In its pro-Hamas reporting, the Washington Post discards even the pretense of objectivity.

David Ignatius, the deep state’s man at the Washington Post, writes:

When I’ve pressed Israeli friends over the years how they can get off this perpetual-motion machine of violence, they often answer with resignation: “It’s the Middle East.” Meaning that violence and hatred are facts of life, military power is the only path to security and “peace” is an illusion.

Ignatius should listen more to his Israeli friends and less to his deep state sources.

He continues:

It’s hard to argue with such cynicism when it comes to the Middle East. But Israelis should ask themselves how well the hard-nosed, forever-war approach has worked in practice.

The answer, I think, is that this approach has worked very well. Israel is a prosperous, modern, innovative society. Its relations with key Arab nations, though set back by the current war, have improved markedly over the years. (The two developments are connected. Israel’s innovative economy is one reason why some of its neighbors want better relations with the Jewish state.)

On a personal note, I can say that my wife’s three Israeli cousins, now around the age of 60, have led happy and largely secure lives. Their eight children, six of whom still live in Israel, are also doing well.

The material advances in Israel since I first visited Israel more than 40 years ago are remarkable. I doubt that many other countries have advanced as stunningly as Israel has during this period.

It’s true that the current situation is quite difficult because of the hostages, the war in Gaza, and the Hezbollah’s bombing in the north. But these difficulties are not the product of a “hard-nosed approach.” They are the consequence of Israel letting its guard down.

Perhaps the assassination in Tehran of Hamas’ political leader will lead to all-out war in the Middle East. More likely, it will not.

Past major attacks on Israel, including the one on October 7, were triggered by its enemies’ sense that the Jewish state was vulnerable, not by an Israeli show of strength. If Iran wants a war with Israel, the time to have started it was when the IDF was bogged down in Gaza, not now when it is mopping things up there.

The mullahs are also mindful that they aren’t safe from assassination. Perhaps Israel has bombs ready to detonate where they live or work, the way it detonated the explosives that killed Hamas’ political leader in Tehran.

Leaders of Hamas and Hezbollah have always been willing to assume the risk of assassination in exchange for the pleasure of killing Jews. I’ve seen no indication that Iran’s mullahs are willing to make that tradeoff.

But at least Ignatius was within shouting distance of an insight when he paraphrased his Israeli friends. The same cannot be said for this article called “Killing of Haniyeh may empower Hamas hard-liners,” in which the Post once again displays its pro-Hamas slant.

The notion that there are other than “hard-liners” among Hamas’ leadership seems laughable. There may be tactical disagreements about how best to kill Jews and destroy Israel, though the Post doesn’t show that there are. But to elevate any such tactical disagreement into a hardliner vs. moderate dichotomy (good terrorist/bad terrorist) is to play Hamas’ game.

In addition to its claim that the assassination of Ismail Haniyeh is a blow to Hamas “moderates,” the Post lodges two other criticisms of the attack. First, the assassination makes a ceasefire unlikely, at least in the short term. Second the assassination won’t harm Hamas because Haniyeh can easily be replaced.

The first point is true, and bad news for Hamas and its beleaguered fighters. Israel, no doubt, understood the likely impact of that assassination on negotiations. Indeed, one of its purposes of the assassination might well have been to derail them.

The second point is also true, but misapprehends Israel’s thinking. Israel doesn’t assassinate leaders like Haniyeh to crush Hamas. Israel’s effort to crush Hamas consists, instead, of killing its fighters and uprooting its infrastructure in Gaza.

Assassinations serve a different purpose. They are retribution. In addition, as suggested above, the assassination of Haniyeh might also have been intended to intimidate (and humiliate) Iran and to undermine ceasefire negotiations.

Finally, I want to highlight this passage in the Post’s article: “At least 39,000 Palestinians have been killed in the [Gaza] war.”

In the past, when the Post presented Palestinian death counts, it added “according to the Gaza ministry of health.” This was misleading reporting because it failed to point out that Hamas runs the Gaza ministry of health. But now the Post has discarded any attribution at all, along with any pretense of objectivity.

The Post has no idea how many Palestinians have been killed in the Gaza war. By nonetheless presenting a death count without attribution the Post is simply serving up Hamas propaganda as the unvarnished truth.

We can add this latest bit of pro-Hamas reporting to the catalogue of offenses against journalism described by Bill yesterday.