What Convenient Forgetting

when settled facts evaporate into fog

The anti-Israeli propaganda is becoming so provocatively naked that it’s insulting.

The IDF has just attacked Hamas at and under al-Shifa Hospital in Gaza, they claim, and the Washington Post is skeptical: “Israel has yet to produce findings that corroborate its claims that al-Shifa sits atop a Hamas headquarters and was central to the militant group’s operations in northern Gaza.” Here’s the headline to that story:

Welllll, tunnels? Hamas? Near hospitals? It’s a wobbler. We’re not ruling it out, but there’s really no, like, evidence. A Google-cached headline suggests that the Post originally used the headline to frame the evidence as “scant,” casting clearer doubt on Israeli claims.

The news this week is full of this skeptical language about what Israel is claiming, and about the absence of proof:

Also, here’s a headline from the Washington Post in 2014, nine years before the whole thing turned into one big mystery:

Here’s another headline — same newspaper, same year:

Tell us more, Washington Post! Which hospitals do they do this in? Actual money quote:

Here’s an Amnesty International report from 2015:

As well as carrying out unlawful killings, others abducted by Hamas were subjected to torture, including severe beatings with truncheons, gun butts, hoses and wire or held in stress positions. Some were interrogated and tortured or otherwise ill-treated in a disused outpatient’s clinic within the grounds of Gaza City’s main al-Shifa hospital. At least three people arrested during the conflict accused of “collaboration” died in custody.

Here’s the Washington Post again, in another 2014 story. Seventh paragraph:

At the Shifa Hospital in Gaza City, crowds gathered to throw shoes and eggs at the Palestinian Authority’s health minister, who represents the crumbling “unity government” in the West Bank city of Ramallah. The minister was turned away before he reached the hospital, which has become a de facto headquarters for Hamas leaders, who can be seen in the hallways and offices.

How many examples do you want? Because I can do this all day.

Suddenly, in 2023, something journalists have known as a plain and obvious fact for a decade has become a contested claim with no proof.

They’re lying. Because they’re shameless, amoral propagandists.