By Jonathan Kuttab
Truth is the first casualty in war.
In the “fog of war,” it can sometimes be difficult to find the truth. Serious work has to be done, with access to conflicting sources of information, in order to approximate the truth of what is happening in situations of conflict.
One clear instance of this is the claim, repeated as if it were established truth, that Hamas hides behind civilians and deliberately places its weapons, fighters, and command centers in highly populated areas in order to benefit from the protection they offer and thus make it harder for the “ethical Israelis” to attack them.
Recently, this claim was repeated by Secretary of State Blinken when he commented that Hamas hides its forces in and beneath hospitals, schools, bakeries, residential buildings, mosques, and churches. It seems Israel, therefore, is given carte blanche to bomb said hospitals, schools, bakeries, residential buildings, mosques, and churches, with the excuse that such unmistakably civilian locations have become legitimate military targets.
However, not one bit of objective evidence has been presented by Israel that indeed this is the case.
I must admit that I myself fell for that particular fallacy, knowing that the Gaza strip is so tiny and so densely populated that any “military installation” is by necessity within a mile or two of civilian infrastructure by mere operation of geography. The truth, however, as presented by Palestinian-American legal analyst George Bisharat, is that no evidence whatsoever has been provided to date that Hamas uses its own people as human shields or that its elusive tunnels are in fact built under particular hospitals and schools. In a recent interview, Norwegian doctor Mads Gilbert, with 16 years of experience working at Al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza, denounced the Israeli claim that the hospital doubles as a Hamas command center. He asked to be shown any evidence or proof to the claim, a claim Israel has been making since at least 2009. I realize it is quite possible that there may be such cases, but we have not been provided any objective evidence of them. Rather, we are expected to accept such claims as an article of faith.
The twisted beauty of the “human shields” accusation is that it justifies and exonerates Israel for its massive attacks on civilian facilities and the horrendous toll they take on the lives of ordinary Palestinian men, women, and children, while simultaneously maintaining an air of plausibility given Gaza’s geographical limits. In fact, this claim deftly shifts the blame for such horrific casualties directly to Hamas, presenting the group as being totally callous to the suffering of their own people and not just murderous towards Israelis. Israel even uses this method “proactively” by announcing to the world, for example, that Hamas has a major command and control center under the Shifa Hospital. In doing so, Israel justifies its ordering of the hospital’s evacuation, as well as all other hospitals, and thus prepares the global public for its eventual bombing of the hospital—all without providing any evidence.
Furthermore, the accusation provides “moral cover” for what is in reality a genocidal call for revenge against the Palestinian people as a whole. We are shocked that even doctors (90 of them!) have signed a letter asking the Israeli army to attack and destroy all Palestinian hospitals!
Part of what has allowed this narrative to remain so dominant and unchallengeable within the global discourse is the criteria used for believing or disbelieving the news. Statements by Israeli commanders and nebulous “intelligence sources” are taken at face value, even though Israeli officials are known to have repeatedly lied time and again (remember the Shireen Abu Akleh case). Meanwhile, their vaunted intelligence agencies have failed spectacularly to predict, much less locate, Hamas’ tunnels, leaders, and military capabilities. When Israeli leaders claim they are bombing Hamas targets, it is reported as fact. This is so even though the victims are overwhelmingly women and children. No evidence is given that any weapons or fighters were in fact destroyed, as Israel announced it has already bombed 1400 “Hamas targets”.
By the same token, Palestinian sources, including the Palestinian Ministry of Health—which keeps meticulous records of the deaths of Palestinians—is cynically treated by President Biden with skepticism (“I don’t know if their figures are correct”). The media repeats this skepticism, dutifully pointing out that the Ministry is “Hamas-led,” when in fact the Ministry has had an impeccable record of truth and accuracy in its reporting, is comprised of members from multiple parties and none, and it publishes the names, identity card numbers, gender, and approximate age of all the persons it reports as martyrs.
For us, we must take extra care in our consumption of news reports that we vary our sources, to never exclusively rely on the corporate media, to access through the internet such additional sources as the BBC, both Al Jazeera and even Haaretz, and various other non-Western sites as we critically seek to approximate the truth. Always, we must demand evidence and be willing to question the veracity and bias of all sources.
In all cases, we must insist on displaying Christ-like care for all God’s children and mourn the loss of each and every human being, most especially children and noncombatants. We must continue to resist any effort to demonize and dehumanize any population or group, even if we disagree with their political perspective.
Many blessings,
Jonathan Kuttab, FOSNA Executive Director