The myth of Israel bombing a hospital will live on for decades

The news created shockwaves around the world.

Those evil, genocidal Israelis bombed a hospital in Gaza, resulting in hundreds of deaths. And this was not just a hospital caring for the sick and the wounded. It was a hospital where civilians were taking cover, including many children. Yet these monstrous Israelis targeted it for destruction, causing outrage and cries for vengeance around the globe, especially in the Muslim world.

Of course, that’s not what happened. 

First, Israel doesn’t do that. Israel does not target hospitals and schools. Israel does not single out and destroy innocent non-combatants, especially women and children and the sick and elderly. And especially, at a time like this, Israel would not possibly do something like this. The backlash would be massive, and rightly so.

In stark contrast, Hamas does do these very things. The Hamas terror organization takes delight in slaughtering the innocent in the most grotesque, barbaric ways imaginable, filming it for the world to see. Israel does not.

So, at the very worst, this would have been an errant strike by an Israeli pilot, a tragic event that would cause grief and pain in Israel as well, not dancing and celebrating in the streets. (For those with very short memories, there was dancing and celebration in Gaza over the wholesale butchering of innocent, non-combatant Israelis.) And even if this was an errant strike by the IDF, the fault would still lay at the feet of Hamas since they instigated the war and since they use civilians as human shields.

But this was no errant strike by the IDF. All evidence points toward it being a failed rocket launched by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), as the terrorists slaughtered their own. Visual evidence points to this. Audio evidence points to this. Satellite imagery evidence points to this. Foreign intelligence analyses point to this. 

Unfortunately, none of that will matter to the critics of Israel, who are now raging with indignation against the Jewish state.

The story has already been canonized and the lie has already become truth. Any attempts to set the record straight will be branded as “fake news” or an “Israeli cover-up” or the like. 

Yes, the enemies of Israel now have definite proof that Israel is genocidal, and this false allegation, in turn, will lead only to more bloodshed – both Jewish and Arab – in the years ahead.

In my 1992 book Our Hands Are Stained with Blood: The Tragic Story of the Church and the Jewish People (updated and expanded in 2019), I document many of the lies that have been told about the Jewish people in history (It seems the crazier the lie, the more it is believed). I also document many examples of libelous reporting, falsified claims, and extreme media bias. 

A photo was released by United Press International on Aug. 2, 1982, during the heat of the Israeli-PLO conflict in Lebanon. According to Frank Gervasi (in the book The Media’s War Against Israel):

“The photo showed a 7-month-old Lebanese girl swathed in bandages from head to foot. The caption that accompanied the picture said the child had lost both arms and had been severely burned in the “accidental bombing” of an apartment house in East Beirut by the Israeli Air Force. Outraged, President Reagan put in a personal telephone call to Premier Begin urging him to suspend the Israeli bombing of PLO targets in West Beirut, using the word “holocaust” in the ensuing exchange.”

Naturally, this touching photograph received front-page coverage everywhere, making Israelis look like cold­ blooded killers. 'Just think of their brutal, indiscriminate attack on helpless civilians!'

Unfortunately, while the media was quick to focus on the mistakes of the Israel Defense Forces, (they've made their share of mistakes in Lebanon), the media was slow to report the rest of the facts.

Gervasi tells us that after Reagan's phone call, the Israeli authorities:

“...made a thorough investigation, and on August 22 released a photo of the same child after treatment. The infant had not lost both arms and had suffered no bums and only slight injuries to the wrists. Moreover, the baby, it turned out, was not hurt by an Israeli bomb but by a shell from a PLO battery in West Beirut. The UPI confirmed that the original caption was inaccurate and expressed regret. But whereas the original photo was splashed everywhere, the corrected version barely made the inside pages...”

We’ve heard this story before, and we are hearing it again today. And sadly, once again, anti-Jewish, anti-Israel bias counts more than truth.

The real tragedy of the bombing of the hospital in Gaza is not just that Israel will be falsely blamed and that, worldwide, there could be acts of destruction and hatred, with Jews especially targeted.

No, the real tragedy is that right now, when all of us should be mourning the terrible loss of Palestinian lives and working together to stop the bleeding, both metaphorically and literally, we are expending our energy refuting the lies of the murderers of Israeli babies and children.

May God help us. May He intervene with mercy on behalf of all who are suffering right now in the midst of this war. And may He uproot and expose evil for the world to see. 

Many will remain deceived. But some will see the light.