There was widespread shock and dismay over media and campus reactions to the atrocities Hamas committed against innocent Jews on Oct. 7, while we Jews observed Simchat Torah. The so-called mainstream or dominant news institutions initially held to their practice, in the name of impartiality, of avoiding calling Hamas’ marauding perpetrators “terrorists” or what they did, “terrorism.” This, so as not to summarily dismiss Hamas’ their claim that they were merely acting as freedom fighters against Zionist oppression. So, Hamas perpetrators were neutrally labeled as “militants,” “fighters,” “armed fighters” and “gunmen.”
And, on college and university campuses across the country student groups continued with their leftist, mindless anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism by issuing written statements signed by their members holding Israel responsible for all the death and destruction for supposedly having cruelly imposed its will on the Palestinians, thus creating the need for a Palestinian resistance. Also, once again, supportive left-leaning school officials said nothing to contradict this intellectual corruption and bigotry. Nor did most offer statements of their own condemning Hamas.
But it soon began to emerge that it was not necessarily going to be business as usual. It was hard for most people not to notice that non-pejoratives like militants, fighters, and gunmen seemed incongruous with the reporting on: the senseless, wanton, brutal slaughter and mutilation of innocent civilians – including men, women, children and the elderly – the decapitation of infants, the violations of women, the kidnappings. Indeed, what exactly does all of that have to do with any notion of a redeeming freedom fighter role.
The New York Times, as the acknowledged “paper of record” had been particularly infuriating, leading the way in rejecting the “terror” label. So, it is significant that it has now routinely taken to reporting on the events on Simchat Torah as “terror” and its Hamas perpetrators as “terrorists.” Perhaps even more important is how The Times now opines on the Oct. 7 events in its editorials. The other day it said this:
Israel stands on the verge of invading Gaza in response to the terrorist attacks by Hamas that many, including Israel’s leaders, have compared to Sept. 11 not just because of the scale and savagery but also because the terrorists sought to destroy the tranquility of daily life. They killed the very young and the very old, the strong and the weak, civilians and soldiers; they took some 150 hostages, including children, and survivors said the attackers raped women – all to send a message that no Israeli was safe.
It is also likely that there will be consequences for media outlets that don’t start to tell it like it is but persist in promoting anti-Israel propaganda. Thus, the New York Post reports that the leftist MSNBC, which has long been in the forefront of efforts to draw equivalence between Hamas terrorist brutalities and Israel’s self-defense, has lost 33% of it prime time viewers since Hamas attacked Israel. On the other hand, Fox News, which does a much better job of accurately reporting on the Middle East, has seen a full 42% jump in total viewership in the same period.
As for academia, there have already been financial repercussions arising from student support for Hamas’ Oct.7 attack and the deafening silence of school administrators. CEO’s of more than a dozen major companies, have declared they will not hire Harvard students who signed a letter blaming Israel for the attack.
Israeli billionaire Idan Ofer and his wife quit their posts on the executive board of Harvard’s Kennedy School – and presumably took their checkbook with them – in protest of Harvard’s president’s belated, lukewarm response to a student letter blaming Israel for the massacre committed by Hamas terrorists.
The Times of Israel reports that the Wexner Foundation philanthropy group has cut its ties with Harvard over the “dismal failure of Harvard’s leadership to take a clear and unequivocal stand against the barbaric murders of innocent Israeli civilians by terrorists last Saturday.”
In New York, Politico reports that at New York University School of Law, the president of the student bar association urged in its newsletter not to condemn “Palestinian resistance”:
This week, I want to express, first and foremost, my unwavering and absolute solidarity with Palestinians in their resistance against oppression toward liberation and self-determination… Israel bears full responsibility for this tremendous loss of life.
After that comment went viral, a major law firm promptly withdrew a plum job offer that had previously been extended to her.
So, in addition to the tragic events of Oct. 7, the aftermath also has some lessons for us.
The notion offered by some in the media that there is a redeeming side to the Hamas obsession with eliminating Israel was effectively debunked by assertions that the unhinged Hamas terrorism was Israel’s fault after all. How can anyone lay that savagery at the doorstep of the victims? How can such depravity be cast in a positive light? What credibility then can we give to their antipathy for Israel? o the same effect the widespread antipathy on college campuses for Jewish students and pro-Israel sentiment.
It is probably too much to expect that those in the media will now take the bull by the horns and become more even-handed on the Israel-Palestinian conflict. But they could. And in all events, perhaps the business world will impose reality check on our future leaders in training.
