The White House was forced to walk back on president Joe Biden’s claim to have seen “confirmed pictures” of “terrorists beheading children” in Israel.
The Israel Defence Force previously claimed that at least 40 babies were killed in the Kfar Aza kibbutz over the weekend when the Hamas militant group launched an attack on Israel.
The army later clarified to Anadolu news agency that there was “no information confirming” allegations that “Hamas beheaded babies”.
I still don’t understand why this became a hot button issue…
I think it’s because there’s a lot of sensitivity about misinformation, which is typical in early war situations. This story is highly emotionally triggering in all the same ways that previously debunked propaganda pieces have been. Specifically, it is reminiscent of the ‘babies getting pulled out of incubators’ story that was instrumental in fomenting popular support the first US war in Iraq. It was later discovered to be complete fiction. That is not to claim that this story is untrue, but considering all the possibilities is very emotionally draining.
Also, the word of head of state holds a certain amount of weight.
When Steve on Twitter claims such a thing, not very credible. But the president of the United States is another level, you’d expect him to have more information thatn Steve on Twitter and to carefully choose his words on critical ongoing issues. That’s why this is a big deal.
And yes, the babies in incubators thing certainly casts another dark shadow on this.
One example I got to know from one of my professors during my Bachelor’s where an author who published a story book about honor crimes in Jordan. Despite the setting, one proposed goal of this book published in 2003 was to make the war on Iraq more palatable for the US public.
It turned out that the entire book was a hoax. Its main goal was to make the middle east look like a terrible place for women thus justifying any invasions to “free” them. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/jul/26/books.booksnews
And they thought they needed to lie to convince people of this?
Like honor killings don’t already happen and women aren’t already second class citizens, at best, in more than a few countries?
Yes, honor crimes happen in the Middle East. I grew up in Jordan so I would know.
However when the lives of these women only matters to fuel war, then we have a problem. I hope you understand that the problem was that the book was plagiarized to serve a political purpose. Instead it overshadowed the real suffering of real Jordanien women and victims of honor crimes.
I think it’s normal. It’s a big claim to make, and the white house had to walk away from it. I’m still waiting for an official report to understand what happened (and I don’t expect it to be “good”)
I don’t even get why the white house brought up the beheading the whole time I just thought it was 40 babies killed or whatever which they would mention not focus in on the beheading bit…
To shift the focus away from the two million people (nearly half of those are children) with no water and under constant bombing.
Edit: and also to give Hamas an ISIS feel.
Oh, that’s already happening. I saw a video on Instagram cutting back and forth between warzone clips, half labeled ISIS and half Hamas. No idea how true it actually was. I did notice that they conveniently left out any videos of Israeli forces killing Palestinians though.
I think them parading a
dead rapedgirl around in a truck gave them the ISIS vibesI mean, for sure, but https://www.newsweek.com/shani-louk-still-alive-mother-reveals-1833453
A grieving mother said a terrorist organization told her that. She wasn’t bleeding from obvious wounds throughout her body. Her heart wasn’t beating.
I’m not sure “she hasn’t been killed yet” is an especially good defense.
But I’m pretty sure we should be condemning people for what they’ve actually done, not for what they were said to have done.
Ok, we’ll only condemn them for stripping her naked, which is sexual assault on its own, and holding her hostage. Are we being fair to Hamas now?
Neither of those things are confirmed. I hope she was not raped and she is not dead (but it doesn’t look good at all). And yes, that absolutely gave ISIS vibes (except ISIS would probably cover her body)
There are at least two known cases, one of the German girl, stripped of her clothing for obvious reasons, who is now thought to be alive, and another of an Israeli girl bleeding into her shorts
removed.
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2023/10/kidnappings-israel-hamas-photographs/675593/
People want to believe it was real, it fits the narrative and justifies their extreme emotions.
I saw some of the first claims, didn’t see any confirmation, so I brushed it aside as possibly untrue. However I then saw some videos with reporters going through a kibbutz, they confirmed babies had been killed but not that they were beheaded, but alongside that post was a French journalist that said some other journalists had seen it first hand. That somehow stuck and convinced me, only later did I realise it wasn’t enough - I can only imagine that would be worse for people who saw the President say it.
I saw the same report from what you described, and noticed the second time I watched it that no bodies were shown and the journalists specifically said “we heard them say that there were children among the casualties”.
In the meantime we have pictures of real dead and confirmed children in Gaza. It’s chilling for me to see how the “potential” unproven news of a Israeli children being beheaded is apparently worth (two) million times more than all the Palestinian children shot point blank in the head by Israeli soldiers which has become far too common an occurrence.
Here’s some confirmed and documented numbers of what Israel does to Palestinian children:
In the past 23 years, 2293 Palestinian children were killed by Israeli forces.
And yet despite everything done by these NGOs and human rights groups, Israel did not budge and did not try to improve the conditions for these children in an open air prison
In the end I do sincerely hope that no child was injured during those attacks (but like I pointed out earlier, this is unlikely… any attack on any civilian area will leave children at huge risk given how vulnerable they are).
I feel like people wanting to believe the beheaded story has little to do with Israel’s attacks on children. Rather, it just fits the narrative of a barbaric raider killing indiscriminately.
However the effectiveness of the lie (assuming it is one) also has nothing to do with the reasons for making it, which is clearly in service to Israel’s image.
Yeah… There are plenty of reports about dead children already.