Every once in a while, The New York Times manages to report the truth, even when it tries to spin it.
That was the case on Friday, when the progressive “newspaper of record” managed to come clean about how the terrorist group Hamas is making life miserable for its own people.
But then the Times reverted to form with a question only a liberal could ask — and a member of the congressional “squad” caucus can ignore.
The report was headlined “As Gazans Scrounge for Food and Water, Hamas Sits on a Rich Trove of Supplies,” which was almost dangerous accuracy for a Times Hamas headline.
The article noted that “supplies of virtually every basic human necessity” are dwindling in Gaza as Israel maintains a blockade around the cancerous enclave carved into its southern end.
But it made a point of chronicling how “Hamas has hundreds of thousands of gallons of fuel for vehicles and rockets; caches of ammunition, explosives and materials to make more; and stockpiles of food, water and medicine.”
So the bloodthirsty savages who took part in, supported or organized the barbaric massacre of Oct. 7, which left over 1,400 Israelis murdered, have plenty of materials to keep on making war, but the civilians they claim to be fighting for are facing extreme privation that’s only getting worse.
It borders on journalistic honesty — not exactly a specialty of the Times, where slandering Israel is practically its own beat, and as recurrent a theme as smearing American conservatives. But then it falls apart:
“Yet with Gazans facing a humanitarian catastrophe, Hamas’s stockpiles raise questions about what responsibility, if any, it has to the civilian population,” the article stated.
To a normal human being, the answer to that question is self-evident. Hamas is the government of Gaza, thanks to a 2006 election that remains the high point of the group’s democratic history. (It’s actually the only point in the group’s history, since that was the territory’s one and only election. Islamist fanatics aren’t real big on retail politics.)
But at the Times, it’s a mystery. And one the article doesn’t even try to answer.
However, it does describe how Hamas has plenty of fuel for its weapons, electricity to ventilate and light the massive tunnel complex it’s built.
And as far as fuel for humans?
Samir Gattas, described by the Times as “an Egyptian strategic analyst who closely monitors Gaza,” put the matter bluntly: “The Hamas movement cares only about the Hamas movement,” he told the Times. “The public of Gaza mean absolutely nothing for Hamas.”
But according to American liberals — “squad” members like Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar and Rashida Tlaib, it’s the Israeli Defense Forces that are guilty of “war crimes” — whether it’s the myth of a hospital destroyed by an IDF airstrike (It was a Hamas missile that misfired and exploded in the hospital’s parking lot) or the hardships Gaza’s civilians are incurring.
“We all know collective punishment of millions of Palestinians is a war crime. No one can deny that,” Tlaib, a Michigan Democrat, said Oct. 16 while introducing a resolution in Congress calling for a cease-fire in the Israel-Hamas war, according to the Detroit News.
“The answer to war crimes can never be to answer with more war crimes.”
The problem with Tlaib’s reasoning is that the Gazan suffering is not caused by a war crime in answer to a war crime. It’s caused by war criminals in Hamas — who horrified the world with their barbarous attack on Israel on Oct. 7 — inflicting another war crime on their own population.
At Commentary magazine on Friday, senior editor Seth Mandel made the point that Hamas hoarding fuel for its fight is crippling the ability of Gazans to get water, because much of the territory’s water comes from desalination operations using water from the Mediterranean Sea.
That requires electricity, of course, which requires gas, which Hamas has other uses for. Desalination of seawater means life. Hamas prefers to deal in death.
“This is a recipe for a humanitarian crisis created by Hamas. And as that crisis deepens, Hamas will simply let its people die. And despite knowing all this, media and activists and politicians will blame Israel,” Mandel wrote.
Liberals might not be listening. The shrews of the “squad” might not care. But there were plenty of social media users who can see Hamas’ evil hypocrisy for what it is — as well as the Times’ willful blindness:
Let me put it in language even an NYT journalist can understand:
Hamas’ pronouns are “.gov,” so yes, they have a responsibility to the civilian population.
— faitaccompli (@fateaccomply) October 29, 2023
I mean it’s only stealing all of the aid meant for the Palestinian in Gaza, but NYT isn’t opposed to widespread looting and theft so they genuinely don’t know if it’s wrong
— Jbshbs Skskhbs (@JbshbsS23944) October 29, 2023
And funny, the NYT didn’t take that a step further and question why the Israeli government seems more concerned about the plight of Gazan’s than their own elected officials.
— Gandalf Graymatter (@GGraymatter) October 29, 2023
On the most fundamental level, Hamas has a responsibility to its civilian population not to lead its people down a road of starvation, misery and death in the service of an evil cause.
Heck, if anyone really wants to go crazy, it might even be that Hamas, as the government of Gaza, has a responsibility to ensure the public safety of its citizens, some sort of education for its children, and for building some sort of economy that its people don’t have to rely on Israelis for work or on the largess of the world (meaning the American taxpayers) to survive in a generational welfare system that’s been operating for going on three-quarters of a century now.
It has a responsibility not to court wars that will get its people slaughtered en masse, it has a responsibility not to site rocket launchers behind hospitals or near schools or other civility sites that could be targeted in retaliation.
It has a responsibility, in other words, to be a civilized government of civilized human beings.
Apparently, the Times doesn’t expect that of Hamas, and neither does the “squad.” But they both expect it from Israel.
And no spin can change that.
This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.
