23 Comments

Pardon m’y French, but this is fucking heartbreaking. And an outrageous calumny. “You can’t unfire the starting gun.” Hamas understands the media and social media and used it …uses it in their war propaganda by being the first to get out the lie.

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It's absolutely heartbreaking.

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There was a very lively discussion about this last night on Nicolle Wallace’s show on MSNBC . The NYT clearly effed up on this one.

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Missed that, but they really did.

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There was a very lively discussion about the role of the media in these very dangerous times on Nicolle Wallace’s program last night on MSNBC. The NYTs cleared effed up on this one.

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Marshall McLuhan was right.

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Attribution of a claim dies not denote veracity, as you know, e.g., "Trump denied the charges.." You ought to be well aware that Israel too lies in its public announcements. This is reported in the responsible media. The trouble I ser here is that you're carrying water for the Zionist zealots (mostly fundamentslist) Christisns) who portray Israel only as a victim vis a vis the Palestians, which you must know is inaccurate. Where were you on two-state the last thirty years, the last eight years, the last two years? Busy justifying Israel''s collective punishment. Sad. If Dems weren't busy calling people like me anti-semitic and trying to criminalize BDS. we might have avoided October 7.

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Oct 21, 2023Liked by Tom Watson

Where is Hamas on 2-state solution? Read its charter. It not only calls for the destruction of Israel, but explicitly for murdering Jews. Clearly BDS should not be criminalized, and Palestinians are deserving of political self determination (and so are Jews) and dignity that Israel has denied them, but the notion that anything to do with BDS could have prevented Oct 7 seems quite absurd to me.

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Agree.

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We'd never have "avoided October 7th" because it was motivated by hatred of Jews and run by a gang bent on close-in murders on a mass scale. That's the motivation.

I'm not carrying anyone's water and wouldn't suggest the same of you, Charles. That's disrespectful.

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You mean like when CNN “journalist” said the prime minsters office confirmed there were decapitated babies and then apologized if anyone was outraged because it actually wasn’t confirmed? Fact is you can’t trust the main stream media at all. Anyone who strays from the official narrative is fired and replaced by a prestitute who will stay in line with the narrative. We saw this all through covid. It’s war propaganda and the war is against us and our minds are the target.

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I would note that the babies were, in fact, murdered.

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I would refer you to this report by Robert Inlakesh who lives and reports from the occupied Palestinian Territories for many years.

https://www.thelastamericanvagabond.com/disinfo-to-justify-gaza-massacre/

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No doubt. But this "what about" interjection doesn't make the hospital disinformation disaster any less heinous.

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Oct 19, 2023·edited Oct 19, 2023

The Times did not "take the word" of Hamas. Neither did the

Journal or the Post, which had similar headlines. I agree that the wording should have been different, but attribution was, in fact, in the headline itself. I also agree that the imperfect wording encouraged premature outrage. But your characterization is as overwrought as what you're accusing the Times of. You're using your prestige to obscure the Palestinian cause, denying the humanity of civilians killed there, burying the issue of two-stare, which has languished for decades due to American leaders like Biden, who give only lip service to the Palestinian cause, resulting in the despair, privation, suffering, and desperation of the Palestians now, just the conditions for radical actors like Hamas, which it was Bibi',s intent all these years to bring to the fore, so he wouldn't have to negotiate.

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The attribution was the Health Ministry, which is in fact, controlled by Hamas. We don't have to be naive about this.

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So no blame on Palestinian leadership for the lack of a 2-state solution since the 1920’s? Really?

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Oct 19, 2023·edited Oct 19, 2023

Tom, you are right to point out that the Paper of Record gets it wrong sometimes and that its prestige and influence are dangerous when it misses the mark on matters of grave concern. In this case I think your indictment of the Times is overwrought. Their headline is accurate. Palestinian sources did blame Israel for the hospital explosion. In fact, the cause for the blast has still not been confirmed as Biden -- and the Times -- have it, though it appears from available signs that it was likely to be an errant Palestinian rocket that is the culprit. (We should not trust official statements as the final word, from either sude.) Comparing Times coverage of this to how the paper covvered the threat of Iraq in 2003 (and the trouble with Hillary in 2016) is breathtakingly overstated. It does not compare at all. Moreover, the Times coverage of the plight of the Palestinians has been seriously skewed in favor of the Israel cause, one of the primary causes we can say that the Palestinian state of affairs went almost completely ignored all these years, fomenting rage among the people over when the the US would finally live up to its two-stare promise. Comparing a lone and lonely fugure like Omar, desperate on behalf of her brethren, with the likes of Judith Miller-manipulating Dick Cheney, the evil mastermind of the war you protested, is overkill on an astonishing level. I'm shocked at how all in you're going for the militant Zionist line, far beyond natural and appropriate support for Israel. It is so unbalanced and unhelpful. Please reconsider.

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I call 'em as I see 'em Charles. I'm FAR, FAR from "the militant Zionist line" - indeed, I align pretty much with the progressive J Street as well as many organizations urging restraint in Gaza. Frankly, I think it's the folks who have grown stuck in the ruts of supporting anything aligned with opposition to Israel, up to and including viewing Hamas as related in any way to a liberation movement, who have strayed from core beliefs.

Yes, the NYT error was gross and short-term but telling. A sad state of affairs.

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Oct 19, 2023·edited Oct 19, 2023

Telling, but nowhere near what Miller and Cheney did, which resulted in hundreds of thousands dead. I fail to see the meager and largely invisible support for Palestinians suffering under Occupation to be anything close to the threat of the Occupation itself, which you say nothing about while denying that innocent Palestinians have been killed by Israel. You may not truly support the militant line but today, comparing Omar with Cheney, you have outdone yourself. You're putting out propsganda, not analysis or opinion. It's shocking to me.

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Technically correct, but not really so. The tack-on of “Palestinians Claim” was a mere hedge. (Would it not be a hedge it would precede the assertion.) Tom is correct to have read it as the Times had intended it to be read: a sensational and essentially “factual” report. But it was dangerously incautious, as the danger has been proven to be.

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It was their lead story. They "found" an old photo to promote it. Awful.

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As Ted Lieu said: "News organizations that immediately took the word of a Hamas controlled entity falsely accusing Israel of striking the hospital should apologize. These news organizations not only got it wrong, their rush to judgement caused other nations to wrongly interpret the hospital blast." That's exactly right.

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