J’Accuse Associated Press for its lies about the Gaza aid shootings

Howard Rotberg

J’accuse…!, Émile Zola’s open letter to the President of the Republic, in L’Aurore.  J’accuse Gallica page 1 and 2.  Public Domain

J’accuse, was a celebrated open letter by Émile Zola to the president of the French Republic in defense of Alfred Dreyfus, a Jewish officer who had been accused of treason by the French army. It was published in the newspaper L’Aurore on Jan. 13, 1898. The letter, which began with the denunciatory phrase “J’accuse,” blamed the army for covering up its mistaken conviction of Dreyfus. Dreyfus was eventually cleared years later.

In a recent essay in National Post, Iddo Moed, Israeli ambassador to Canada noted that the Dreyfuss Affair teaches the lesson that false narratives, when left unchallenged, have violent consequences.  Moed writes:

“One need not look far to understand why this lesson is so deeply ingrained in our psyche. Theodor Herzl, the father of modern political Zionism, was moved by what he witnessed during the infamous Dreyfus Affair in late 19th-century France. A Jewish army officer, Captain Alfred Dreyfus, was falsely accused and convicted of treason.

“The campaign against him was led by the virulently antisemitic press — particularly La Libre Parole, which pushed a dangerous narrative: that Jews were inherently disloyal.”

And so, we Jews are sensitive to what is being written about us in newspapers.   And we are sensitive about taking any improper actions even when fighting a war.

With respect to the war in Gaza, Lieutenant General Herzi Halevi, head of the IDF general staff, emphasized in a letter to military commanders on Tuesday the need to uphold values in the conduct of the war. “We act like human beings and, unlike our enemy, uphold our humanity. We must be careful not to use force where it is not required, to distinguish between a terrorist and one who is not, not to take what is not ours — a souvenir or parts of a weapon — and not to shoot revenge videos,” Halevi wrote. “We are not on a spree of killing, revenge or genocide.”

Few local newspapers have the budget to report on foreign affairs and so must rely on news services such as Associated Press or Reuters.

But when such national or international news services are biased or fail to properly do the hard work of investigation, the mischief done is multiplied. My local paper, The Hamilton (Ontario) Spectator carried Associated Press stories each day from June 2nd to June 6th on alleged Israeli army shootings of Gazan civilians seeking food and other humanitarian aid – which was in fact being provided by Israel and the U.S.  No newspaper that I am aware of made a point of explaining that no other country which has been attacked (here on October 7, 2023 in a most barbaric fashion) has supplied such aid to an enemy.

Israel at first allowed in thousands of truckloads of food and other humanitarian materials but then stories arose that Israel was killing certain recipients of this aid rather than completing the humanitarian mission.  In the Associated Press articles the shootings were said to be done by Israeli IDF forces according to unnamed witnesses, health officials and hospital staff (who allowed Hamas to use parts of the hospitals as military bases).  Israel admitted that its troops on some occasions, in the process of imposing order on citizens rushing the location with such citizens including Hamas terrorists, it had to take protective measures and pause the distribution pending better organization.

Rather than appreciating the uniquely moral nature of the Israeli actions, news media, including Associated Press swallowed uncritically Hamas propaganda blaming Israel. The Israelis had to fire in self-defense as Hamas fighters used the situation with its complicit media to create propaganda as part of its media war against Israel.

What is the real story ignored by Associated Press?  The real story is that Hamas is losing the war it started;  many of its leaders have been killed and it is running out of money.  To date money was being generated by Hamas stealing the food aid as it arrived and then reselling it, at exorbitant prices to Gazan families. This helped pay for the fighter’s salaries and the cost of munitions and allowed Hamas to keep fighting.

Israel and the U.S. then created what is called “safe zones” where legitimate parties (not Hamas terrorists) could access the aid.  However, Hamas threatens anyone dealing with those operating the safe zones and, with no unbiased reportage, Hamas gets to portray the Israelis as the villains, although it makes no sense that Israel gives the aid with one hand and takes it away with the other.   If the media chooses not to investigate the truth, the effect is that there is no journalism, just Hamas propaganda.  It is this propaganda that assists the leftist/Islamist coalition that is aiding the antisemitism springing up on university campuses and in certain organizations and social media and even formerly fair media.

It sometimes seems that it is difficult, even impossible to get the truth, even though one side is a liberal democracy with an army subject to strict rules of engagement and the other is a terrorist organization.    In an era of resurgent antisemitism, this past week saw “antisemitic, pro-Palestine murders in Colorado and Washington and continued calls to free “Palestine” by un-freeing and in fact murdering Jews, we must ask what responsibility does the media have to avoid false reporting that exacerbates antisemitism.

And so I accuse Associated Press.   Certainly reporting the truth in a totalitarian state like Gaza is a dangerous endeavour.   But the average person can still access the truth, so why can’t Associated Press?  For example, although I am Jewish, I read or watch CBN, the Christian Broadcasting Network, which obviously is not biased in favour of Jews or Muslims.  Check out its website and in ten minutes you can find out the truth, with video proof, as to who is shooting at who.

The best reporting should be based on common sense.  The leftist/Islamist propagandists would have you believe that Israel is causing a famine in Gaza.  Common sense would indicate that people deprived of food would be thin and emaciated, but the Gazans are getting food somewhere.   If you want to see a real famine, check out the sad pictures of Sudanese starving in a war that seems of little interest to Associated Press.

Common sense says the Israelis are not killing the people they are feeding.  Why would Israel spend the money on food and endanger the lives of its soldiers when they supposedly are going to kill the Gazans anyway?

Hamas has a vested interest in preventing the Gazans from getting the food aid – so that Hamas can continue to steal it and sell it and fund its war effort.  The absence of reporting on this and the obsession with anti-Israel propaganda is based on a naive belief that a nasty terrorist organization should be more believed than a liberal democracy with a free press often opposed to the Israeli government just as our free press criticizes our liberal democracy.

Yair Pinto from CBN reports that Israel is not shooting at civilians unless they go outside of the permitted safe zones and are refusing to heed warnings from the military.  War is a nasty business but this war was forced on Israel.  Israel has a record of warning civilians in an area of military importance to vacate the area.   Where is the reporting on that and where is the reporting that Gazans are now breaking into Hamas warehouses to get back the food Hamas has stolen?