In the Media

Daily Telegraph – 23 October 2024

Immediately after the October 7 Hamas atrocities, two questions were predominant – how did it happen, and how could people treat others so horrifically and barbarically? However, as Israel carried out its war of self-defence to ensure Hamas could not fulfil its vows to conduct similar attacks “again and again”, and to stop Hezbollah’s rockets keeping Israel’s northern residents homeless, the conduct of others raised other, equally baffling questions.

The ratio of combatants to civilians killed in Gaza is somewhere around one to one, far better than other modern urban warfare campaigns, because Israel takes unprecedented measures to evacuate civilians away from the fighting. So why harshly condemn Israel for civilian casualties, and why ignore the Hamas human shield tactics responsible for those casualties?

Why do so many treat claims from the Hamas terrorists as gospel truth, even after they’ve been repeatedly proven to be liars, yet treat Israeli statements as unverified claims?

Why continue to parrot the Hamas lie that 70% of the Gaza casualties are women and children when the UN abandoned that statistic in April?

Why, having rightly demanded Hamas have no role in Gaza’s future, demand a ceasefire that would leave it in power?

Why, in all the footage from Gaza, do we never see any armed Palestinians?

Israeli statistics show ample food is entering Gaza. The UN-linked Integrated Food Security Phase Classification organisation, which assesses famine, found there is no famine there. Moreover there is overwhelming evidence Hamas steals more than half of all aid. So why keep accusing Israel of deliberately causing famine in Gaza?

Jewish communal groups have made it clear they agree with the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism where it states that criticism of Israel that is similar to that made against any other country is not antisemitism. So why do papers like the Age, Sydney Morning Herald and Canberra Times insist on running columns, opinion pieces and letters belittling antisemitism by falsely claiming Zionists always label all criticism of Israel as antisemitism? And why do so many critics of the IHRA definition insist it labels all criticism of Israel as antisemitism despite it saying the exact opposite?

In fact, why are people who would never tell women what constitutes misogyny, or define homophobia for members of the LGBTQI community, or indeed explain to any minority the boundaries of bigotry they suffer, so keen to tell Jews what is and isn’t antisemitism?

Why are some media outlets so much more interested in the views of a tiny fringe of anti-Israel Jews than those of the Jewish mainstream?

Why keep claiming the International Court of Justice said it was plausible Israel is committing genocide after the Court’s former President clarified the Court said only that the Palestinians had a plausible right to be protected from genocide?

If the anti-Israel demonstrators are really peace protestors, as they claim, why don’t they ever demand Hamas or Hezbollah cease fire, or Hamas release the hostages?

Why insist only UNRWA can meet the needs of Gazans, when all other refugees are catered for by UNHCR, which is not thoroughly infiltrated by terrorists as UNRWA is?

How can International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor Karim Khan defend seeking arrest warrants for Israeli leaders by saying it’s important to hold all countries to the same standard, when the ICC’s jurisdiction only covers leaders of states whose legal systems can’t hold them to account, as Israel’s clearly can? In other words, he is holding Israel to a different standard.

Why did those who insisted on focusing “All eyes on Rafah”, when Israel was preparing to attack Hamas’ last stronghold there, suddenly take their eyes off Rafah when Israel successfully evacuated its civilians, and when Hamas murdered six hostages there?

Why is it only an “escalation” in Lebanon when Israel hits back after nearly 12 months of unprovoked rocket, missile and drone attacks?

Why was it cause for celebration when the US kills terrorist leaders such as al-Qaeda and ISIS heads, but cause for concern when Israel kills their Hezbollah and Hamas equivalents Hasan Nasrallah and Ismail Haniyeh?

Why call Israel’s pagers attack a war crime when only Hezbollah terrorists were given pagers? Are those making this claim really just disappointed with Israel’s success against Hezbollah?

Why is it we never heard about the many deliberate attacks on UNIFIL by Hezbollah and its supporters over the years, but it’s such a big deal when its personnel get unintentionally hit by Israeli crossfire? And why is UNIFIL so adamant about staying to do its job now Israel is urging it to evacuate for its people’s safety, when for years it did practically nothing as Hezbollah massively rearmed in contravention of UN resolutions, even building tunnels and other military infrastructure within 100 metres of UNIFIL bases?

There’s really one question that covers all this: Why is Israel subjected to different standards from every other country?

Jamie Hyams is Director of Public Affairs at the Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council