Robert Besser is a news editor who has worked in television and newspapers in the United States, Asia and the Middle East.
As Israel prepares for the inevitable return to combat in Gaza, perhaps our country’s leaders can at last acknowledge that the foreign media willingly provides a worldwide platform to magnify lies and hatred about Israel and Jews, and then let our government act to close down all international media coverage of the expected combat in Gaza.
Israel has no choice except to learn the hard lessons from the foreign media coverage following October 7. We have seen that the foreign media has found infinite ways to demonize Israel and the IDF by reporting half-truths and total lies.
And the planned result of these journalistic lies is that the IDF has been forced to fight with one hand tied behind its back---slowing the progress of the war and guaranteeing additional Israeli casualties, all while the foreign media works non-stop to prevent an Israeli victory.
The old phrase of our grandparents said the gentile always says what he truly thinks about the Jews after he has been drinking. So the foreign media told us in Israel exactly what they think of our country during the ongoing October 7 crisis.
We do not forget how quickly the New York Times, BBC, CNN and Associated Press published a dangerous blood libel against the Jewish people when a Hamas missile fell short on October 17, 2023, striking a parking lot outside Gaza City’s Al-Ahli Hospital.
Using this explosion as an opportunity to scream that all Israel are child-killers, each of these news outlets immediately posted stories that a Jewish missile had killed 500 Arabs.
But in truth, at that moment these newsrooms abdicated being news organizations and happily became Hamas propaganda outlets.
Journalism 101 class teaches that reporters must confirm that an event actually occurred and, when people have been harmed, seek to personally verify the number of casualties and dead.
Above all, reporters must leave their offices and, at the minimum, try to witness the event they are reporting on.
However, on October 17 the western news organizations turned their backs on the idiotic term “journalistic ethics,” just as they have thousands of times since, when they quoted casualty figures from the Hamas health ministry.
Indeed, all major news organizations happily parroted Hamas propaganda that 500 Arabs were killed by the Jews. To date, however, it has not been proven that even 50 died in the explosion. It has been confirmed that its source was a terrorist group, not Israel. And few of these news organizations ever acknowledged their journalistic malpractice.
Further, in journalism news organizations must never use sources that have proven themselves untrustworthy.
Yet, fully aware that Hamas numbers on Arab wounded and killed are wildly inaccurate, foreign news organizations broadcast these lies worldwide, screaming at us that they are no longer journalists, but propagandists.
Today, there is no time for professorial nuance and context. Rather, we understand that the lying and hatred at the New York Times, BBC, Reuters, CNN and Associated Press is motivated both by a desire to see Israel lose the war, and the leftist media’s hope to see Israel destroyed.
Let us recall over the decades, how many times have major news organizations failed to include Israel on their print and broadcast maps of the region? This is not a mistake, but rather their shared leftist fantasy.
Forget their insincere apologies. We know who these news organizations are, and we know what they want. And simply put, they want us dead. They want our children dead.
In truth, we can smell the media hate. From Alexandria to Rome, from Madrid to Lisbon, through Russia, Ukraine, Poland, France and Germany, we trusted our instincts to know when they wished us dead. And so we must again believe in our instincts when it comes to the hatred displayed by the foreign media.
In today’s world, the way the ‘Let’s Get The Jew’ game is played by the foreign media is first they report a lie, such as the October 17 hospital bombing, then they keep the story going day after day by seeking out condemnations of the Jews from world leaders, UN officials, church dignitaries and always self-righteous university professors.
So how do we prevent the foreign media from again handcuffing the IDF, as they did during the first round of Gazza fighting?
Let us do as the British did during the Falklands War and only allow stories and pictures that are good for us to be transmitted. All others should be discarded.
And let us behave like the Americans during their Iraq wars and allow no journalists access to battlefields until they have been scrubbed clean of death.
And if Israel wants to behave like a really big boy on the international scene, they can follow another example from the Iraq war and turn off-on-off news satellites so that international news organizations cannot be guaranteed they will receive timely news.
And how will we respond when the foreign media and western countries scream that Israel does not believe in freedom of the press?
Well, we might remind the western savages that they do not seem to mind the lack of freedom of the press in Jordan, Egypt, Kuwait, Bahrain, Abu Dhabi, Dubai, Oman…..and the list goes on and on.
But the world certainly will scream if it is Israel who does not allow these news organizations to behave as platforms to magnify Hamas lies.
The media’s message is very clear. They can live with a world full of totalitarians closing down the press….but never allow Jews to do it.
In truth, the foreign media must be shut down because they have chosen to place themselves on the side of Hamas.
And the foreign media must be shut down because they loudly proclaim that they no longer follow standard journalistic practices and are no longer legitimate news organizations.
And let Israel close down the foreign media because of the many, many lies they have transmitted worldwide since October 7, as we at last understand that they wish to see us disappear.
And above all, let us close down the foreign media because if the IDF is allowed to use its full force to quickly finish the war, then countless Jewish soldiers will have their lives spared and will be able to return to their loved ones.
There has been enough Jewish blood shed since October 7. Let Israel again take control of our destiny by recognizing who our enemies are and what must be done so we will be victorious.
And that means acting without compromise to at last end the foreign media’s willing partnership to broadcast Hamas lies, which is an integral part of the eternal campaign to destroy Israel.
May the Holy One, Blessed is He, preserve and rescue our fighters from every trouble and distress and from every plague and illness, and may He send blessing and success in their every endeavor. May He lead our enemies under our soldiers’ sway and may He grant them salvation and crown them with victory. And may there be fulfilled for them the verse: For it is the Lord your God, Who goes with you to battle your enemies for you, to save you.