Hamas’s Media Strategy

Weekly Standard ^ | Hamas’s Media Strategy

[GulliverSwift]

During the six weeks of Israel’s Operation Protective Edge, Hamas has used human shields—women and children—to protect its infrastructure in Gaza. This tactic is meant either to deter Israel from striking at the rockets, attack tunnels, and terrorists that threaten it, or—and for Hamas this is much preferable—to force the Israeli military to fire on Palestinian civilians.

Without reporters and cameras there to document the carnage, the blood that Hamas compels Gazans to shed on its behalf would be wasted. Hamas thus needs reporters in Gaza. But the last thing it wants is a press corps reporting both sides of the conflict—documenting not just the result of Israeli airstrikes but also the Hamas rockets and missiles that drew Israeli fire in the first place.

During Israel’s summer 2006 war with Hezbollah, much of the Western media, including at least one New York Times photographer, was complicit in the Iranian-backed militia’s carefully staged drama intended to implicate Israel in war crimes against Lebanese civilians. Israel’s 2008-2009 campaign in Gaza against Hamas, Operation Cast Lead, earned the Jewish state a U.N. commission headed by South African jurist Richard Goldstone that investigated, again, Israeli war crimes against civilians.

Was it really possible that only Israel was culpable for bloodshed in these wars? What responsibility did Hamas and Hezbollah bear for exposing their countrymen to violence? It was hard to tell because the Western media played deaf and dumb.

This time around, it’s different. Western media have finally started to push back against the scripted narratives handed to them by terrorist groups. Reporters are beginning to tell the truth about Gaza. A Finnish TV crew showed how Hamas was firing missiles from a hospital. An Indian crew documented how other missiles were fired from residential areas.

[GulliverSwift]

I have noticed that Hamas is no longer getting the 100% adoration they used to (now it's only 80%). Is there something that changed this time? I've not seen anything that has asked the question, this is the closest article I've seen that does.

[Old Retired Army Guy]

The only problem I see now is that Israel agreed to a cease fire before destroying Hmas completely. “They’ll be baaack”.

[pas]

Isn’t it a war crime to fight not in uniform?

[wbarmy]

James Foley.

The reporters may have realized that Hamas and their fellow travelers do not really care about them, and they can be targets just as easily as a soldier. And a lot less complicated also.

Cut off a reporters head and the whole world hears about it.

So maybe they have decided to show they care just a little bit about the people who keep the terrorists at bay.

[SunkenCiv]

> Without reporters and cameras there to document the carnage, the blood that Hamas compels Gazans to shed on its behalf would be wasted. Hamas thus needs reporters in Gaza. But the last thing it wants is a press corps reporting both sides of the conflict—documenting not just the result of Israeli airstrikes but also the Hamas rockets and missiles that drew Israeli fire in the first place.