Conservatives shouldn’t believe the lies out of Gaza

In recent days, major media outlets have had to rescind false or defamatory information about the situation in Gaza. The New York Times used, as an illustration of hunger in Gaza, an erroneous image. This image went viral, serving as a catalyst for the continued narrative that Israel is purposely starving Gazans in order to commit a genocide. They later retracted, but the damage was done. Earlier the Washington Post falsely stated that Gazans seeking food were deliberately shot by the Israeli Defense forces. These are only a few of multiple errors—always against Israel—by major media outlets since October 7th, 2023. At the same time, breathless casualty reports from Gaza—numbers curated by Hamas itself--are delivered almost daily by the media and believed as if gospel truth.

The situation in Gaza is heartbreaking. There is significant food insecurity and humanitarian needs. But while the world would have you believe that it’s completely the fault of Israel, the truth is that much, if not all, the fault lies with the controlling government of Gaza: Hamas. Lest you forget, Hamas is a bloodthirsty terrorist organization whose sole desire is the destruction of Jewish people everywhere. Financed by Iran, they killed the most Jewish people in a single day since the Holocaust. This is the organization whose tales many Western media outlets are merely repeating. This is the organization that just released a video of an Oct 7th hostage, emaciated and digging his own grave in one of their terror tunnels.

What’s more, Israel, while fighting a terrorist organization bent in its destruction, is also expected to feed them. Yet Israel is doing this, airlifting food and creating an entire organization, Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, funded jointly with the United States. GHF director Rev. Johnnie Moore explained recently on Fox News Sunday that the org, while fighting media lies and Hamas threats, has served over 100 million meals. This a new attempt to feed Gazans as the primary method of humanitarian assistance, the UN World Food program, distributed by The United Nations Relief and Work Agency (UNWRA). UNWRA has been criticized by US and Israeli leaders for its deep ties to Hamas, including 19 employees who participated in the October 7th attacks. This UN method is highly ineffective, with most of its aid stolen by Hamas and resold for billions of dollars. Yet, the United Nations, rather than working to improve its model and stop using Hamas as a distribution conduit, attacks and slanders the new Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. GHF has offered to work with the UN to get people fed, but is routinely rebuffed.

This feeds a narrative that Israel is deliberately starving Gaza citizens in order to commit genocide, a charge thoroughly examined and rebutted by John Spencer, the executive director at the Urban War Institute at West Point. In fact, he has said that Israel has conducted urban warfare more with more humane way than most armies through history. Furthermore, Spencer, who has labeled the criticism of Israel full of “double standards and uniformed analysis” says:

Israel is delivering fuel, food, medicine, and water into territory still under the command of the very group that murdered its civilians on October 7, that continues to fire rockets into Israeli towns, and that openly declares it will repeat those atrocities again and again.
There is no precedent for this. None.
Throughout history, wars between nations or between governments and insurgent groups have often involved humanitarian disasters. And in most of those wars, the fighting side does not provide relief to the enemy’s population.

Yet media outlets continue to spin the narrative that benefits Hamas. And political leaders are becoming weak-kneed. France, the UK and Canada support a Palestinian state under the rule of Hamas and many Democratic leaders are folding as well. Over half of Senate Democrats voted against aid to Israel, something left-wing opponents of Israel hailed as “progress.” The hosts of Pod Save America, all former Obama administration officials, recently declared that support for Israel would be disqualifying in the 2028 Presidential primary.

But it’s not merely the left that has abandoned Israel. While President Trump and Republican leaders have maintained steadfastly in support, loud voices on the Right are starting to echo their left-wing counterparts. Tucker Carlson has platformed many of the most dishonest anti-Israel voices and has repeated some of the debunked same media narratives around genocide. U.S. Representative Margorie Taylor Green has issued similarly dishonest bromides. And Joe Rogan, Theo Vonn and others have articulated the anti-Israel position to their large audiences. Thankfully a significant majority of Republicans support Israel, with the strongest support coming from evangelical Christians. But there are signs of this waning, especially among younger conservative evangelicals, many of whom imbibe the content from these anti-Israel influencers.

The situation in Gaza is terrible. War in the Middle East is complex. But while the peace process is complicate, the moral calculus is not. You are either with the genocidal terrorist organizations or with the Jewish people who, in every generation, face threats of ostracization, marginalization, and death. The head of Hamas even admitted this, when he said that, in his view, the heinous acts of Oct 7th have achieved their goal: a world caving to their whims and opposing Israel.

Faithful Christians should care deeply about the plight of the Palestinian people, many of whom are our brothers and sisters in Christ. We should not let that concern keep us from seeing the truth about Gaza. Israel, like any other nation in human history defending its right to survive, is not perfect in its conduct of this war. Yet we must admit that many of the critiques are falsehoods, ugly antisemitism cloaked as empathy.

We should pray for this war to end. We should pray for the destruction of Hamas. We should pray for the survival of Israel. And we should pray for Jews and Palestinians to live in peace.