Extreme Media Bias against Israel

On Friday 13th December, the Henry Jackson Society published a report highlighting major problems with the reporting of casualties in the Hamas war with Israel and an astonishing level of bias in the media coverage.

Casualty figures produced by the Hamas-run Gaza Ministry of Health (MoH) were carefully analysed by a group of international scholars, along with 1,378 news articles published from February 2024 through May 2024. Those articles came from major English-language news and media outlets such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, CNN, the BBC, Reuters, The Associated Press and the Australian ABC.

Those articles frequently quoted casualty numbers from the Gaza MoH as though it was a reliable, neutral source of information. But it is fully controlled by Hamas, a terrorist group whose leaders have openly stated that civilian casualties benefit their cause by prompting international pressure on Israel to stop fighting.

One recent example is a BBC report that states:

‘More than 44,800 people have been killed in Gaza since then [7th October 2023],
according to the territory`s Hamas-run health ministry.’

Eighty four percent of the articles that were reviewed failed to make the crucial distinction between civilians killed and combatants killed. Despite Israeli estimates being readily available, only five percent of the surveyed organisations cited those numbers, while ninety eight percent cited the Hamas-run MoH numbers.

In addition, fewer than two percent of the articles mentioned that the figures provided by the MoH could not be verified and were controversial. In contrast, the Israeli figures were questioned in half of the few articles that mentioned them.

This represents an appalling level of media bias against Israel that is long overdue for correction.

Andrew Fox, the Henry Jackson Society report’s author, was interviewed about lies and lawfare against Israel in this November webinar.