Much of the world’s media now seems to agree that Israel is deliberately starving the people of Gaza. Many Catholic media outlets are saying the same thing. This is a very serious charge, and I think Catholics should be careful about jumping to conclusions about this complicated situation.
Not that there is no food crisis in Gaza. There is. Yet it’s widely acknowledged by Mid-East experts that if the people of Gaza aren’t getting enough to eat, the fault lies mostly with Hamas, not Israel. For years, Hamas has been intercepting aid supply trucks, stealing the cargo, and using it to feed their own families and fighters. Then they take what they don’t need and sell it to ordinary Gazans at exorbitant prices.
According to the United Nations Office for Project Services, the vast majority of UN aid was never delivered to the Gazan people. Instead, it was hijacked by Hamas. The UNOPS revealed that between May 19 and August 5 of this year, only 300 of 2,600 aid trucks got to their destinations. The rest (88%) were “intercepted” by Hamas. The record of one UN provider, the World Food Program, is even worse. Since May, 93% of 29,673 pallets were “intercepted.”
The profits from selling hijacked food soon became a major source of income for Hamas. In order to prevent any further exploitation of aid supplies, the U.S. and Israel set up their own distribution organization, the Gaza Humanitarian Fund (GHF) which has since delivered millions of meals to Gazans. In retaliation, Hamas began to shoot and kill Gazans who lined up for the food. They also tortured and killed many of the GHF workers. As Palestinian Media Watch reported, “Hamas is systematically murdering Gazan residents attempting to access food supplies.”
Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them
Without going into other examples of the media’s one-sided reporting of events in Israel and
Gaza, ask yourself this: “Do I trust the media to tell the full story about other important events?” For example, we now know that most of the major media outlets knowingly lied about the Russia collusion hoax — the fake news Democrat Party operatives manufactured in order to impeach President Donald Trump.
Fake news is not always political in nature. Some of it is designed to undermine traditional beliefs about sex, marriage, family, and gender. We were told that there were 52 different genders, that girls could become boys, that men could become pregnant, and other unscientific fantasies. But even though many realized it was a lie, they went along with the pretense. Why? Because big media is very powerful. You knew that Bruce Jenner was a man, but all the media (including conservative shows) insisted that he had somehow become a woman named “Caitlyn.” And most people are not inclined to do battle with goliaths like Fox News, CBS, and ABC.
The whole transgender fake-out even had (and still has) the official seal of approval of the medical profession. We are reminded of this every time we have to fill out the patient information form at the doctor’s office. “Male,” “Female” or “Other”? “Choose one.” You might have been tempted to make a joke out of it, but you realized that many people have been fired or worse just for using the wrong pronouns at work. Meanwhile, social workers stand ready to take your son into custody if you won’t go along with his desire to become a girl.
But many Catholics who are intelligent enough to see through these “official” lies are sure that the left-leaning world media can be trusted to tell us the truth about the Israeli-Hamas conflict—or about the Israeli-Iran conflict.
The Good Old Days
In regard to the latter, consider Tucker Carlson’s soporific interview with Iranian President Mosoud Pezeshkian shortly after the U.S. launched its B-2 bomber attack on Iranian nuclear sites. As one commentator observed, “it [was] a propaganda stunt designed to whitewash a brutal regime and legitimize its handpicked mouthpiece.”
Yet Life Site News, a widely read Catholic news site, ran a lengthy piece showcasing Mosoud’s reassuring replies to Carlson’s softball questions. Here are a couple of samples: “My heartfelt opinion is that we need to live in peace and harmony during this short and limited time granted to us by God Almighty,” and “We have always put our trust in God, and in God we trust.”
When Carlson asked about Iranian crowds chanting “Death to America,” Pezeshkian replied: “They don’t mean death to the people of the United States … they mean death to crimes, death to killing and carnage … death to insecurity and instability.” After so many platitudes, one almost wishes to hear one of Ayatollah Khomeini’s fiery radio speeches, like the one in which he declared: “People cannot be made obedient except with the sword! The sword is the key to paradise, which can be opened only for the Holy Warriors!”
Lopsided Coverage
One gets a very different impression of the Iranian regime and religion from reading the Ayatollah’s words than from reading Pezeshkian’s comforting replies to Carlson’s questions. If Life Site News (which I usually agree with on most issues) had only run the one flattering piece on Iran’s president, I wouldn’t make an issue of it. But the truth is, Life Site runs dozens of articles every month condemning Israel while going light on Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah, and other Islamic enemies of Israel.
Moreover, Life Site and other Catholic media have much less to say about the way Muslims persecute Christians in the rest of the world. The crimes that the world media lays on Israel’s doorstep — murder, starvation, population displacement — happen every day in Sudan, Somalia, Nigeria, Mozambique, the Congo, Syria, Iran, Pakistan, Indonesia, and other places.
Many Catholic sites shy away from reporting on the worldwide jihad against Christians. Moreover, even when they do report on these atrocities, Catholic media carefully avoid naming the aggressor — which in almost all cases are Muslims. One gets the impression that they would prefer to stick with safer topics like Lenten devotions and the lives of saints.
This is not the case with Life Site. It does cover the persecution of Christians, and it does name names. However, the problem is that it runs many more pieces on Israel’s victimization of Gazans than on the victimization of Christians by Muslims. My own rough estimate is that the ratio is about four anti-Israel pieces for every piece on Muslim persecution of Christians.
It’s no use arguing that Catholics already know about the Islamic war on Christians. Some have a vague awareness, but most know little if anything about the subject. And most know next to nothing about Islamic beliefs and practices. If they did, they would realize that the Hamas massacre of October 7, 2023 — with its murders, rapes, and targeting of families and children — was not an aberration but standard operating procedure when Muslims attack non-Muslims. Moreover, Gazans tend to be even more fundamentalist in their faith than their ideological cousins in Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. It would be exceedingly odd if they were nothing more than the innocent victims presented in some Catholic media.
In other words, the war in Gaza should not be allowed to distract us from seeing the larger picture — namely, that it is part of a civilizational struggle between Islam and non-Muslims that is 1,400 years old and will continue no matter who wins in Gaza. If Israel were to lay down its arms tomorrow, that struggle will go on until, in the words of the Quran, “all religion is for Allah” — or until the non-Muslim world comes to its senses.
William Kilpatrick is the author of Christianity, Islam, and Atheism: The Struggle for the Soul of the West, and a new book, The Politically Incorrect Guide to Jihad. His articles have appeared in Crisis, Catholic World Report, the National Catholic Register, First Things, FrontPage Magazine and other publications.
