The Washington Post's distorted reporting helps Hamas

Question: What’s even less reliable than a civilian death count by Hamas (issued by the Gaza Ministry of Health, which it controls)?

Answer: A claim by a relative of a terrorist suspect captured in Gaza that he doesn’t belong to Hamas.

Question: Which newspaper treats both claims as entirely credible?

Answer: The Washington Post (and probably many others).

Hamas’ main strategy in its war with Israel now consists of hiding behind civilians and then garnering the world’s sympathy when civilians are killed as a result. Naturally, Hamas has a huge incentive to overstate the number of civilian casualties. Therefore, unless one doesn’t think a terrorist organization that murders, rapes, and kidnaps civilians would lie, one shouldn’t give any credence to Hamas’ claims about civilian deaths.

Yet, the Washington Post treats such claims as true. And it has pushed back repeatedly against those who question them, including Joe Biden.

Family members have even more reason to lie about whether a relative held by the IDF as a terrorist suspect belongs to Hamas. The propaganda incentive is present — those evil Israelis are rounding up innocent Palestinians.

More importantly, there’s a huge personal incentive to deny the Hamas affiliation of a captured son, husband, uncle, or cousin. Who would want to admit that their close relative is a terrorist once he is captured? (Beforehand, this might well be something to brag about.) Anyone would want to proclaim a captured relative’s innocence in the hope of bringing pressure for his release.

Yet, the Washington Post treats such claims of innocence as entirely credible.

I’m sure that Israel has swept up a few non-Hamas Palestinian, just as I don’t doubt that the occasional Afghan we captured and took to Gitmo after 9/11 really was just a shepherd in the wrong place at the wrong time. In fact, Israel has released a few of the Palestinians it captured because it concluded (based on more than testimonials from their families) that they aren’t Hamas fighters.

But the Post’s reporting invites its readers to conclude that innocent Gazans are being unjustly held as a matter of course — a charge supported only by the unreliable say-so of Gazans trying to protect their loved ones.

Erick Erickson now labels the Washington Post “pro-Hamas.” I won’t go that far. What I will say is this: Through its distorted reporting, the Post generates sympathies that reduce the likelihood Israel will be able to fulfill its mission of destroying Hamas as a fighting force that can engage in future terrorism against Israel. Thus, whatever the Post’s intentions, it is helping Hamas through unfair reporting.

The sympathies the Post helps generate affect the Biden administration’s relations with Israel. Indeed, Jake Sullivan was in Israel this week insisting that the Israelis must "transition to the next lower intensity phase in a matter of weeks, not months."

So far, indications are that Netanyahu and his team are rejecting Sullivan’s demand — as, of course, they should. Defense Minister Yoav Gallant reportedly told Sullivan that the war against Hamas in Gaza will take “more than several months.”

To be clear, I don’t believe that Biden himself has any sympathy for Hamas or for the residents of Gaza. I doubt he has much sympathy for Israel, either. His sympathies are where they have always been — with himself and his family members.

Biden’s current fixation, of course, is on winning re-election. He wants Israel to wrap up the war because he thinks the war is hurting him with Arab-American and Muslim voters.

It is. I wonder, though, whether pushing Israel to wrap up the war before it wants to is actually a wise political move. My sense, for what it’s worth, is that Biden has already lost the hardcore pro-Palestinian vote. Voters in that bloc will hold Biden partially responsible for the destruction and death in Gaza. I don’t see how keeping that level of destruction and death where it is (or is reported to be) wins them back.

As for the softcore pro-Palestinian voters in Biden’s coalition, I think they will remain in, or return to, the fold even if the war drags on for months. The alternative to Biden is almost certain to be Donald Trump. Enough said, I should think.

Accordingly, it seems to me that Biden’s best hope is to keep quietly supporting Israel so as not to erode his support among Jewish voters.

Be that as it may, the drumbeat of anti-Israel reporting by the Post and other mainstream media outlets has had its effect on Team Biden. Fortunately, there’s reason to believe that Team Biden’s resulting drumbeat won’t have much effect on Israel.