On Wednesday afternoon, three different Israeli officials — including a former prime minister — took to CNN airwaves to lambaste the network and the rest of the liberal media for their instinctual rush to accept Hamas’s premise (under the guise of the “Palestinian Health Ministry”) that Israel had targeted a Gaza hospital Tuesday night for slaughter. In reality, it was a misfired rocket by Islamic Jihad, an adjacent fellow terrorist group.
Sure enough, the liberal media slowly backed away once their friends in the U.S. intelligence community came out to confirm what the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) had already said, but these three guests weren’t letting the press escape scot free.
IDF Spokesman Jonathan Conricus joined the 2:00 p.m. Eastern edition of CNN News Central to declare “the whole fake story by Hamas is sad and dangerous” and “reckless” as “how it was reported and amplified in much...of international and, of course, Arabic media is very dangerous” with major “consequences.”
.@IDF's @JConricus to CNN: "I think the whole fake story by Hamas is sad and dangerous. I think how it was reported and amplified in much, not all, but much of international and, of course, Arabic media is very dangerous and, in fact, reckless. We've seen the consequences of it… pic.twitter.com/ShDdn4LpR4
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) October 18, 2023
“[N]ow is the time for moral clarity for organizations that claim to be humanitarian...to...stop providing diplomatic and international cover for Hamas and their atrocities,” he added.
Responding to AC360 host Anderson Cooper’s statement of fact that rockets from Gaza have high failure rates, Conricus ripped Hamas for having never “accepted responsibility” and instead repeatedly “undermine international reporting” by “obfuscat[ing] and hide the fact that so many of their rockets fall short.”
“[T]hey’re a terrorist organization that has no morals. What I fail to understand is, how are they not held accountable,” he asked.
Cooper closed out by arguing a misfired terrorist rocket would be “sign just of how extremely irresponsible and dangerous the firing of rockets is from any civilian population” while Conricus laid out what the press won’t acknowledge about how Hamas uses its civilian supporters and innocents as human shields (click “expand”):
That is where Hamas operates. That is the infrastructure that they use. The rockets — they are launched from civilian areas. They get there — the rockets are brought there by a tunnel system under the civilian areas. Once they’re fired, of course, that area is exposed to threat because we’ll try to retaliate so they won’t be able to fire again. That puts civilians at risk. That’s typical Hamas operations. It is extremely regrettable that they choose these tactics to constantly put at risk their own civilians, the Palestinians who live there, in order to fight against us.
And it is, of course, in contradiction to international law. You’re supposed to have your weapons away from civilians and fight military only. We, the military, are a legitimate target. Our civilians are not. They’re constantly threatened. The last air raid siren was maybe an hour ago in Tel Aviv, where I am. And there have been rockets fired at southern Israel a few times today already. And it’s just the reality. Again, when people ask themselves and when pictures of the unfortunate situation in Gaza are shown, the disruption, etc., that needs to be explained. That’s part of the context. When we fight an enemy heavily embedded in urban terrain and uses civilian houses to fire rockets from, that’s where we have to retaliate. It’s an unfortunate situation. In so much reporting, that piece of context is missing.
About 45 minutes later, former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett diverted from Cooper’s questions about President Biden’s trip to Israeli in order to “talk about this floating the narratives or the claims.”
Bennett powerfully stated plainly that “[t]here are no two sides to this hospital” as “[e]ither it was bombed by Israel or it was targeted by someone else on the Palestinian side.”
Former Israeli PM @NaftaliBennett UNLOADS on CNN for both sides-ing the claims about who caused an explosion at a Gaza hospital: "I do also want to talk about...the narratives or the claims. There are no two sides to this hospital...So Anderson, with all due respect there aren't… pic.twitter.com/D6dDtjl1Nq
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) October 18, 2023
In the first of two analogies during his hit, Bennett argued that “if two people come and say one says it’s raining outside and the other said it’s dry, you don’t bring the quotes of both sides” when the response should be “just goddamn open the window and look whether it’s raining or not.”
Bennett reiterated Israel’s voluminous evidence showing it was an Islamic Jihad rocket, including multiple camera angles and how an IDF rocket “bomb would have created a crater, which does not exist.”
“[T]here aren’t two sides to this. Not everything is two sides. And I have a feeling that if it wasn’t the state of Israel, then I think the global media would have behaved very differently,” he added.
Cooper tried to stick up for his fellow journalists by insisting “[w]e’re simply saying we have not been able to independently verify the claims that that have been made,” but Bennett wasn’t having it and said he had “to barge in here” with his second analogy given how he was in Manhattan on 9/11 and, after that, the press didn’t give al-Qaeda equal weight to the victims.
“[I]f a day later, al-Qaeda would have said that it’s America who perpetrated it, no one would have quoted it — al-Qaeda,” he explained.
Having put that on the table, he tore into the liberal media’s “double standard” against Israel, including The New York Times (click “expand”):
No one would — and you didn’t have validation back then that it was al-Qaeda, but you knew it’s not America and, somehow, there’s a double standard here. You had 30 hours to validate. We have all the information. Everything is transparent. For heaven’s sake, to see the headline of The New York Times saying the Palestinians claim that Israel bombarded a hospital, we don’t do that.
It’s the Palestinian who rape young girls. It’s the Palestinians who tear apart limbs. It’s the Palestinians who burn whole families and shoot five month old babies. It’s the Palestinians, for heaven’s sake, who kidnapped 84-year-old Holocaust survivors. It’s not the Israelis. This is not what Israel does And you’ve had ample time, do your job and show the truth. There is moral clarity in the world. Not everything has two sides to it.
And, during The Lead, Israeli government spokesman Eylon Levy told Jake Tapper that who was responsible for what Hamas insists were hundreds of deaths “is not a murder mystery, but really an open shut case” given “[t]he evidence is really incontrovertible that it was a Palestinian Islamic jihad rocket misfired from inside the Gaza Strip, and landed in the parking lot of that hospital.”
“The hospital was not destroyed as the initial claims came out from Hamas yesterday, and as many international media parroted...[W]hen such an allegation is made, the IDF does exactly what you would expect of...a democratic state, which is...bring all the evidence, instead of just issuing a blanket denial,” he added.
As for the press, Levy noted that “the international media” created a case of “he said/she said” because “Hamas...made an outrageous allegation immediately and Israel said, look, we need a few hours in order to issue a preliminary investigation.”
To see the relevant transcripts from October 18, click “expand.”
CNN News Central
October 18, 2023
2:31 p.m. EasternANDERSON COOPER: A U.N. spokesman now is declining to acknowledge Israel’s demand that the U.N. chief declare Palestinian terrorist organizations responsible for the Gaza hospital blast. I’m wondering what your reaction to that is.
JONATHAN CONRICUS: I think the whole fake story by Hamas is sad and dangerous. I think how it was reported and amplified in much, not all, but much of international and, of course, Arabic media is very dangerous and, in fact, reckless. We’ve seen the consequences of it and it could have gotten much worse had we not gotten evidence out and debunk it. And I think now is the time for moral clarity for organizations that claim to be humanitarian and claim to be on the good side, to be on the good side and stop providing diplomatic and international cover for Hamas and their atrocities.
(....)
2:33 p.m. Eastern
COOPER: I think — you and I talked about misfires by missiles before. I think you said that it’s — the percentage is roughly 30 percent. Correct me if I’m wrong on that. But that’s what you say missiles coming from Gaza, about 30 percent of them fall into Gaza itself. In your experience, has Islamic jihad or Hamas ever accepted responsibility for a misfire that’s killed people?
CONRICUS: Not only have they not accepted responsibility ever for the killing of Palestinian civilians, I remember personally an event almost two years ago And there are many other documented instances that have been caught on camera, including Al Jazeera cameras, that were gazing at the sky and following the trajectory of a rocket that, all of a sudden, went wayward and landed inside Gaza. Then the cameraman was told to point the camera upwards because the rocket landed in the sea, which is code word for “you’re exposing what Hamas is doing and we’ll get into trouble for showing it.” Not only have they not taken responsibility, they actively undermine international reporting of it. They try to obfuscate and hide the fact that so many of their rockets fall short. That, I can understand because they’re a terrorist organization that has no morals. What I fail to understand is, how are they not held accountable? How is this not an important, the most important report? But why isn’t it vocal when it comes to speaking about lives of Palestinians, many people who care they’re humanitarians and care for Palestinians. I haven’t seen statements of Hamas, you’re firing rockets from built- up areas at the Israelis, which is a war, and some of your rockets fall short, which is extremely bad. What are you doing about it? I haven’t seen anything about that either.
COOPER: The intelligence that Israel has put forward shows rocket trajectories from -- I believe it was a cemetery in Gaza or from a location relatively close to the hospital, arcing over the hospital or very nearby the hospital, some of the other rocket trajectories. I assume the U.S., having satellite capabilities as well, had similar rocket trajectories, which I assume led to their conclusion that Israel is right in their assessment of who is responsible for this. If that is the case, it is a sign just of how extremely irresponsible and dangerous the firing of rockets is from any civilian population. I’ve been in Gaza City and seen rockets fired near locations from where I was. They’re fired from buildings in residential areas.
CONRICUS: Yes, they are. That is where Hamas operates. That is the infrastructure that they use. The rockets — they are launched from civilian areas. They get there — the rockets are brought there by a tunnel system under the civilian areas. Once they’re fired, of course, that area is exposed to threat because we’ll try to retaliate so they won’t be able to fire again. That puts civilians at risk. That’s typical Hamas operations. It is extremely regrettable that they choose these tactics to constantly put at risk their own civilians, the Palestinians who live there, in order to fight against us. And it is, of course, in contradiction to international law. You’re supposed to have your weapons away from civilians and fight military only. We, the military, are a legitimate target. Our civilians are not. They’re constantly threatened. The last air raid siren was maybe an hour ago in Tel Aviv, where I am. And there have been rockets fired at southern Israel a few times today already. And it’s just the reality. Again, when people ask themselves and when pictures of the unfortunate situation in Gaza are shown, the disruption, etc., that needs to be explained. That’s part of the context. When we fight an enemy heavily embedded in urban terrain and uses civilian houses to fire rockets from, that’s where we have to retaliate. It’s an unfortunate situation. In so much reporting, that piece of context is missing.
(....)
3:15 p.m. Eastern
NAFTALI BENNETT: I do also want to talk about this floating the narratives or the claims. There are no two sides to this hospital. Either it was bombed by Israel or it was targeted by someone else on the Palestinian side. And if it’s — if two people come and say one says it’s raining outside and the other said it’s dry, you don’t bring the quotes of both sides. You just goddamn open the window and look whether it’s raining or not. That’s what we did. And this hospital, in fact, it’s a parking lot, was hit definitely a hundred percent by Islamic jihad barrage shot fired at 6:59 PM. We have three different videos from different angles showing it. We have the ballistics. We know that an Israeli bomb would have created a crater, which does not exist. We know that the propellant in the rocket, because it was a long-term rocket targeted for Israel, so a lot of that propellant was still in the rocket, which created a lot of fire. We have two Hamasniks talking to each other and saying and admitting that it is from Islamic jihad. So, Anderson, with all due respect, there aren’t two sides to this. Not everything is two sides. And I have a feeling that if it wasn’t the state of Israel, then I think the global media would have behaved very differently.
COOPER: We’re simply saying we have not been able to independently verify the claims that that have been made. We have reported exactly what Israel has put forward and also that the U.S. Intelligence Community has backed up as well. And that certainly seems to be what President Biden has also been basing his assessment on. It’s what he said. Information from his own defense department, in addition to Israel’s presenting of evidence to him —
BENNETT: Anderson, I have to barge in here. I have to say something. You know, I was in 9/11. I was in Manhattan when it happened. And if a day later, al-Qaeda would have said that it’s America who perpetrated it, no one would have quoted it — al-Qaeda. No one would — and you didn’t have validation back then that it was al-Qaeda, but you knew it’s not America and, somehow, there’s a double standard here. You had 30 hours to validate. We have all the information. Everything is transparent. For heaven’s sake, to see the headline of The New York Times saying the Palestinians claim that Israel bombarded a hospital, we don’t do that. It’s the Palestinian who rape young girls. It’s the Palestinians who tear apart limbs. It’s the Palestinians who burn whole families and shoot five month old babies. It’s the Palestinians, for heaven’s sake, who kidnapped 84-year-old Holocaust survivors. It’s not the Israelis. This is not what Israel does And you’ve had ample time, do your job and show the truth. There is moral clarity in the world. Not everything has two sides to it.
(....)
CNN’s The Lead
October 18, 2023
4:19 p.m. EasternEYLON LEVY: Indeed, as time moves on, it’s clear that what happened last night is not a murder mystery but really an open shut case. The evidence is really incontrovertible that it was a Palestinian Islamic jihad rocket misfired from inside the Gaza Strip, and landed in the parking lot of that hospital. It wasn’t an Israeli airstrike. The hospital was not destroyed as the initial claims came out from Hamas yesterday, and as many international media parroted immediately. But look, when such an allegation is made, the IDF does exactly what you would expect of the professional army of a democratic state, which is that the spokesperson’s office needs to check the allegations, needs to bring all the evidence, instead of just issuing a blanket denial. The only reason that the international media has been trapped in this he said/she said over the last 24 hours is that Hamas, that’s what the Gaza health ministry is, it’s Hamas, which is as bad as ISIS if not worse, made an outrageous allegation immediately. And Israel said, look, we need a few hours in order to issue a preliminary investigation and that evidence now is overwhelming. That what took place yesterday was a horrific war crime perpetrated by Palestinian Islamic Jihad that we’re trying to fire a rocket at our people to kill us, and they ended up murdering their own.
