The latest allegation against the Jewish state, as it battles a Gaza-based terrorist group, is an eye opener. Israel, the accusation goes, is committing grave crimes against freedom of the press. Move over apartheid, genocide, forced starvation, et cetera. This week’s death of an Al Jazeera television star, Anas al-Sharif, is igniting the latest accusations. Accusers are throwing at the Jewish state the First Amendment, the Geneva Conventions, and the kitchen sink.

“At least 242 journalists have been killed in Gaza since the war began,” the United Nations spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, claimed Monday, citing no source. The Committee to Protect Journalists puts that number, again with no citation, at 186. CPJ goes further to specify that “178 of those journalists are Palestinians killed by Israel.” Could it be that these numbers, no matter how seemingly precise, are less than verifiably documented?

Also, who are these “journalists”? As our Novi Zhukovsky and Jotam Confino wrote yesterday, Sharif was no mere reporter for the world’s most pro-Hamas television network. He was also an active member of the terrorist group. The Israel Defense Force first reported his killing, alongside five colleagues, in a Monday strike. It posted a Hamas document that showed Sharif’s name, rank, serial number, and affiliation with the group’s northern command.   

As part of his duties, Sharif commanded a team tasked with sniping at Israeli soldiers and tanks. He also rose to become Gaza’s most prolific and effective purveyor of Hamas propaganda on the Qatari-owned Arabic-language channel. Shortly before the October 7, 2023, atrocities in southern Israel, he predicted “happy surprises” on his Telegram channel. “How great you are,” he praised the murderers, rapists, and torturers nine hours into their assault. 

Israel critics note that journalists are protected under the Geneva Conventions even if they are propagandists. Yet “propaganda that incites war crimes, acts of genocide, or acts of violence is forbidden, and news media that disseminate such propaganda can become legitimate targets,” according to the International Committee of the Red Cross. The same naturally applies to “journalists” who take up arms or actively assist in military operations.

“I don’t care if al-Sharif was in Hamas or not,” the Foreign Press Association’s president, Ian Williams, tells CNN. “We don’t kill journalists for being Republicans or Democrats or Labour.” As the erstwhile scribe for the Nation magazine sees it, it would follow that an American-listed terror organization, which has launched the most destructive Mideast war in decades, is analogous to parties in the world’s leading democracies that engage in political discourse.

That is the fallacy in the latest accusations against Israel. As a former member of the Associated Press’s Jeruslaem bureau, Matti Friedman, sums it up, there are no Western journalists in Gaza. Palestinians reporting for the foreign press there identify with Hamas, are intimidated by Hamas, or actually belong to Hamas. Either way, none dares to cross the armed terrorists. “I wouldn’t want to cross Hamas either” in their place, he says.  

Contrast that with the environment in Israel, where the aggressive press expose malfeasance, corruption, wrongdoing, and sometimes stupidity of the Israeli government. Nor are the political opposition, the police, or even the well-regarded IDF spared. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is widely second-guessed, personally attacked, and accused of outright criminal activity. The Israeli press is one of the world’s most independent and critical. 

Naturally, it is much easier to find faults in Israel, which encourages fault finding, than in Gaza, where murderous tyrants kill all critics. Following the genocidal October 7 attack by Hamas, Israel was accused of genocide. As Hamas steals foreign aid, Israel is accused of forcing starvation. No wonder that as Israel facilitates more aid, a new lie emerges — that the side that has perfected critical journalism is now murdering Gaza’s champions of the free press.