Media top headlines May 19
President Biden joking about running over a reporter and more round out today's top media headlines.
More voices on the left are openly questioning how far Israel's right to defend itself goes in the wake of violence between the Jewish state and the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, but pro-Israel voices are calling that rhetoric misguided and dangerous.
In the worst bloodshed in the conflict since 2014, Israel has retaliated with bombing campaigns against Hamas after the militant group fired rockets from Gaza at Israeli civilians, and outrage against Israel is prevalent among liberals and the left flank of the Democratic Party.
"I’d tell them to read Winston Churchill, who said not to confuse the arsonist with the firefighter, because that’s what these people are doing," former Israeli government official Dore Gold told Fox News.
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Israel's foes point to the higher death count on the Palestinian side, Israel's superior weapons and military technology, and the extraordinary political situation in the West Bank and Gaza, as reasons for Israel to stand down. President Biden is facing pressure from Squad members like Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., to end U.S. military support of Israel, and support for the Palestinians has become a litmus test of progressive purity.
The Washington Post ran an analysis piece last week that criticized Israel's Iron Dome missile defense system, acknowledging it's saved Israeli civilian lives from Hamas rockets but fretting it also allows Israel to avoid seeking a political solution to the longstanding conflict.
"Last Week Tonight" host John Oliver accused Israel of committing a war crime when it took out a Hamas building with foreign media bureaus inside and called out the "massive imbalance when it comes to the two sides’ weaponry and capabilities." "Daily Show" host Trevor Noah said Israel should consider how hard it retaliates against Palestinian rocket fire, because it's not a "fair fight."
"I just want to ask an honest question here," Noah said. "If you are in a fight where the other person cannot beat you, how much should you retaliate when they try to hurt you? Honest question."
Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Center told Fox News that people with large microphones who know "zero" about the Middle East should be more cautious with their words.
"They basically have drunk the Kool-Aid, some of them calling Israel a colonial state, which is pretty hard if you're the indigenous people from 3,500 years ago," he said. "Many rockets that Hamas launched fell in their own territory, maiming and killing their own people. Before you go out and just parrot talking points that don't help a single Palestinian, you may want to reflect … People want to be peacemakers? You'd better have your facts straight."
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., penned a New York Times guest essay last week that also took away Palestinian agency for the current violence. While acknowledging a "corrupt" Palestinian Authority government in the West Bank and Hamas' "unacceptable" attacks on Israel, he blamed the Israeli government for not doing more as the authority in the region to promote "peace and justice."
At least 12 Israelis and 213 Palestinians have been killed over the past eight days, including 61 children and 36 women. More than 100 Israelis and 1,400 Palestinians had been wounded as of Tuesday evening.
"We'll do whatever it takes to restore order and quiet, and the security of our people and deterrence," Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Sunday. "We're trying to degrade Hamas' terrorist abilities and to degrade their will to do this again."
Gold, a former adviser to Netanyahu, said no army in the world took as much care as the Israeli Defense Forces to avoid civilian casualties in its conflicts. Hamas, however, has been condemned for its indiscriminate fire at Israeli cities and non-military targets, as well as its employment of human shields.
"It makes me proud as an Israeli," Gold said of Israel's tactics to warn civilians before strikes
Critics have ripped anti-Israel figures for rhetoric about the country's "disproportionate" use of force against Hamas, saying that hardly shows an understanding of the laws of war.
Far-left, anti-Israel commentator Marc Lamont Hill misunderstood a Twitter thread from Israel about the number of Hamas rockets fired at its civilians, thinking instead it was a cheeky defense of what he called Israel's "disproportionate force."
Political commentator Noah Pollak, who previously ran the Emergency Committee for Israel, said such arguments were repugnant.
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"What they really mean is that they want Hamas to win, or they think Israel deserves to be attacked, or they don't think Israel has a right to defend itself," Pollak told Fox News. "But those are barbaric and probably anti-Semitic positions, as they are applied to no other nation. So it's easier to conceal their real beliefs by misusing concepts from international law, hoping it makes them sound impartial and principled. But actually it makes them sound dishonest."
Tlaib, Ocasio-Cortez and other lawmakers have accused Israel of being an "apartheid" state, as have left-wing media figures like MSNBC's Ali Velshi. The Black Lives Matter movement's embrace of the Palestinian cause has won the support of the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) movement that seeks to wage economic warfare on Israel.
No one wants peace more than Israel's people, Cooper told Fox, and he said figures who were using Palestinian talking points were making that goal more difficult. He said the goalposts had shifted dramatically in the United States from a prior debate over how to achieve a two-state solution and address issues like borders and East Jerusalem's status.
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"Hamas, they now have their defenders in Congress. They wrap it around a concern for Palestinian civilians. We share that concern," he said. "People forget that Hamas is a terrorist organization. They don't give a damn about their own people … We need to move the goalpost back to where it was. If you want peace, the only possible solution that's ever made is sense is a two-state solution, side-by-side."
Fox News' Michael Ruiz contributed to this report.
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