The ‘Moderate’ Genocidal Madmen of Hamas By Brittany Bernstein
https://www.nationalreview.com/news/the-moderate-genocidal-madmen-of-hamas/
Welcome back to Forgotten Fact Checks, a weekly column produced by National Review’s News Desk. This week, we look at more sympathetic media reporting on Hamas and cover more media misses.
Attention Reporters: There’s Nothing Moderate about Hamas
Israel’s latest attacks on Hamas will not permanently wipe the group out, the New York Times reports. Instead, the group may gather itself and come back “more radicalized.”
“The assassinations of two Hamas leaders may be a short-term setback, analysts say, not enough to prevent the group from re-emerging intact — and possibly more radicalized,” a subheading reads.
“Israel’s decades-long targeted killing campaigns against its Palestinian and regional rivals have a contested record: Critics have long argued the tactic has simply created room for new parties or leaders to emerge as Israel’s main foes — often with ever more radical forces replacing them,” the story goes on to explain.
How, exactly, this group could become any more radical than it already is remains a mystery. It’s been just ten months since Hamas killed 1,200 people and took nearly 250 hostages during its infamous October 7 terrorist attacks against Israel.
But the article continues a line of rhetoric seen in several recent obituaries of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, who has been described by a handful of outlets as “moderate.”
Haniyeh was killed during a visit to Tehran. While no one has claimed credit for the attack, Israel is believed to have been behind the Hamas leader’s death. A separate New York Times report suggests Haniyeh was killed by an explosive device that was “covertly smuggled into the Tehran guesthouse where he was staying.” The bomb had reportedly been stashed in the guesthouse two months before its detonation.
Reuters reported, “Tough-talking Haniyeh was seen as the more moderate face of Hamas.” But after receiving backlash, it amended the headline to read: “Who was Ismail Haniyeh and why is his assassination a blow to Hamas?”
Yet the story still says that Haniyeh was seen as a “moderate,” and it calls him “relatively pragmatic” compared with other Hamas leaders. He was “the tough-talking face of the Palestinian group’s international diplomacy,” the obituary says.
The Guardian, meanwhile, said Haniyeh was a “moderate figure within the [Hamas] movement, one whose role had become vital in sustained diplomatic efforts to secure a ceasefire.”
And the BBC reported on Haniyeh’s “pragmatic” ways and “tough rhetoric.”
Here at National Review, readers could find an appropriate message about the death of the terror group’s leader: “Good riddance.”
As NR’s editors wrote:
While branded as a “moderate” by the media, that was a relative term, as he still was committed to Hamas’s goal of destroying Israel, supported their terrorist attacks, and helped raise money from Iran to further their objective. He condemned the U.S. killing of Osama bin Laden and was seen on video celebrating the October 7 attacks as they were unfolding. In a speech in January, he said, “We should hold on to the victory that took place on October 7 and build upon it.”
Media watchdog Honest Reporting also quickly refuted reporting that there was anything “moderate” about the Hamas leader, who as stated above, could be seen on video saying “God is Good” in response to the October 7 terrorist attack.
CNN reported that Haniyeh had “felt the personal toll of the war in Gaza,” explaining that Israeli airstrikes had killed three of his sons and four of his grandchildren. And yet, CNN writes, “Haniyeh insisted their deaths would not affect ongoing ceasefire and hostage talks.”
“Whoever thinks that by targeting my kids during the negotiation talks and before a deal is agreed upon that it will force Hamas to back down on its demands is delusional,” he said at the time.
Yet the real reason why is chilling. After the October 7 attack, he appeared on television to say: “The blood of the children, women and elderly . . . we need this blood so that it will ignite within us the spirit of revolution, so that it will arouse within us persistence, so that it will arouse within us defiance and advance . . .”
Haniyeh also promised the group would “lead Intifada after Intifada until we liberate Palestine.”
And then there’s the time he said the quiet part out loud: “The time has come for jihad of the swords; this is the battle for Jerusalem and the al-Aqsa mosque, and not the battle of the Palestinian people, or Gaza, or the people in Gaza.”
In that same speech, he called for financial donations to support jihad, which he called even more important than humanitarian aid. “Dear brothers and sisters, let us call this ‘financial Jihad’ . . . despite the immense importance and Gaza’s need for any aid it can get. This Is financial Jihad . . . the notion of waging Jihad with one’s life and one’s money.”
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