Wednesday’s edition of the PBS NewsHour forwarded pro-Hamas historical talking points to paint Palestinians as endless victims of yet another war they launched against Israel, matching up with the network’s consistently slanted coverage of the current Israel-Hamas war.
It’s been 76 years since Arab countries attacked the fledgling state of Israel en masse in 1948 to strangle the Jewish homeland in its crib, but were repelled. PBS portrayed the al-Nakba, or “catastrophe,” using the Palestinian rhetoric of “mass expulsion,” with no caveats or actual historical explanation given.
Host Geoff Bennett stirred in the anniversary to portray Palestinians as endless victims of unjust Israel aggressions, based on two wars begun by Arab/Islamic entities. The full report:
Bennett: In the Middle East, there's been intense fighting across the Gaza Strip, including in the southern city of Rafah. An Israeli government spokesperson said today that Israel will eliminate the four remaining Hamas battalions there, but not necessarily every Hamas fighter. Separately, an Israeli airstrike hit a residential building in the Jabalia refugee camp near Gaza City. Medics say at least three people were killed and 20 others injured. This all comes as Palestinians marked 76 years since the Nakba, or catastrophe, which refers to their mass expulsion from what today is Israel. Some displaced Gazans say the war now is even worse.
Faridah Abu Artema, Displaced Palestinian (translation): My mother and father told me about the Nakba, but this here is worse. This is destruction. What we have seen, no one else has seen. Every day is a catastrophe, the catastrophe of hunger, the catastrophe of illness. Every day, we move from place to place. The children are sick. I don't know what to say.
Bennett: The U.N. says more than 80 percent of Gaza's population have fled their homes since the start of the war. Many have relocated more than once.
The historical reality: In 1948 Britain partitioned the Palestinian Mandate, cleaving out a Jewish state and an Arab state, with the Jews accepting statehood but the Arabs refusing to live alongside the Jews in the region. Several Arab countries then launched a failed war on Israel they day it declared independence.
PBS managed to out-do the slanted description from Wednesday’s CBS Evening News.
These pro-Hamas talking points were brought to you in part by Consumer Cellular.
