US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman: Liberal media sides with Hamas over Trump

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Media pity Hamas protesters, slam Israel

The Federalist staff writer, Bre Payton, discusses the coverage of the Gaza protests.

This past Monday, the United States at long last opened its embassy to Israel in Jerusalem, Israel’s capital. The opening occurred 70 years to the day that Harry Truman led the United States to be the first nation to recognize Israel as a sovereign nation. The event, authorized and directed by President Trump, was a moving tribute to the enduring and unique friendship between our nation and the State of Israel.

Moving our embassy, however, was not just an act of friendship. It was an act that Congress had endorsed. In 1995, both houses of Congress overwhelming passed the Jerusalem Embassy Act urging exactly this action. As recently as last year, the United States Senate re-affirmed the Jerusalem Embassy Act by a vote of 90-0. While past government leaders have argued, from time to time, that the embassy should only move as part of a peace deal with the Palestinians, Congress said no such thing.

Past Presidents Clinton, Bush and Obama all campaigned on the pledge that Jerusalem must always be the capital of Israel. Clinton and Bush also promised to move our embassy to Jerusalem. None of them honored their word. President Trump made a similar promise, but, in contrast to his predecessors, he kept it.

The opening ceremony was a beautiful and uplifting event attended by hundreds and watched by millions. As the ceremony proceeded, there were a few sporadic, peaceful protests from among the hundreds of thousands of Arabs living in Jerusalem. The West Bank remained calm.

The apparent success of the embassy’s opening ceremony enraged the liberal media. Could this be yet another diplomatic triumph by President Trump? The prospect was unbearable.

Hamas to the rescue. These thugs, acknowledged nearly universally as a terrorist organization, had been rioting in Gaza over the past six weeks for purported reasons not connected to the embassy move. They were more than willing to provide the media with a dark side to an otherwise uplifting story.

No nation in the world allows foreigners to storm its border. Period. When the declared intention of the aggressors is to kill that nation’s citizens, it is laughable to even suggest that a forceful response would not ensue.

For weeks, Hamas had been pursuing a direct and unambiguous operation against Israel: On Fridays, after stirring up emotions at weekly prayers, it incited waves of Gaza residents to violently storm the border with Israel, hoping to break through and kill Israeli citizens and kidnap Israeli soldiers. In addition, given the likelihood that these malign efforts would fail, Hamas also created “kite bombs” painted with swastikas that it launched in Israel’s direction when the winds were favorable.

No nation in the world allows foreigners to storm its border. Period.  When the declared intention of the aggressors is to kill that nation’s citizens, it is laughable to even suggest that a forceful response would not ensue.

Regrettably, Hamas convinced impressionable young adults that the border had been breached and directed them to run all the way to Jerusalem and murder their enemies. Thousands unfortunately took up the call and entered harm’s way.

Some 60 Gazans, the overwhelming majority of whom were known Hamas terrorists, lost their lives because Hamas turned them into a collective suicide bomb. They were neither heroes nor the peaceful protesters they were advertised to be.

At least not before the liberal media entered the scene. Desperate for a narrative to discredit the president’s decision to move our embassy to Jerusalem, they broadcast the opening ceremony on a split screen simultaneously displaying the Gaza riots, and condemned the insensitivity of the ceremony’s participants to the carnage that seemed next door on TV but which in actuality was occurring 60 miles away!

The next day, the liberal media vilified everyone associated with the embassy move and glorified the poor Hamas terrorists. Failed diplomats who never brought peace or stability to the region were pulled out of mothballs to regurgitate their calcified thinking. And the most deranged even accused the administration of having blood on its hands.  Tellingly, not a single pundit offered a less-lethal alternative to protecting Israel from being overrun by killers or its soldiers from being within range of pistols, IEDs or Molotov cocktails.

Let there be no mistake. Every life is equally precious, whether Jewish, Palestinian or other. But no nation should ever be called upon to sacrifice its own citizens to preserve the lives of aggressive infiltrators intent on murder and mayhem.

Ironically, Hamas had recently woken up to the fact that most responsible journalists were on to its game and Hamas was considering ending its suicidal assaults on the Israeli border. But seeing the opportunity to curry the front page or the A Block from reporters willing to shed a negative light on our president, Hamas enthusiastically launched its youth back into the fire. So who really has blood on their hands?