Washington Post editorial cartoonist created this video for the Washington Post’s YouTube channel with the caption “Gaza civilians are the victims of both Israeli and Hamas’ actions. (Political animation by Ann Telnaes)“:
That couldn’t be more wrong. As I’ve pointed out before, any loss of life on either side is attributable to Hamas and Hamas alone. There would be no war; there would be no airstrikes; there would be no ground incursion if it weren’t for Hamas continually trying to kill Israeli citizens with their rockets.
The Jerusalem Post reports a prominent Jewish group is denouncing the Washington Post for this:
The Simon Wiesenthal Center declared its outrage over the cartoon. In a statement released to news agencies on Friday, the center’s associate dean, Rabbi Abraham Cooper, said the clip was “disgusting.”
“It is disgusting that The Washington Post would present an animated cartoon that is so profoundly removed from the truth,” said Cooper. “Millions of Israeli citizens—men, women, and children—have been forced into bomb shelters and saferooms by thousands of missiles and rockets targeted at them by Hamas terrorists, whose open and avowed goal is the destruction of the Jewish state.”
“Even Israel’s enemies have recognized that Israel’s military countermeasures against Hamas have included phone and text warnings as well as leaflets urging innocent civilians in Gaza to vacate the targeted areas,” Cooper said. “It is the Hamas leadership that openly uses the people of Gaza to act as human shields to protect their weapons of mass destruction.”
“Israelis are saddened by the deaths of four Palestinian children on a Gaza beach yesterday, but the blood of these innocent children is on the hands of Hamas leaders, not Binyamin Netanyahu,” Rabbi Cooper also said.