and traditional manner by which this authority is communicated is through the issuance of fatawa, or religious verdicts by religious authorities sympathetic to Jihadist causes. A fatwa is a legal judgment or learned interpretation that a qualified jurist (mufti ) may give on issues pertaining to Sharia (Islamic law). Originally, only a jurist possessing a number of qualifications and carefully trained in the Holy Sources and, among other things, the techniques of ijtihad (personal reasoning), was allowed to issue a legal opinion or interpretation of an established law. Ijtihad is a potential source of Islamic law after the Quran, the Sira or the Prophet Muhammad’s life, the Hadith or his collected words and deeds, the Sunna (custom), and Ijma (consensus). Later, all trained jurists were permitted to issue fatawa. More recently, even those who self-profess to be knowledgeable or those with little training (either formal or informal since both methods are historically permissible) have taken to issuing fatawa. Furthermore, the great universities of fiqh (jurisprudence) and sharia, such as Jami’at al-Qarawiyyin in Fez, Morocco, and al-Azhar in Egypt, have lost some stature, respect, and influence, and no longer serve the role of containing and isolating poorly reasoned fatawa.

    A fatwa is generally nonbinding, and a Muslim may seek another opinion. Many fatawa of famous jurists are collected in books and may be used as precedents. The overwhelming majority of fatawa are designed to answer pressing questions by Muslims who seek to adhere to their religious beliefs in a complex and challenging world. However, a small but significant subset of fatawa related to Jihadist activity has developed. For the militant Islamists, the fatwa operates as their rules of engagement. These fatawa may include justifications for attacks against the West, those targets by category or type that are hallal (permissible) or forbidden (haram), those attack means that are hallal or haram, the permissibility of collateral damage, and the general prohibition and exceptions to the spilling of sacrosanct (Muslim) blood. Among these are fatawa that permit the use of Muslims (and non-Muslims) as human shields without their knowledge or consent. It is this line of fatawa that Hamas has embraced in its latest round of its forced weaponization of the human body.

    Hamas presently relies on several clusters of fatawa, all of which have been posted on its and its supporters’ websites recently, providing the so-called religious justification for the use of Palestinians as human shields. First, Hamas relies on a cluster of fatawa that permit martyrdom through suicide operations that target civilian populations, including Muslim bystanders. This is key: the Quran is particularly clear on the point of suicide; it is strictly prohibited as it manifests a lack of faith in the Almighty. These fatawa elevate suicide bombing, an act strictly forbidden under Islam, to a sacramental duty for the followers of Hamas. Second, Hamas relies on a fatwa that permits collective martyrdom, an action that religiously transforms the status of those Muslims who are killed in operations to that of martyrs in a jihad even without their knowledge or consent or even over their lack of consent. This cluster of fatawa can be directly traced to the Mullahs of Iran, Shi’a, who nevertheless have had an influential role in supporting Sunni Hamas actions, including the use of human shields as collective acts of martyrdom. Third, Hamas relies on an explicit fatwa that permits the killing of Muslims where the enemy uses those Muslims as human shields, and recent derivative fatawa that allow Hamas to use Muslims as human shields outright in Gaza.

    This should come as no surprise. Al Qaida, the Taliban, and ISIS have used religious authorities to justify their patterns of attack. They both draw from fatawa that permit the execution of dissident (meaning moderate) Islamic religious voices who they pronounce as apostates. The Taliban did this by the execution of teachers and imams under the “cover” of fatawa issued by Afghani and Pakistani ulema (religious authorities); ISIS did the same by executing 13 Sunni ulema in Mosul, including Muhammad al Mansuri. Many of these executed religious authorities worked with the Joint Coalition forces in helping to restore order in Iraq during and after Operation Iraqi Freedom.

    In summary, Hamas employs Palestinian civilians as human shields in a self-identified act of collective martyrdom, even though the civilians have not consented, under the religious cover of neo-jihadists religious authorities more than willing to issue such protective fatawa. If history teaches us anything, it is that the militant Islamist threat that Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Israel are fighting today, America will confront again tomorrow.

  12. Do most people still uncritically believe this sort of “reporting”? I know that public trust in the media isn’t exactly high at the moment, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’ll outright disbelieve or just distrust a given narrative pumped out by the MSM yet.

    A lot simply do. Look at it like this. Donald Trump has been a celebrity for decades. He had his own TV show for years that people could watch and he was on various programs over the year. In theory people were familiar with him. He was president and we have youtube so everything he said was on video. The media took what he said and often warped it in such ridiculous ways that on the face of it people should have known it wasn’t true. I mean the idea that he would have called racists “very fine people” or told people to drink or inject bleach and or other disinfectants.(They worked overtime warping what he said in both of those cases) Yet people took that stuff which should have been obvious that it was fake and that they could easily check but they believed it.(You’d think they’d need a huge amount of evidence to believe such stories but they didn’t.) Now you have something that isn’t so easy to check and that they’re not as familiar with? Of course a lot of people will believe it.

  15. I think this is largely about tribal identity. Many journalists are much more interested in advancing the narrative aligned with their social-political tribe than in any kind of accuracy or objectivity.

    See my post The Power of Information Dominance:

    https://ricochet.com/1505061/the-power-of-information-dominance/

    See also the following post at the Washington Post: Newsrooms that move beyond objectivity can build trust

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2023/01/30/newsrooms-news-reporting-objectivity-diversity/

  18. We have to kill enough Muslims ,so that they will stop fighting. How many is that ?
    Damn boys ,how many you got.

    I am a peaceful person when allowed to be, but don’t push it.
    I’m tired of this sh!t. I don’t want my grands to have to deal with this.

  19. Thank you, Cutting Sign. So, Hamas will use its people with religious authority; they become martyrs if they die.

  20. Related…
    “Media Manipulating Public on Israel-Hamas War: Lee Smith;
    “…Obama-era echo chamber of media, think tanks, and experts is spreading disinformation about the ongoing conflict.”—
    https://www.theepochtimes.com/us/media-manipulating-public-on-israel-hamas-war-lee-smith-5515410

    + Bonus:
    “Biden’s Three Nos;
    “Biden’s visit puts Israel in mortal danger”—
    https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/bidens-three-nos

  21. Continued…
    Opening grafs of the “Bonus” article linked to above:
    ‘ President Joe Biden’s visit to Israel elicited a collective sigh of relief. The show of friendship and the strong statements of support, peppered with some Yiddishisms, gave Israelis a feeling that the U.S. truly has their back. The dispatch of two American aircraft carriers to the region served to further reassure us. This is what the president intended. He staged his embrace of Israel to elicit exactly such a response—and not just from Israelis but from American Jews as well.

    ‘ However, the closer you examine Biden’s hug, the more it appears like a full nelson. To be sure, there are positive aspects to the visit, but the cons decisively outweighed the pros. Biden came to Israel to preserve his—and President Barack Obama’s—disastrous policy of appeasing Iran. That policy has run roughshod over Israel’s most vital interests and will continue to do so if it isn’t abandoned soon. It’s just that now, preserving that policy requires giving Israel some limited help against Hamas while preventing it from securing what it needs most: a clear and decisive victory. Anything short of that will leave our blood in the water for the bigger sharks to smell.

    ‘ When you look beyond Biden’s “I love Israel” rhetoric and examine his actions through a sober political lens, here’s what the details look like.

    ‘ The first thing to note is that, from the get-go, the U.S. denied Iran’s fingerprints on the Hamas attack. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said that there was no “direct” evidence of Iranian involvement. That statement is risible. The evidence is as plain as day….’
    [All emphasis mine; Barry M.]

  22. Oops.
    I see that this “Bonus” article was linked to in an earlier thread.
    Sorry about that….

  23. On a related note per Jeff Dunetz, “Why can’t world leaders understand that Hamas wants to drive Israel into the sea” and kill all the Jews? Don’t believe me, believe Hamas; below are excerpts of the Hamas charter…” https://lidblog.com/world-leaders-still-dont-understand-hamas/

    My scary proposition is that they DO understand. And many secretly agree. The rest don’t care because preening themselves by virtue signaling in public outweighs any moral scruples.

    At the end, he quotes Ze’ev Jabotinsky, “It is incredible what political simpletons Jews are. They shut their eyes to one of the most elementary rules of life that you must not ‘meet halfway’ those who do not want to meet you.’

    @CuttingSign: Years ago I read an English translation of the Koran from beginning to end. I encourage others to do the same. The whole thing struck me as a rant / argument designed to point out the superiority of those who swallow it. There’s not a speck of real humility. But yesterday talking with a visiting missionary from north Africa, he related that the Koran in its original form is in old Arabic, which very few can read.
    Him: Their Koran has the original unintelligible text in a column 1/3 of a page wide, and more modern Arabic commentary in the other 2/3 column. And this commentary disagrees in places with the original text. For example, the original text says that the Bible is not changed or corrupted. But the commentary says that the Bible IS corrupt.

    Me: Well many people have trouble understanding the King James Bible, but we have many modern translations from the original text. Why don’t Muslims do the same?

    Him: When a child begins his education, he is told, “It is not for you to think! You must memorize and obey.” Their whole educational system discourages free thinking.

    Me later: So perhaps this is why in comparison with the Jews who have made many discoveries and won a lion’s share of Nobel prizes, innovation among Muslims is nearly nonexistent.

  24. And then there’s Col. Richard Kemp…

    “Col. Richard Kemp: When Israel’s biggest advocate is not even Israeli;
    “A veteran of many wars and the epitome of a well-rounded soldier ready for combat, Col. Richard Kemp cannot stop marveling at the ingenuity and bravery of the Israeli defense establishment he says protects the free world”—
    https://www.ynetnews.com/article/sj3gl9s11p

    A one-man colossus.

  30. And I’m sure after all those Presidential Daily Briefs to round out his education, Obama knows just how to dismantle Hamas painlessly.

    Would he volunteer as one of those human shields? Or is he only good at telling others what they should do?

  32. And for anyone wonder how we got here…:
    “…How Canada Spent Millions Pushing An Ideology Used To Frame Jews As Oppressors”—
    https://blazingcatfur.ca/2023/10/23/first-reading-how-canada-spent-millions-pushing-an-ideology-used-to-frame-jews-as-oppressors/

    “Met Police Officers ‘Frustrated’ By Inability To Make Arrests At Pro-Palestinian Rally”—
    https://blazingcatfur.ca/2023/10/23/met-police-officers-frustrated-by-inability-to-make-arrests-at-pro-palestinian-rally/

    “Politicians Condemn Protest At Jewish-Owned Business As Police Monitor Demonstrations”—
    https://blazingcatfur.ca/2023/10/23/politicians-condemn-protest-at-jewish-owned-business-as-police-monitor-demonstrations/

    Rinse, wash, repeat.

  33. Well the Palestinians speak, and it ain’t pretty. Although it looked like these were the wealthier of that sorry lot.

    According to the poor victim Palis, the Jews in Israel can be in Palestine as they were before Israel was reborn, except of course that Hamasites want to kill all of them if they can. And would the moderate Palestinians say or do anything to stop the Hamasites and Gazamites? Or the Hizbulla murderers?

    Hamasites showed what is in the soul of these ….

  34. Britain’s fearless Julie Burchill with a strong piece on the current zeitgeist…
    “Anti-Semitism won’t go away”—
    https://archive.md/zYA9T
    H/T Blazingcatfur blog.

    A huge, global “Houston, we have a problem” moment…that sees no sign of ending and every sign of strengthening…

  36. And to share an Old Testament verse with those who are either Jewish or Christian, “Abraham approached and said, “Will You indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked?” (Gen 18:23)

    That’s a problem. Not the only one, but still a problem.

  37. What chance does the good and the True have faced with armies of influential liars?

    Hamas has its own armies, other Islamists have theirs (see ISIS), and Iran’s clerics have their own. And what do we have? “Journalists” have become an army of nihilists like the Unabomber (Peace not Be Upon him; didn’t he die recently in Colorado’s SuperMax Federal penitentiary this year or last?)

    I hate writing those words as a question demanding an answer. But it’s my summary implication from our host’s thread.

    “Cutting Sign’s” luminous deep dive into the Islam of the Islamists and Hamas today yields my preferred title for his brief essay, “The Islamist Today and Hamas’ Human Sacrifice as a Military Strategy.” Going longer, “Valorizing Human Sacrifice”.

    He or she concludes: “If history teaches us anything, it is that the militant Islamist threat that Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and Israel are fighting today, America will confront again tomorrow.”

    Truer words have not been spoken. (And I hate that fact.)

    Since this topic spurs recollection and re-thinking, I must point to one aid by Francisco Goya, a drawing or etching entitled “The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters” or “The Dream of Reason Produces Monsters” (Spanish: El sueño de la razón produce monstruos) is an aquatint by the Spanish painter and printmaker Francisco Goya. (Wiki.)

    Despite the fact that this critical art of his time (dated 1797-9) obviously implicates the terrors of The French Revolution goes completely unmentioned at Wikipedia’s entry, restricting it to only a critique of Spanish society instead. (See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Sleep_of_Reason_Produces_Monsters)

    “Goya turns the light of the Enlightenment back on itself and here are where the monsters are found.”

    And there are we. Where we began.

  38. @TJ: “And there are we. Where we began.” On an earlier thread, Barry Meislin linked Konstantin Kisin (https://www.thefp.com/p/the-day-the-delusions-died-konstantin-kisin) who in turn referenced Thomas Sowell’s book A Conflict of Visions comprising two camps; those with an ‘unconstrained’ view of human nature (humans are malleable & perfectable) versus those with a ‘constrained view (“No amount of social engineering can change the sober reality of human self-interest”)

    I take it you hold to the constrained view as do I? As David said in Psalm 14, and repeated in Psalm 53, “The Lord has looked down from heaven upon the sons of mankind to see if there are any who understand, who seek God. They have all turned aside, together they are corrupt; there is no one who does good, not even one.”

    Pretty damning of all of us… So much for perfectability?

  39. For those who wonder how the radical left cannot see the truth about Islam…

    By definition totalitarian ideologues see everyone not of their ideology as an enemy. The more powerful an enemy, the more advantageous the benefit in aligning with a less powerful enemy against the more powerful enemy.

    As “The enemy of my enemy is my friend”. But when my ‘friend’ and I destroy our more powerful enemy, we will turn on each other. As totalitarian ideologues truly see the world as a case of “there can be only one”.

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