If you glanced at your push notifications or scrolled through verified Twitter over the weekend, you likely saw reports granting equal treatment to the nation of Israel and terrorists with Hamas in the Gaza Strip who launched some 700 rockets targeting southern Israel in less than 48 hours.
The BBC ran a story describing the situation as a “Gaza conflict” and CNN published articles with headlines — “Israel defense forces strike dozens of targets in Gaza” — that could lead an uninformed reader to believe, based solely on headlines, that the Jewish state acted unprovoked.
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), who has a history of making anti-Semitic statements, drew a moral equivalence between Israel and Hamas in a tweet posted Sunday, describing the “humanitarian crisis in Gaza” as “unsustainable.”
Responding to the way the situation was characterized, conservative commentator and author Ben Shapiro rebuked those who seemingly use Israel as a political tool, taking issue with attacks on Jewish people in some situations (like at the synagogue shooting in California), but shifting their positions when the attacks are carried out by Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
After facing intense firing from the Gaza Strip, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) strategically targeted more than 350 “terrorist leaders and operatives” and “terrorist buildings,” according to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The double standard, as well as the obtuse reporting about the situation in Israel, reveals a “lack of seriousness about Jew-hatred,” Shapiro argued:
Proving they are not acting in good faith, not long after agreeing to a cease-fire with Israel, which lifted restrictions for civilians as a result of the agreement, Hamas sent an arson balloon into the Jewish nation.
The conflict over the weekend marked the deadliest since 2014. The Israeli government has confirmed four deaths and the Palestinian Health Ministry is claiming at least 23 Palestinians have died.