Tag: media

The horrors of the media

Posted on by Keith Dvorchik

I have written a lot about the media and the problems that they create. It is no longer about the news or about facts. It is about agendas, clicks, advertising dollars, and being first with a story even when it is wrong. The media has created and continues to create incredible division and hatred. The NY Times running the lies about the child from Gaza who has Cerebral Palsy is a perfect example from just this week. The lie has gone around the world while their pathetic small appending of the article is missed by most. The lame correction wasn’t put on the front page, like the lie. It wasn’t put on their big social media accounts.

We continue to allow the media to say whatever they want, regardless of the truth. They provide no context. A friend at lunch told me he listened to NPR talk about the food crisis in Gaza is a fifteen minute segment. Not once, in the entire segment, did they mention Hamas. Not once did they address the hoarding of food by Hamas and their selling of food on the black market. Not once did they address the complaints of the Gazan people that the food was too expensive. Free food was too expensive. Not to NPR who chose to make it an anti-Israel narrative.

The media loves to show anything that makes Israel look bad. Even when it’s not true. Especially when it’s not true. Anthony Aguilar is a perfect example. As you will see in the video below, it didn’t take much effort to understand that he is lying. What his motivation to lie was and plenty of documentation to back it up. Yet the media is making him a star. Why? Because his lies make Israel look bad. Because his lies paint a picture that they want to sell. It creates and reinforces the narrative that makes them money and makes those who hate Jews love them. Eventually there may be a retraction or an apology. But like the NY Times, it’ll be buried where nobody will see it or care about it.

Getting real information isn’t always easy. It’s also time consuming. I was recently introduced to Triggernometry, a podcast that takes its time to delve deep into issues. I was sent this one as my introduction and the interview of Andrew Fox, a British military veteran is spectacular. When he says, “There have been more bombs dropped in Gaza than people have been killed so either the IDF are the worst shots in history or they are actually taken care of civilian lives,” you hear a clear statement about the war in Gaza. In this 1 hour and 15 minute interview, they delve deep into various, difficult topics. The answers aren’t always pretty. They don’t whitewash Israel’s decisions and actions in the war. They are honest. They are based on facts. They paint a very different picture than the mass media. They make countries like Canada, the UK, and France, ready to recognize a Palestinian State that doesn’t meet any of the requirements to be a State, look like Jew hating fools. The conversation you will listen to gives the information that makes what US Secretary of State Marco Rubio says about recognizing a Palestinian State clear and obvious.

To be educated and to know what you are talking about takes time and effort. Listen to this – you will be armed with information and facts so that you can speak intelligently about what’s happening.

I like listening to Chris Cuomo on his podcast. He will have anybody on his podcast and he will ask any question. He will push hard and not let people off the hook. This week, he spent 12 minutes discussing “What is the truth about aid in Gaza? The answer people don’t seem to want to accept:” He doesn’t let Israel off the hook for stopping the aid when they did. He does hold Hamas accountable. He demands the return of the ‘people that they stole‘, powerful words that I wish the mass media would use. Take 12 minutes and listen to him.

While the media will show and publicize the lies about the child from Gaza, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, promote the lies of Anthony Aguilar, what they won’t do is put any focus on the hostages, still held captive in inhuman conditions in Gaza. This week, Hamas publicized a video of Rom Braslavski, a hostage taken on October 7th and held in captivity until today. Look at the image on the left, released this week, and you see somebody who has been tortured, starved, and abused. They feed him one-half a piece of pita to eat each day and give him dirty water to drink. Enough to keep him barely alive. Look at the picture on the right – of Rom before being taken hostage. It is one of the most haunting images I have seen – my heart breaks every time that I look at it.

The day after they released the video and images of Rom, Hamas released images of Evyatar David, another person taken hostage by Hamas and kept in brutal conditions in the tunnels under Gaza. Evyatar looks happy and filled with life and a bright future in the image on the right. The image on the left is skin and bones, barely alive, with no spark or spirit.

This is what war crimes look like. This is Hamas. This is what our media and countries like Canada, the UK, and France are defending. Imagine either one of these two people were your child, your grandchild, your sibling, your friend. I have been outraged by Hamas even before October 7th and even more since then. As I look at the media coverage of Gaza, I am disgusted by their failure to report on the hostages. Failure to report on their captivity of almost 2 years. Their failure to keep them in the news and their failure to prioritize their health. Where is the media outrage at the UN and the Red Cross for not visiting a single hostage in captivity for nearly 2 years? All they have been is a glorified taxis service. Where is the outrage from the media when these pictures are shared? This is what starvation and captivity looks like. This is what war crimes look like. Don’t turn away. Share the images. Force people to see the reality.

Rom Bravlasvski starved as a hostage
Rom Bravlavski before October 7th
Evyatar David – still held hostage in Gaza by Hamas. This is what starvation and war crimes look like.

It gets worse. Hamas released this video of a captive, starving, Evyatar David being forced to dig his own grave. They don’t hide their war crimes, their crimes against humanity, they celebrate them. The world allows them to celebrate them because they don’t hold them accountable. Our US policiticans scream to flood Gaza with food but they neglect the starving hostages. They willingly ignore the 2 million meals per day being provided by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation and the UN’s failure to deliver food and to ensure the food goes to the people instead of Hamas. They willingly ignore the images of starving hostages and the video of one being forced to dig his own grave.

I refuse to stand by idly and allow this to continue. I reach out to elected officials. I write and speak out. I educate friends and others. People must see the reality. We can’t give up and we can’t surrender. We can’t accept the reality being pushed on us because of the lies. It doesn’t matter who we are talking to, the facts matter. The truth matters. I won’t be silenced because the cost of silence is the cost of our lives. Canada, the UK, France, elected officials, the media – they may all be against us and support Jew hatred and the lies but they won’t do it without me fighting back. Will you join me or will you be part of the problem? The choice is yours.

You’ve gotta fight, for your right, to get real information (sorry Beastie Boys).

Posted on by Keith Dvorchik

We have seen the pictures and videos of the hostages coming out of Gaza. They are horrifying. The images of Eli Sharabi, Ohad Ben Ami and Or Levy when they were released was horrifying. It was like watching the survivors of the Nazi death camps all over again.

Eli was brave enough to share his story in a powerful interview. It won’t be shown on 60 minutes or Dateline. It won’t be widely publicized through the western media. The question is if you will have the courage to watch the entire interview. To hear his story of captivity and torture. To experience the evil that he did. And then, will you share the interview? Will you talk about the interview? Will you make sure others see and hear the truth. The video is below. The decision is yours.

Yarden Bibas, who was kidnapped, abused, tortured, and held hostage by Hamas along with his wife Shiri (z’l), and children Ariel (z’l) and Kfir (z’l) spent 484 days in captivity. After his release we all learned that the rest of his family had been murdered by Hamas a month or so after being taken hostage. Brutally murdered, their bodies desecrated afterwards to attempt to hide how they were strangled by their evil Hamas captors. Yarden wrote a powerful letter to Prime Minister Netanyahu this week. In many ways it speaks for the Jewish people. Get the hostages back and then destroy Hamas.

Yarden Bibas giving the eulogy for his wife and two beautiful children, murdered by Hamas

Here os full letter that Yarden Bibas wrote:

Mr. Prime Minister,
My name is Yarden Bibs, and while they read my speech to you, I sit Shiva on my wife Shiri and my children Kfir and Ariel. Innocent and innocent children who were kidnapped from their homes and murdered captive. They could have and should have been saved.

The cursed terrorists conquered Nir Oz with flip-flops, my family and I were brutally kidnapped from our home to Gaza.

On that cursed morning, the state was not in Nir Oz. There were only local heroes – members of readiness classes and brave fighters, who did everything they could and even paid with their lives.
And today, 514 days later – I returned from Gaza to an unimaginable reality in which I was forced to bury my entire family in one day. I don’t wish this horrible nightmare on anyone. And despite the terrible pain, I ask you at this moment to stop. The stage of revenge has not yet reached. At this point we are obligated to immediately return our brothers, including my best friend David Kunyo and his brother Ariel. David, my friend from the first grade, the neighbor from the Kibbutz, who fell in the Hamas tunnels. I know I won’t be able to hug my children and wife anymore. But Emma and Yuli – David’s daughters, who were kidnapped by themselves to Gaza when they were only 3 years old, are waiting to hug him. Sharon’s wife deserves to hug him.

After we bring back David and all the hostages, I will be the first to support all your actions to overthrow Hamas. As a resident of Nir Oz, I know that we will be forced to defeat Hamas because otherwise we will not have security, but we must always preserve the sanctity of life, the honor of the dead and leave no one behind, otherwise we have lost who we are. Mister Prime Minister, 514 days and nights have already passed and you and your government still have not taken responsibility. The demand to set up a state inquiry committee is a demand that with israel united around it – 83% of israel citizens demand it, along with 1,500 October Council families and I am among them. Its goal is not personal persecution, but to produce lessons to prevent the next disaster. I call you Mr. Prime Minister – unite the nation israel give calm to our souls, uphold the will of the people and the families. Inform today about the establishment of a state inquiry committee that will strengthen the security of Israel prevent another disaster, and give me and everyone with israel answers.

How did it happen that nine-month-old Kfir, and four-year-old Ariel were kidnapped and murdered together with Shiri’s mother in unimaginable cruelty?

How did we get to the point that during the long hours at the police station no one came to save us?
I keep thinking and regretting that I didn’t take better care of my wife and kids. It is eating me up inside. And I only had a gun and I will be a simple citizen in a quiet kibbutz. Do you think about it? Do you also find it difficult to get through day and night without a heavy sense of responsibility for what happened? Are you able to say this loud and clear?

So many citizens are asking for forgiveness. So few politicians apologize.

So many civilians and fighters taking responsibility. So few members of government take responsibility.
My sister Ofri said at the funeral a sentence that I deeply connect with: “Forgiveness means accepting responsibility and a commitment to act differently, learning from mistakes.” There is no point in forgiving before the defectors are investigated, and all position holders will be held accountable. Our disaster as a nation and ours as a family should not have happened, and it must not, must not happen again. “I have no interest in closing account of the past, I try to gather strength and look ahead. I ask that we all do our best to make it better, more close and stronger here. From the window of the car that led us on the funeral journey, I saw the people of israel I saw a broken country – religious, secular and ultra-orthodox, standing together with flags and tears. I felt like they were really with me. I didn’t know them but I felt they were my brothers and sisters. What are you doing in leadership to maintain this togetherness? Do you get up every morning to separate or to strengthen us a little more from the inside? In my eyes it’s not less important your role than sending planes to eliminate enemies. This is our strength. This is our spirit.

In conclusion, I appeal to you Mr. Prime Minister, I have not yet entered my home in Nir Oz and I do not know what awaits me inside. I’m asking you to come along with me, to join me for the first time since October 7. I ask we do it together. If we do not look disaster in the eye, we cannot recover.“ 

Yaron Bibas letter published in many newspapers

This should be the lead on the news. After having his wife and two babies murdered by Hamas, he is not calling for vengence. He wants the rest of the hostages home. He also acknowledges the evil of Hamas and that they must be destroyed but the lives of the hostages come first. Despite the lies of the media, despite Hamas using child soldiers and human shields, the humanity of Israel is real and continues to be hidden, the lies continue to be told, and the world continues to believe them.

Amotz Eyal

My friend Amotz Eyal is the founder and CEO of TPS-IL. It’s something you have probably never heard of. Until I met Amotz, I hadn’t either. TPS-IL, officially known as The Press Service of Israel, is an Israeli news bureau. It is the equivilant of AP and Reuters only when it comes to reporting from and about Israel, TPS-IL is actually factual. Their reach across the globe, outside of America, is incredible. Last month, Amotz was in Orlando and we spent two days together. I learned so much, not just about TPS-IL but also about him.

On October 7, 2023, Amotz got a phone call that something was happening but the photographers couldn’t get there to document it. Of course he volunteered to go take pictures and video, even though he is the CEO. He told his wife he would be home by dinner. As he began taking pictures, he quickly realized that this wasn’t something small and he put his camera away and moved towards the fighting. He ended up in Sderot and took over operational command to defend the city against the Hamas invaders. He ended up home 3 months later. He is still active in the IDF, commanding an elite unit. The first morning in Orlando, he stood outside our first appointment on the phone with his unit, planning their raid of Jenin to eliminate terrorists and capture weapons. He hung up the phone, joined me for our meetings that day as if nothing was happening. The next day he showed me pictures of the weapons they captured in Jenin. If only the mainstream media (MSM) would cover what really happens.

Hamas child soldiers. This is what the Jew haters are defending.

Amotz just wrote a powerful piece in the Jerusalem post titled, Propaganda without boundaries: How Hamas exploits, abuses, weaponizes children. It should be on the front page of every newspaper, covered by every major news network, but it won’t. You can read it and see just how Hamas is inculcating hate, using children as weapons and as soldiers. It is horrifying.

The truth is cleverly hidden by the media that we see and the narrative that they tell us and want us to believe. A perfect example is the recent ‘documentary’, No Other Land, about Masafer Yatta in Judea and Samaria (often called the West Bank). The truth of the village is very different than what this alleged documentary claims and what the mainstream western media tells you. Read the article by Honest Reporting and learn the real history.

Masafer Yatta & Khan al-Ahmar: Behind the Headlines

If you want another source to read, check out the JNS article about Masafer Yatta. The truth is out there. Documented history is out there. You can choose to find out what the truth really is or you can believe what you are being fed. The choice is entirely yours.

It gets worse. Oscar-winning Pallywood star Basel Adra of No Other Land was caught on video, lying about what happened. Here he is setting fire to Palestinian structures —but telling people to say “the Jews did it” for the cameras. Facts don’t matter. The truth doesn’t matter. The media determines the story they want to tell and makes up what they need to tell it. My blood boils when I see it happen over and over and over again and nobody held accountable.

Basel Adra, now an Oscar Winning Director of a documentary that lies, is shown lying on film.

Yesterday, President Trump met in the Oval Office with eight hostages that have been released. I found this video of their interaction incredibly powerful. A few quotes really stood out for me. “Horrible, horrible stories. Not even believable.” Then, “Don’t worry, we’ll get them out.” I don’t care what you think of President Trump. Love him or hate him, it doesn’t matter. These are statements that are long overdue. You can see and hear from these 8 hostages what powerful words and actions mean to them and the hostages still in captivity. Our media will not run the stories of these hostages. The media will not highlight the torture that they endured. Freedom of the press was designed so that the press would be able to report the truth, not so they could hide behind it and lie over and over and over again. Yet that is what we are seeing. Lie after lie.

Over a decade ago, I had the opportunity to learn about a new organization, Fuente Latina, that was doing something unbelievable. Having learned that Iran was targeting the Spanish speaking world with anti-Israel propoganda and lies, founder Leah Soibel decided to create a pro-Israel media outlet to share the truth with the Spanish speaking world. In the dozen years since, the work they have done is incredible. In 2024, they took over 100 journalists from Spanish speaking countries to Israel to see with their own eyes what happend on October 7th and what Israel is really like. The content they provide to the Spanish speaking world is incredible.

They created an incredible 4 part docuseries about October 7th that focuses on the Latin Americans that were murdered and taken hostage on October 7th. Most people don’t know that Latin Americans were the largest immigrant group attacked on October 7th or that the Bibas family is Argentinian. I watched the trailer and was captivated. I don’t speak Spanish and as I listened to the tone of their voices and read the subtitles, I was overwhelmed. There was something about watching these people tell their stories, while in Israel, living as Israelis, and speaking Spanish, not Hebrew, that was incredibly powerful. Once again, you won’t see this on 60 minutes or Dateline. You won’t see this type of reporting in our mainstream media. The truth has to fight ten times harder to overcome the lies. Watch the trailer. I’ve seen it half a dozen times or more and it gets me every single time. I can’t wait for the docuseries to be available.

Fuente Latina’s trailer for the docuseries. I can’t wait to see the full series. Incredibly powerful.

So what do you want to do? Do you want to be a lemming who believes the lies they are told? Do you want to ensure you are on the wrong side of history? Do you want to find real information and fight for truth and against the lies. Are you willing to do the work it takes in today’s world to get beyond consuming whatever those in charge want to feed you and instead learn for yourself?

I always go back to the great CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite for inspiration. He knew his job was to share the news, the facts, and the truth and let the viewer consume, digest, and interpret. His tag line, “and that’s the way it is” was the gold standard and his newscasts should be required viewing for all those who are a part of the media today. His final broadcast as the anchorman of the CBS Evening news, ironically enough March 6, 1981, was a classic, but in hindsight, he was very wrong. He talks about a supurb team of journalists and unfortunately that isn’t the case any longer. The news is part of the entertainment division and they are going to tell you a story, the story they want to tell, and it is up to you to decide if you want to consume it. Far too many people don’t understand they are now watching a story created by the entertainment division, not getting the facts. The hardest thing to hear him say is, “and none of that will change.” Walter was very wrong. It has changed.

Each time I write this blog, I think of Walter Cronkite, because I’m going to tell it like it is, or at least how I see it. I’m tired of lies. I’m tired of being fed BS by those with their own agenda. I’ve long tired of being told by others who is good and who bad, who is right and who is wrong, what I should believe in and what I should fight against. The days of Walter Cronkite being the voice and face you could trust to give you the facts are long gone. Now it’s up to each of us to be our own Walter Cronkite. Are you up for the challenge?

Truth

Posted on by Keith Dvorchik

The media around the world is mostly rotten. We have seen just how bad it is over the past 14 months with lies being told over and over again. The media promoting the lie of Israeli genocide. The lie of Israel starving the people of Gaza. The lies that ‘Jews deserved this’ and the lie that this is only about Israel, not about Jew hatred.

I get so fed up with the media lies that I mostly tune out the main stream media. No matter what station you watch or what newspaper you read, they are not giving you news and facts, they are giving you the narrative that they want to tell. From the word choices they use to the videos they choose to show, it’s a reminder than the news divisions are based in the entertainment division and it’s about getting views to sell more ads, not about telling the truth.

Today I want to write about and show truth. It’s not easy to find and it takes work on a daily basis to learn and understand what is really happening rather than the lies that are so easily told to us and that many believe. You can use these with your friends who don’t understand or who believe the lies because that’s all they hear.

We have known for a long time that they use actora in Gaza to simulate deaths and injuries. The same person has died multiple times in multiple locations. Dolls are used to simulate babies. Footage from Assad’s genocide in Syria (over 500,000 murdered) are shown to be in Gaza a decade later.

The acting isn’t very good and they don’t even try to make the actors look different when they die multiple times. The dolls are often easy to see. The footage they use from Syria is easily proved to be from there or was footage shown a decade ago. Here is another egregious one. This actor pretends to be a “victim” but accidentally uses the wrong foot while limping with a supposed broken foot. It’s only after he is hit in the head by the man ‘helping’ him that he switches the foot he is walking on from the broken one to the other one. The media lying isn’t even good, yet so many believe it. Jew hatred is real.

With the revolt in Syria and the fall of the Assad government, there is now a push to claim that Israel is trying to colonize Syria. The rebels, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), are headed by a leader with long ties to Al Qaeda, Abu Mohammad al-Jolani. al-Jolani has ties and connections to Isis as well. This is not a group you want to just assume the role of Assad. Israel took action. They destroyed the Syrian navy. They destroyed the Syrian air force. They destroyed the Syrian chemical weapons. They destroyed the Syrian rockets and launchers. They took control of the border with Syria to keep the people of Israel safe.

The IDF now estimates that 86% of Syria’s air defenses have been destroyed, which makes Syrian airspace a now much safer flight route for the entire world. The army says this opens up the opportunity to bomb Iran’s nuclear sites, yet another benefit to the entire world. A nuclear Iran is a danger to everybody.

The UN responds as you would expect. UN António Guterres said he was “deeply concerned by the recent and extensive violations of Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.” This is while Syria is the middle of turmoil and there is grave danger to the Israeli people if no action was taken. Of course, Guterres has done everything he can to ensure that Israel is constantly in danger. He then calls for an urgent de-escalation by Israeli forces and a withdrawal from the Golan buffer zone. Once again, Guterres calls for the destruction of Israel. The media refuses to tell the truth.

For more than a decade, the media has lied about Syria. They kept the use of chemical weapons by Assad on his people quiet. They kept the brutality of his prisons a secret. They downplayed every Syrian death while using images from Syria to accuse Israel of killing Palestinians. Now that the Assad regime has falled, the truth is slowly coming out. In the Free Press, they just released an incredible report about Assad’s Sednaya prison. It’s a must read. The video inside the prison is haunting and chilling. Words like death camp and slaughterhouse are used and may be an understatement

The media bears responsibility for the ‘forced disappearance’ of 96,000 people. The media is responsible for the continued horrors that occured in Sednaya prison. The more I read about Assad and the torture and murders that were committed there, the more horrified I am. The angrier I become that the media, and the world, allowed this to happen once again. While this time the Jews weren’t the target, Jew hatred and antisemitism was used to cover up this brutality. How is Assad not wanted by the ICJ? how are those who participated in this brutality and barbarism not being held accountable by the world? The hypocrisy is deafening. Another example of the truth not mattering.

Astoundingly, the Druze leader of al-Suwayda in Syria made a powerful statement: “We refuse to live under rebel rule. We want Israeli rule and to be part of Israel.” This city of 120,000, mostly Druze with a large Greek Orthodox community, are openly stating that they want to be Israeli. The government that the ICJ and even some members of the US Congress call genocidal is a desirable place for minorities to live. A minority group is openly stating that Israel is the best country for them to live in. The truth is once again hidden by the outrageous lies. The people of Syria know. The Druze of Syria understand that they get freedom and human rights by being governed by Israel. The UN, the ICJ, the media, and especially some of our US members of Congress should be ashamed as their lies are outwardly being exposed.

It isn’t enough that the Druze leader of al-Suwayda openly states they want to be governed by Israel. Quite incredibly, we are seeing and hearing the same thing from the Druze villages on the easter Golan Heights. This video is from a Druze community in the southern Syrian village of Hader. The individual speaking calls for their village to be annexed to the Israeli side of the Golan Heights. The response further exposes the lies the UN, the ICJ, the media, and some of our US members of Congress propogate about Israel. “We agree. We agree.” they chant. The speaker goes on to talk about how they want to live with dignity and freedom….. in Israel, as Israelis. How do the liars explain this? They don’t even try. They ignore the truth instead.

The challenge for the Druze people of Syria is that while the southern Syrian village of Hader and the villages referenced in the video are close to the Israei border, the Druze living in Suwayda are in what is called Druze Mountain. It is not contiguous to Israel. The people living between the Eastern Golan and Druze Mountain are Sunni Arabs. Would they want to be a part of Israel? Would Israel want them to be a part of Israel? One thing we do know. If Druze Mountain and the Druze villages on the eastern Golan Heights became part of Israel, then Israel would not only be the Jewish state, it would also be the Druze state. How would Jew haters figure out a way to call Israel an apartheid state when it was the home not just to Jews but to the Druze as well? The facts would be inconvenient but the media doesn’t care about facts or truth. They would find a new way to twist the truth and lie about Israel.

When you want to hear truth from the media, you have to listen closely. You have to search and then hope they don’t lose their jobs for telling the truth. Erin Molan, from Sky News in Australia, has been telling the truth regularly. This past week she was fired for doing so. As she left, she recorded this powerful video. Listen to her words. You won’t hear them on ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, MSNBC, FOX, BBC, or any other network. You used to hear it on Sky News but you won’t any longer. Listen to her words. Listen to the power of the truth. Imagine if this was the message we got in the United States from our media. Imagine if this was the message from the BBC and throughout Europe.

Thank you Erin for speaking out. Thank you for not shrinking in fear when they fired you for telling the truth. Thank you for making this video and for beginning something new. Perhaps you will lead a revolution that will bring the media back to reporting the truth. To having morals and ethics. To not being entertainment but being news. Watch and listen to this remarkable journalist. You won’t be disappointed.

Finally, we are now at day 434 of the hostage crisis. In 10 days, they will have been kept by these monsters as long as the American hostages were kept by Iran. The difference is the brutality. None of the American hostages taken by Iran were murdered. We know many of the Israeli hostages have been murdered by Hamas. None of the American hostages were sexually abused by Iran. We know many of the Israeli hostages have been sexually abused by Hamas. Look at the image below. 64 hostages are believed to be alive. Look at their faces. 36 are believed to be dead with Hamas keeping control of their bodies. 100 human beings tortured and abused. 434 days. It is unimaginable. It is horrifying. It should be the lead story on the news every single day and night. We should know every single one of their names, faces, and stories. Their families should be our families. Our media shows no compassion Our media shows no moral backbone. They should be ashamed. We should be ashamed. I pray every single day that the hostages are released and come home. I pray every single day for their health and welfare. May they all come home before we reach day 444.

What world are we living in??

Posted on by Keith Dvorchik

The amount of lies, misstatements, and falsehoods I have seen since October 7th are truly amazing.  I had stopped watching most major media news because of their agendas a while ago.  I now see their ‘highlights’ on social media and it disgusts me even more.  Critical analysis is to be expected.  Factual and fair discussions are to be expected.  Disagreements on policy is to be expected.  None of that is what we are getting.

What we are getting is truly unethical journalism.  It’s agenda based, largely focused on Jew hatred.  What we are getting is completely unanalyzed propaganda being spread as fact.  I remember going through Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust Museum, the first few times and wondering how that type of crazy propaganda actually worked.  We are now seeing it in real life, in real time.

I watch somebody like Piers Morgan go for ratings instead of the facts.  I listen to him say the most ridiculous things to get views and clicks on social media.  When faced with the facts, he chooses to bulldoze over people and shout them down unless they push back powerfully and argue with him.  Which then gets him more views, more clicks, and more ratings.  He is now the news version of Jerry Springer. Watch his interaction with Fleur Hassan-Nahoum. He could have asked, “Why don’t Palestinians have the same rights as Americans?” When caught, he quickly shuts down the conversation.

I listen to what Christiane Amanpour says regularly and it makes me sick.  A once respected journalist is a shill for terrorists and those who hate Jews.  When interviewing people from the UN, UNRWA or UNICEF, she never bothers to ask why Hamas terrorists are being found in their schools and medical clinics.  She doesn’t seem to wonder why the entrance to Hamas tunnels are found near the UNRWA schools and clinics.  She is happy to highlight that the people near the schools and clinics are in danger but leaves out the reason why – the connection to Hamas.  She is happy to report on the Israeli people being unhappy with Netanyahu but neglects to discuss that there is an electoral process that will enable them to choose somebody else.  She fails to discuss how Abbas is now in year 20 of a 5 year term or how Hamas has been in power since 2005 with no opportunity for the people to select another form of government.

The lies I see in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal or told on the nightly national news make my stomach turn.  I’ve been to Israel since October 7th and am going back in a few weeks.  I see the pain and struggle of the Israeli people.  I see the impact of the war and how everybody wants it to end as soon as possible.  The hostages are on the minds of everybody, and their return is felt throughout the country.  Other than far right extremists, nobody is talking about taking Gaza in a land grab.  They are talking about a military grab of the hostages.  They are talking about eliminating Hamas and their leadership as a risk to Israel.

On my last trip I went to both Kibbutz Kfar Aza and the site of the Nova music festival.  It was one of the most powerful experiences of my life.  At Kfar Aza I saw what Hamas did.  I had seen it on the 47-minute Hamas video and other clips.  I saw it in the Sheryl Sandberg documentary, “Screams of Silence”.  Yet standing there, listening to the story of each family at each house, burned my insides.  Seeing the street of young people where EVERY SINGLE PERSON was either killed or taken hostage was brutal and I’m not sure I will ever truly recover from that.  Walking up to the back gate where the Hamas terrorists came through followed by the second and third wave of ‘innocent Gazans’ who came to rob the people they had become friends with and ate lunch and dinner with regularly, was infuriating.  Seeing how close Jabaliyah was (less than a mile from the gate, less than half a mile from the back of the Kibbutz) was a bit shocking.  Knowing I could walk to Jabaliyah in 10 minutes or less from the Kibbutz was a reality check.  These are the things the media doesn’t show to the masses. 

Jabaliya from the back of Kibbutz Kfar Aza. The fence is halfway to the back. It’s less than 1 mile away.
All those killed or taken hostage at the Nova Music Festival on October 7th.

I listen to the cries for a cease fire, and I wonder what these people are thinking.  A cease fire with people who say they will do what they did on October 7th over and over and over again until all the Jews are dead?  How do you have a cease fire with that type of person?  You certainly can’t trust them to keep their word.  You know that it’s only temporary and the end result will be even more people killed.  It seems that the long-standing complaints about our education system are finally showing themselves with so many people unable to do any critical thinking or analysis.  Before September 11, 2001, I understood American’s lack of understanding about the risk of terrorism because we had not experienced it.  After 9/11 I can’t understand the desire to defend terrorists, especially those who merely call Israel, “Little Satan” because the United States is the “Great Satan”.  They openly call for our destruction and American’s still defend them.  Who have we raised?  Where is basic intelligence? 

In the last week, I have begun to see the next wave of this propaganda.  Israel is now going to take over Lebanon in the next land grab.  The bombs Israel is dropping and the attacks they are involved with in Lebanon are somehow not related at all to Hezbollah sending rockets into Israel on a daily basis for the past month.  The fact that Israeli’s who live in that northern area have been evacuated for months due to the bombing by Hezbollah is ignored.  Israel fighting back to keep her citizens safe isn’t reported.  Once again, it is framed as Israeli (Jewish) aggression and a land grab.  They are denying that Arab nations kicked out Jews and that Jews left freely of their own will. They deny their own Judenfrei stated goals. The lies continue.

France has banned Israeli citizens and companies from attending a defense technology trade show. 

The Maldives banned everybody with an Israeli passport from entering, now creating an issue for the Christians, Muslims, Druze, and Baha’i Israelis.  That’s because the Maldives really only intended to ban Jews and is now trying to find a way to backtrack. 

The tent cities are popping back up on college campuses, now not covered by the media because interest in that story has passed.  Gabby Deutch highlighted in her X posting that, “The New Republic, a historic institution in American journalism, has a writer covering antisemitism who spent the morning of Oct. 7, after the crimes of Hamas were clear, calling the actions a “rebellion” & writing “good morning” above a picture of the attack.” 

Just today, the Department of Education brought the first cases brought since October 7th to a close, finding that The University of Michigan and CUNY didn’t adequately investigate campus antisemitism and Islamophobia There are still more than 100 cases open.  Think about that.  100 open cases on college campuses in the United States where they have not protected Jewish students from antisemitism. 

This is the world we live in today. I know most people who read this know most of this already. The key is for those of us who know, to keep learning. For those of us who don’t know to learn. And for everybody to educate those who don’t know. There are plenty of people who hate Jews and do this intentionally. There are far more who simply know nothing and believe what they see or read because they don’t have a way to get information. This weekend, I spent time with some friends in Central Illinois. I had a long conversation with one of them who told me he really didn’t know. He didn’t believe what he was reading and seeing because it made no sense, but he didn’t know the history. He didn’t know what was going on. He didn’t know the basic facts. That’s our job. To educate. To challenge the lies. To show proof. When they claim there were no rapes, we need to shout them down and show the facts. When they claim Israel murdered the Israelis on October 7th, we need to shout them down and show the facts, the Hamas self taken videos.

As my friend said today, it’s time to play offense. As Jews, we have hidden or played defense for thousands of years. Playing defense is no longer acceptable. We need to play offense. We need to be educating those who don’t know. We need to be speaking out loudly about what is going on. We need to challenge the lies. We know from our many thousands of years of history that it never just goes away. We can’t hide and escape. Just as Israel is fighting back from the pogrom of October 7th, so must we, in the diaspora, fight back against the lies and hatred since October 7th. Never again is now. How will you answer your grandchildren when they ask what you did to protect the Jewish people after October 7th? This is your chance to choose your answer.