Former Israel PM slams media for coverage of Gaza hospital attack: 'There are no two sides'
Naftali Bennett called out CNN and the New York Times for parroting Hamas in blaming Israel for a strike that killed hundreds in Gaza on Tuesday, after Israeli and U.S. intelligence found a misfired Islamic Jihad rocket was responsible for the blast.
Israel's former prime minister Natftali Bennett scolded the media for appearing to take sides in their reports on the Gaza hospital strike, while appearing on CNN on Wednesday.
"There are no two sides to this hospital [attack]. Either it was bombed by Israel, or it was targeted by someone else on the Palestinian side," Bennett said to host Anderson Cooper.
"If two people come and say — one says it’s raining outside and the other says it’s dry, you don’t bring the quotes of both sides. You just G--d---n open the window and look whether it’s raining or not. That’s what we did and this hospital, in fact, it’s a parking lot, was hit definitely, 100% by Islamic Jihad barrage," he bluntly remarked.
The Israeli politician said three different videos, from various angles, and ballistics confirmed that Israel was not responsible. He also said they had intercepted radio messages from two Hamas terrorists saying Islamic Jihad was responsible for the attack.
Former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett scolded the media for their coverage of the Gaza hospital bombing, while appearing on CNN. (Abir Sultan/Pool Photo via AP, File)
He claimed that if this was another nation fighting Hamas in this war, the media wouldn't have been so quick to accept Hamas's version of events.
"So, Anderson, with all due respect there aren’t two sides to this. Not everything is two sides, and I have a feeling that if it wasn’t the state of Israel then I think the global media would have behaved very differently," he stated.
President Biden said on Wednesday that Israel was not to blame. The Pentagon confirmed the Israeli military's findings that the blast was caused by a rocket misfire launched by Islamic Jihad, another terrorist organization active in Gaza. But a variety of news organizations, including The New York Times and CNN, used information from the Hamas-backed health ministry in Gaza blaming Israel for the attack.
Cooper defended his network's reporting, saying they had not been able to independently verify the Hamas claims and had put forward the findings from Israel and the U.S. intelligence.
Former Prime Minister Naftali Bennett criticized the media for reporting like there were 'two sides' to the Gaza hospital attack (CNN/Screenshot)
But Bennett wasn't satisfied with this response and accused the media of having a "double standard" in their reporting on terrorism.
"Anderson, I — I have to barge in here. I have to say something. You know, I was in 9/11. I was in Manhattan when it happened and if a day later, if Al-Qaeda would have said that it’s America who perpetrated it, no one would have quoted Al-Qaeda. And you didn’t have validation back then that it was Al-Qaeda, but you knew it’s not America. Somehow there’s a double standard here," he scolded.
"You had 30 hours to validate. We have all the information. Everything is transparent. For Heaven’s sakes, to see the headline of 'The New York Times' saying the Palestinians' claim that Israel bombarded a hospital," Bennett ranted. "We don’t do that. It’s the Palestinian who rape young girls. It’s the Palestinians who tear apart limbs. It’s the Palestinians who burn whole families and shoot 5-month-old babies. It’s the Palestinians, for Heaven’s sake, who kidnapped 84-year-old Holocaust survivors. It’s not the Israelis. This is not what Israel does, and you’ve had ample time. Do your job and show the truth. There is moral clarity in the world. Not everything has two sides to it," he said.
IDF Lt. Col. Peter Lerner also sparred with CNN earlier in the day over their coverage of the hospital strike, accusing the network of not really wanting "the proof" in determining who was to blame for the attack.
Along with media reports, Democratic Reps. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., and Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., blamed Israel for the strike, in posts on social media. Protesters gathered on college campuses, in front of the White House and swarmed the U.S. Capitol, to demand a cease-fire and protest Israel's "genocide" of Palestinians.
Fox News Digital reached out to CNN for comment, but did not immediately hear back.
GAZA CITY, GAZA - OCTOBER 18: A view of the surroundings of Al-Ahli Baptist Hospital after it was hit in Gaza City, Gaza on October 18, 2023. (Ali Jadallah/Anadolu via Getty Images)
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Fox News' Brian Flood contributed to this report.
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