Underground tunnels beneath a hospital? Hostages taken through a hospital? Weapons caches inside a hospital? Where have we seen this impossible standard of evidence before? When no evidence of any kind is ever enough?
The big news over the past few days as been the humanitarian pause or cease-fire if you prefer in exchange for hostages, but it was less than two weeks ago that Israeli defense forces encircled and began assaulting Gaza’s largest hospital, Al-Shifa, what CNN described as a “flashpoint in Israel’s war against Hamas, which began when gunmen from the militant group crossed the border into Israel on October 7, killing around 1,200 people.” Israel, the United States, and other Western intelligence agencies have identified the hospital as a major Hamas command center in the region, where the terrorist organization is hiding behind civilians and using the international law against attacking medical facilities as a shield. Hamas, of course, denies the claim, despite their history of doing precisely that. Before the assault began, the Gaza Health Ministry deployed a veritable phalanx of “doctors” to describe the horrors currently unfolding and those about to, some of whom turned out to be not actually medical professionals. “There is no more water, food, milk for children and babies…the situation in the hospital is catastrophic,” the director of the medical center, Dr. Muhammad Abu Salmiya informed CNN. The network likewise quoted Medhat Abbas, “the director general of Gaza’s health ministry” as they phrased it. Dr. Abbas described how mothers had died during C-sections, while his staff fought valiantly to keep the babies alive. “Now they have to make it without their mothers and without electricity…Can you imagine that?” Similarly, “Dr. Mohammed Ghneim has not left his hospital in Gaza City in four weeks. He can’t remember the last time he slept or ate, and his blue scrubs are stained in the blood of patients who’ve died in his arms. His voice cracks under the weight of the horrors he’s seen: fetuses pulled from the wombs of dying mothers, children with crushed lungs struggling to breathe, and his own colleagues – doctors, nurses and EMTs – transported to the hospital morgue in body bags.” “We are doing our best – this is why we haven’t left here for days – but the situation is very horrible. There’s no way to describe it in any language or with any words. Many times I want to go to the side and cry, but unfortunately there is no time,” he told the network. These claims and others were repeated on CNN and other mainstream media outlets with absolutely no skepticism or validation of any kind, even though Hamas itself is the government of the Gaza Strip, meaning all of these individuals are effectively employees of the terror-outfit, who openly support terrorism. Their social media feeds, publicly available, all praise the “martyrs” who have died while attempting to commit genocide against the Jewish people. Dr. Mohammed Ghneim, for example, commemorated a bombmaker for killing 66 people, celebrated the “engineers” of Hamas, liked posts celebrating the October 7 atrocities, and more.
Israel, however, was given no such benefit of the doubt. Their insistence about what is really happening at Al-Shifa are all noted as Israel “says” or “claims,” complete with the caveat that nothing has been proven no matter what evidence is provided, whether it’s a photograph of weapons uncovered at the facility – a “far cry” from proving anything, prompting an investigation as to whether a gun might have been moved before the photo was taken – video of hostages being forcibly escorted through the hospital, or an actual in person walkthrough of the underground tunnels surrounding the hospital – which was “unclear what it was or how far down it went.” Even a witness who worked at the hospital was not enough. On Monday last week, CNN published a tour-de-force of this phenomenon titled, “What we know about what Israel says it has found at Al-Shifa.” As they framed it, “Palestinians and humanitarian agencies say the current fighting in and around Al-Shifa is proof of Israel’s wanton disregard for civilian life in Gaza, while Israel accuses Hamas of using the medical center as a shield for its operations. On top of providing medical care, the Al-Shifa Hospital had recently become a key shelter for thousands of Palestinian civilians fleeing Israeli bombardment…The IDF is now under pressure to prove Israel’s long-standing assertion with its promise of ‘concrete evidence.’ Its ability to continue its operation in Gaza, and the credibility of Israel, could be at stake as the number killed in Gaza surpasses 12,000, according to authorities in the Hamas-controlled Strip.” Setting aside that President Biden himself has questioned these figures, the article proceeds to recap the evidence, some of which was mentioned above. They begin with the tunnel network that CNN itself was invited to explore. “The structure appeared to be substantial, with the remains of a ladder hanging over the opening and a pole that looked like a hub for a spiral staircase running through the middle of the shaft. The IDF also released video – filmed on Friday – from inside the shaft, showing a staircase leading down into a concrete tunnel that the military said was 55 meters long and located 10 meters underground. At the end of the tunnel is a metal door with a small window, according to the video, which the IDF said it had not yet opened to the possibility that Hamas had booby-trapped it.” I don’t claim to be an expert on hospital design, but one imagines the presence of anything on this scale at a medical facility would be highly unusual, requiring some sort of explanation. Were there spiral staircases, shafts half the length of a football field, and blast doors located 30 feet underground the last time you went to your local medical center? What would be the purpose of this except, as Israel claims, to allow access to an underground facility and enter and exit with little notice? Did anyone at CNN ask the so-called doctors at the Gaza Health Ministry what this was for? They don’t say. Instead, they conclude, “The video is arguably the most compelling evidence thus far that the IDF has offered that there may be a network of tunnels below the hospital. It does not, however, establish without a doubt that there is a command center under Al-Shifa.”
We’ll consider that standard of evidence in a moment, but in the meantime, their skepticism continues across other details Israel has provided which normally might be considered rather damning. “The Israeli military on Sunday also presented several videos that it said illustrated Hamas’ presence at Al-Shifa hospital, including CCTV footage that appeared to show hostages being brought through the hospital itself and separate footage from inside a tunnel shaft on the medical compound’s grounds.” The hostage footage, not “independently” verified by CNN, the same as every statement they have uncritically regurgitated from Hamas by the way, shows a Nepalese and a Thai hostage being escorted through the building by men not in medical clothes or any military uniform on October 7. As they put it, “One appears to be frog-marched through the building, while another appears to be bleeding and is pushed on a gurney.” Hamas insists the two were simply on site for medical treatment, despite that one does not appear injured in any way, and this hospital happens to be in northern Gaza, meaning they would’ve had to have bypassed multiple hospitals en route. The footage was also shared after Israeli defense forces found the dead bodies of two other hostages right outside the hospital. Are we supposed to believe it’s just a coincidence that these bodies were transported there from southern Gaza, and simply by chance they ended up right outside the same building we have footage of other hostages being “frog marched” through? What possible explanation could there be other than the obvious? Once again, CNN isn’t saying or speculating. They do, however, find time to dismiss Israel’s discovery of “technological assets, along with military and combat equipment used by Hamas” for “terrorist purposes” at the hospital, complete with photographs of the cache. This includes tables lined with guns, grenades, ammunition, and other equipment of the kind not normally associated with medical care. The IDF also reported that they “came across Hamas soldiers’ uniforms just tossed on the hospital floor, suggesting they changed to blend in with civilians.” CNN, however, is primarily concerned that some of this weaponry appears to have been moved around because that never happens during a war. “An IDF video on November 15 showed a military spokesperson touring the facility, during which an AK-47 gun is seen behind an MRI machine. Fox News and the BBC were subsequently granted access to the hospital. In their reports filmed after the IDF clip, two AK-47 guns are visible in the same location. It is unclear where the second assault rifle came from.” Needless to say, the IDF has responded with the obvious, it was “due to the fact that more weaponry and terrorist assets were discovered throughout the day,” a statement that seems true considering there are multiple pictures of the weaponry found in multiple locations. In some, it appears the photo was taken to document the find. In others, the weapons are arranged to show the world how much they found in total. CNN, meanwhile, somehow sees a conspiracy rather than wondering what any of this was doing there in the first place. At the risk of repeating myself, when was the last time you saw an AK47 assault rifle at a hospital, much less a grenade?
I believe most fair-minded people – in a situation where they do not have complete knowledge or control of all the factors and cannot by definition have such knowledge and control – would likely ask and answer that question by concluding Israel is telling the truth. We might not be able to say for certain this is Hamas’ only command center or even its largest, but that’s a fundamental limitation of the realities imposed by an ongoing war, and all the evidence produced so far supports the conclusion this is a Hamas base of some kind, especially consider Hamas is a bunch of homicidal monsters that cannot possibly be worthy of trust. CNN and other media outlets are able to pretend otherwise, however, continuing their propaganda campaign and aiding and abetting terrorists in the meantime, by introducing an impossible standard of evidence. They want to know “without a doubt” what Israel claims is true even as that standard does not exist in this life, is not used in criminal or other proceedings, and even as they take the word of terrorists otherwise. They know this is impossible, but do not care because the purpose is propaganda, not facts, evidence, or any actual attempt at understanding the real situation, however impartial our knowledge might be. Where have we seen this before? On the domestic politics front, President Biden’s obvious influence peddling operation has been handled much the same way. Here to, no evidence of any kind – be it 30 shell companies, millions of dollars flowing into his family members for seemingly no reason with seemingly no actual work product, sworn testimony the President himself was the “brand” his brother and son were selling, additional testimony from lifelong employees of the government that the investigation into these matters has been corrupted, and informants who claim there were bribes – is never enough. Most recently, we learned that President Biden received a $40,000 check from his brother for “loan repayment” that just happened to be written days after various shell companies received deposits from China, which also just happened to occur after Hunter Biden threatened his Chinese associates, claiming he was sitting there with his father. The $40,000 also happens to be 10% of the money Hunter received, exactly as the original messages found on his laptop described. This was after another $200,000 loan repayment. In any rational world, this is pretty damning evidence, especially amid everything else. CNN, however, didn’t cover the initial news and yet chose to “fact check” the prior accusation. You will undoubtedly be surprised to learn that “Comer [the Republican head of the committee investigating these matters] has presented no evidence that Joe Biden was involved in his brother’s transactions with the company, let alone that Joe Biden undertook any official acts during his vice presidency or presidency to benefit his brother.” They hinge this belief on the fact that $200,000 was wired to the President’s brother by a law firm from an “attorney trust account.” They link this account to Joe Biden, and yet never wonder why a lawyer would be involved in a “short-term, interest-free loan between brothers” as Democrat Jaime Raskin described it. When you loan a sibling some cash, do you wire it from your attorney?
There is yet another similarity in what we might call the Biden standard of evidence. As I have noted, why has the President lied about these matters repeatedly if there was absolutely nothing to hide? Over the past three years, he has not been truthful about anything involving his son’s business dealings, claiming at first he knew nothing about them until that became unsustainable and even insisting his family received no money from China. If you lie to the police, they tend to assume you are hiding something important. The President’s dozens of lies, however, prompt no such curiosity in the media. Similarly, what other purpose with 30 shell companies using President Biden as the “brand” possibly serve? Generally speaking, people only act this way when they have a good reason to ensure no one is aware of what they are doing. The situation in Israel is far worse: If Al-Shafi is not a Hamas headquarters as Israel claims, why are they attacking it? Purely to kill civilians? The claim amounts to a blood libel. The idea that Israel would make this up only makes sense if you believe their goal is death and destruction, rather than defeating Hamas. They make this clear by never noting the possibility that the intelligence is wrong and perhaps Israel is mistaken as to the extent Hamas used the hospital for their terror operations. It is, of course, conceivable that Al-Shifa is one among many outposts, and not among the most important. This would not mean that Israel is not justified in seeking and destroying Hamas wherever they find them. It simply means there might be more valuable targets and their energies were better spent elsewhere. This is not what CNN and others claim, however. Instead, they insinuate — and do not do so subtly – that Israel’s goal is killing civilians, and given the focus is a hospital and Hamas-employed doctors have been frequently quoted, a terrorist group is busy saving lives. It’s the precise opposite of reality, but that is the media today.
Confessions of a Conservative Atheist 