The Washington Post can’t help itself. The newspaper’s Israel coverage has earned a reputation for its slanted reporting and callous disregard for facts. And a recent social media post and article show that the Post’s growing reputation for anti-Israel bias is well deserved.
On July 19, 2024 the Post published a news story that attacked the parents of Israeli hostage Omer Neutra, a Long Island-born IDF tank commander who was taken hostage during Hamas’s Oct. 7, 2023 attack on Israel. Neutra’s parents spoke at the Republican National Convention hoping to draw attention to their son’s plight. “Our son Omer is an American citizen and for 285 long days and nights Hamas terrorists have been holding Omer in prison in tunnels underneath Gaza,” they told the convention. Omer, they noted, is “our first born…who loves sports…and loves helping others.”
Omer turned twenty-two while in Hamas captivity. Omer’s father, Ronen, noted that Hamas slaughtered more than 1200 people on October 7—including 45 American citizens. “Where is the outrage?” he asked. An estimated 120 hostages remain in Gaza, including eight Americans. “Omer,” his mother Orna shouted, “we love you and we won’t stop fighting for you.”
The Neutra’s remarks were decidedly apolitical, focusing on the plight of their young, American-born son, now held hostage by a genocidal U.S.-designated terrorist group. While most viewers saw two parents pleading for their son’s life, and the lives of the other hostages, the Washington Post had a different take.
Instead of attacking Hamas, the Post chose to attack the Neutras. On July 19, the newspaper tweeted: “Omer Neutra has been missing the Oct. 7 attack on Israel. When his parents speak publicly, they don’t talk about Israel’s assault on Gaza that has killed over 38,000 Palestinians, according to local officials. Experts have warned of looming famine.”
The Post’s tweet provoked outrage, with many noting that the newspaper was, yet again, uncritically regurgitating statistics supplied by Hamas, the “local officials.” CAMERA has frequently highlighted the Post’s insistence on trusting a terror group that has both a clear incentive to lie, and a long history of doing precisely that.
Within hours, the Post deleted the tweet, admitting that it “mischaracterized the efforts of Neutra’s parents.” Later the paper tweeted: “a previous post referencing the below story was unacceptable and did not meet our editorial standards, and the Post has deleted it. The reporter of the story was not involved in crafting the tweet. We have taken appropriate action regarding this incident.” But this later claim is false.
The story that accompanied the tweet contained many of the same errors. Indeed, Post correspondent Joanna Slater evidenced a similar tone, using the pain of the Neutras to pivot into reciting pro-Hamas talking points. Slater even said that Omer was merely “missing”—a curious way to refer to a hostage situation.
But pro-Hamas propaganda is the Post’s forte. And this is not the first time that the paper has attacked the victims of the terror group.
As CAMERA has documented, the Post has engaged in soft-rape denial, referring to the well documented cases of Hamas perpetrating mass rape on October 7 as merely “alleged.” The newspaper has consistently acted as an attack dog for Hamas.
Indeed, its anti-Israel bias is so pronounced that one anonymous Post journalist told the Jewish Insider: “The Post keeps failing to meet its commitment to fairness in stories about American Jews. I know it’s costing us our readers’ trust, because they’ve told me so. Top management needs to fix this ASAP.”
The Post has forfeited its right to be trusted as an honest news outlet. As CAMERA recently told the Washington Examiner, the Post’s plummeting profits and soaring losses are indicative of a broader failure to maintain basic journalistic standards of fairness and accuracy. The newspaper has debased itself and continues to do so, with no end in sight.
But as Winston Churchill famously declared, “The truth is incontrovertible. Malice may attack it, ignorance may deride it, but in the end, there it is.” And the facts are simple: Most Americans support Israel in its war against a barbaric terror group. And a growing number of Americans aren’t reading the increasingly fringe Washington Post.