Washington Post: Oopsie!

Yesterday, I wrote a post called “Anatomy of an Anti-Israel Hoax.”

It took me about 5 minutes of thinking to conclude that the claims that Israel opened fire on Gazans seeking aid from Israel and the United States at an aid distribution site were not accurate. The claim made no sense on its face; the accusations came exclusively from Hamas in the guise of the “Gaza Health Ministry,” and there was video evidence demonstrating that the accusation was false. 

Was I 100% certain that nothing at all happened? No, in fact, I suspected that some awful incident or another did, and I don’t automatically assume that the Israeli military is always straight with us–they, too, use propaganda–but the incident “bore all the hallmarks” of a Hamas misinformation campaign. 

Yet every major news outlet repeated Hamas slurs as fact, and the blood libel spread around the world with the backing of all the Pravda Media. 

Correction: We’ve deleted the post below because it and early versions of the article didn’t meet Post fairness standards.

The background: Early versions of the article on Sunday stated that Israeli troops had killed more than 30 people near a U.S. aid site in Gaza, with the… pic.twitter.com/KseRXgJn6A

— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) June 3, 2025

Now, two days after the event and the flood of reports that slandered Israel and its defense forces, the Washington Post has issued what I have to admit is a pretty good correction to its stories. It is too little, too late, but by far the best we have seen from the media in a very long time. 

Correction: We’ve deleted the post below because it and early versions of the article didn’t meet Post fairness standards. 

The background: Early versions of the article on Sunday stated that Israeli troops had killed more than 30 people near a U.S. aid site in Gaza, with the headline attributing the action to “health officials.” 

The article failed to make clear if attributing the deaths to Israel was the position of the Gaza health ministry or a fact verified by The Post. The article and headline were updated on Sunday evening making it clear that there was no consensus about who was responsible for the shootings and that there was a dispute over that question. 

While statements from Israel that it was unaware of injuries and that an initial inquiry indicated its soldiers didn’t fire at civilians near the site were included in all versions, The Post didn’t give proper weight to Israel’s denial and gave improper certitude about what was known about any Israeli role in the shootings. The early versions fell short of Post standards of fairness and should not have been published in that form.

Credit where credit is due. And criticism where criticism is due, too. 

The Washington Post and every news outlet in the world rely almost exclusively on Hamas reports to back up its reporting from the war zone. They credulously publish the most outlandish claims made by Hamas as if they were fact, employ actual Hamas members as reporters and photographers, and use loaded language that slanders Israel daily. 

One need not believe that Bibi Netanyahu and company’s strategy or war policies are smart, or even moral, to know that Hamas is not a reliable source for facts. If the Pravda Media used half or a tenth as much skepticism when reporting Hamas propaganda as they apply to Israel’s claims, the war would look entirely different to those following it. 

As with so many stories, I often have no idea what is really going on because everybody reporting on it is motivated to lie, and the “journalists” covering the stories are part of the “everybody.” They are not impartial reporters, but motivated players. 

What would be good to see from the Post is not just this correction, but an in-depth story about all the lies Hamas has told them. That would be much more useful.