Friday, May 23, 2025
Elder of Ziyon
How could anyone believe 14,000 babies would die in Gaza within 48 hours—and then repeat it, uncritically, on the floor of Parliament?
The claim was later debunked as a misinterpretation of a UN-backed Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) report, which actually projected 14,100 cases of severe acute malnutrition among children aged six months to five years over a year (April 2025–March 2026), not 48 hours, and not necessarily fatal. (Every one of IPC's previous projections of famine in Gaza have turned out to very inaccurate.)
What seems to be missed in this fiasco is something very simple:
How could the UN's humanitarian chief even think this number was true to begin with? How could so many prominent media outlets and politicians believe it enough to repeat it?
If you follow the war, you know that even Hamas only says less than 60 people have died of malnutrition over 19 months. On a per capita basis, it means that people are one third as likely to die in Gaza of starvation during a war than in the United States at peacetime.
Not only that, but those who did die of malnutrition all seem to have had other medical conditions.
For anyone who follows the war in Gaza, the 14,000 figure is obviously ridiculous. Anyone with even the slightest familiarity with what is going on in Gaza would know instantly that someone misinterpreted something, at best.
But when you are an antisemite, you don't want facts. You want confirmation of your biases.
The 14,000 figure was, in the parlance of journalists, too good to check: "a tale so perfect, or a confirmation of extant prejudices so wonderful, that to actually investigate, to possibly find out that it's not true, would be a shame."
If you already believe that Israel is evil incarnate, there is no reason to disbelieve any story that proves that Israel is evil incarnate.
Tom Fletcher is the freaking head of humanitarian relief in the UN. He's been tweeting and writing and talking about Gaza virtually every day for 19 months. Yet he either misinterpreted, or believed someone else, to say something as ridiculous as "scientists say that everyone with blue eyes will become left-handed tomorrow."
And the same absurdity was automatically repeated by people who are both incredibly ignorant about the topic and that are so biased as to believe the worst things anyone can say about Jews.
And, yes, this is antisemitism. This isn’t just a case of journalistic laziness or bureaucratic incompetence - it’s a symptom of a deeper pathology: a willingness to believe anything, no matter how absurd, if it confirms the narrative of uniquely evil Jews. For any other country - even in the worst famine-struck areas in places like Sudan - no reporter or pundit or politician would say such a statement without checking. Only for Israel are the normal tendencies to use common sense thrown out the window.
Anyone who fell for the ‘14,000 babies’ lie, and repeated it, has forfeited any claim to credibility - on Gaza or any other subject.
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"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024) PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022) |
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