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Skewed Stories: The Wall Street Journal’s Biased Coverage of the Israel-Hamas War

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The Journal shows bias by leaving out vital context, whitewashing Hamas, and relying on Hamas propaganda as a legitimate news source.

By Chaim Lax, HonestReporting

Throughout the 10 months of war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza, The Wall Street Journal’s opinion page has been one of mainstream media’s most sympathetic to Israel and its fight against terrorism.

With riveting analyses and a wide range of perspectives, the Journal’s opinions page stands out as a light in the darkness.

However, the same cannot be said of the Journal’s news section. Since Hamas’s invasion of southern Israel on October 7, HonestReporting has called out the Journal numerous times for its subtle (and, sometimes, unsubtle) bias against Israel and its justified war against Hamas.

This bias takes the form of misleading its readers by leaving out vital context, whitewashing Hamas, and relying on Hamas propaganda as a legitimate news source.

The Wall Street Journal’s Bias Against Israel Since October 7

One of the key ways in which The Wall Street Journal’s reporting is biased against Israel is by the omission of vital information needed for its readers to fully understand Israel’s actions and what is happening in Gaza.

For example, in early November 2023, the Journal wrote that even though the IDF had been encouraging Palestinians to leave northern Gaza for three weeks, “many Gazans have been unable to flee due to ongoing Israeli airstrikes,” implying that Israel was solely responsible for putting local Palestinians in harm’s way.

However, what this article failed to inform Journal readers is that many Palestinians were also being prevented from venturing south due to Hamas attacks on those who were trying to flee northern Gaza.

Similarly, a month later, after the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas broke down, the Journal headlined its article “Israel Resumes Combat Operations in Gaza as Ceasefire Stalls,” focusing on Israeli actions and ignoring Hamas’s resumption of rocket fire against Israel that preceded Israel’s resumption of military operations in the Gaza Strip.

It has not only been reports on the current conflict between Israel and Hamas that are misleading and lacking a proper context. For example, in the last weeks of December 2023, the Journal published two articles that featured misleading claims about Israel in general.

The first, about Israeli immigration policy, made it seem as if Israeli law is somehow discriminatory against non-Jews. However, as HonestReporting noted, the naturalization process for non-Jews to become Israeli citizens is similar to the process found in other democratic countries and is not inherently discriminatory.

The second misleading claim was made a week later, when the Journal reported that the imposition of the Israeli/Egyptian blockade of Gaza in 2007 following Hamas’s violent ascension to power ended decades of Gazan employment within Israel, implying that Israel purposefully made conditions harder for innocent Palestinians living in Gaza. This is simply not true as, up to October 7, roughly 18,000 residents of Gaza had permits to work in Israel.

The Wall Street Journal’s misleading pieces on the conflict continued into 2024, with a January report referencing Israel’s conducting “strikes on hospitals and other key infrastructure in its pursuit of the tunnels” with no mention of Hamas’s purposefully embedding itself within these “civilian” sites. A June article referenced the closing of the Rafah crossing since Israel’s invasion of the southern Gazan city but does not mention the fact that Egypt is the one intent on keeping it closed, not the Jewish state.

Another aspect of The Wall Street Journal’s biased reporting is its whitewashing of Hamas.

Even on October 7, as Israeli forces were battling Hamas terrorists in southern Israel, the Journal published an explainer piece on the internationally-recognized terror group that included the false claim that Hamas is focused on creating an independent Palestinian state and has been open in recent years to a two-state solution. The piece ignored the fact that Hamas views this “openness” as a temporary step in achieving its ultimate goal of destroying the Jewish state.

Months later, the Journal once again whitewashed the terror group when it referred to Hamas’s political chief Ismail Haniyeh in a headline as the “leading advocate for a Gaza cease-fire,” ignoring his long history of advancing terrorism against Israelis and his support of the October 7 attack.

Aside from whitewashing Hamas, The Wall Street Journal’s reporting bias also extends to its uncritical reliance on Hamas as a source.

For example, in the immediate aftermath of the explosion at Al-Ahli Hospital in Gaza in October 2023, the Journal’s headline parroted Hamas’s talking points, writing that “Israeli airstrike on Gaza hospital kills more than 500, Palestinian officials say.”

Hours later, it was determined that the explosion was caused by an errant Islamic Jihad rocket and the casualty numbers were much lower than the 500 that the Journal initially reported.

Months later, the Journal continued to take Hamas propaganda for granted, including buying into the claim in May 2024 that Hamas had agreed to a ceasefire (which it had not negotiated with anyone except itself) and repeating the claim that an August attack by the IDF on a Hamas center had killed “dozens of civilians.”

In fact, the Journal’s reliance on Hamas’s uncorroborated facts led it to wonder what could account for the discrepancy between the IDF’s assertions and Hamas’s claims, ignoring the fact that the former is a sovereign democracy’s military while the latter is an internationally recognized terror organization.

The Wall Street Journal’s Poisoned Pen

Aside from its implicit bias, another issue with The Wall Street Journal’s coverage of the Israel-Hamas conflict is its reliance on contributors with a history of hostility to Israel, who help contribute to the distorted framing of the newspaper’s narrative.

In the first month of the war, HonestReporting shined a light on Palestinian journalist Fatima AbdulKarim, who had been affiliated with the Journal since before the war.

Based in Ramallah, AbdulKarim has a history of incendiary social media posts that accuse Israel of “Apartheid” and “ethnic cleansing,” rely on anti-Israel sources like Breaking the Silence and Defense for Children International-Palestine (a front for the PFLP terror organization), and distort the news in order to whitewash Palestinian terrorism and smear Israeli actions.

In August 2024, HonestReporting uncovered the hate-filled social media history of Journal contributor Abeer Ayyoub, who celebrated October 7 on X (formerly Twitter), spread fake news about a kidnapped Israeli general, mocked Israel in its darkest hour, and whitewashed Hamas’s terrorism.

To solidify her anti-Israel presence online, Ayyoub commented in Arabic “Eat shit” on a message of sympathy with Israel by X owner Elon Musk on October 7.

With contributors like Fatima AbdulKarim and Abeer Ayyoub, is it any wonder that there is a noticeable trend of bias that permeates the Wall Street Journal’s ongoing coverage of Israel’s war against Hamas?

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