At present, the U.S.-backed ceasefire between Israel and Hamas is barely holding. But inaccurate and misleading media reports have been unrelenting. The Washington Post is a case in point.
To its credit, the Post’s Oct. 19, 2025 editorial, “The Gaza ceasefire is cracking. Hamas is to blame,” correctly called out the terror group for repeatedly violating the tenuous agreement. This is a refreshing change of pace for a newspaper that has frequently deprived Palestinians of independent agency and, too often, unduly blamed Israel.
Unfortunately, other Post columns and reports are replete with errors and omissions.
Kathleen Parker’s October 17 dispatch, “Is this the president that we’ve been waiting for,” offers what could charitably be called revisionist history. The Post columnist asserts that “Palestinians and Israelis have been at odds since a group of geniuses at the United Nations decided in 1947 that Palestine should share its land with Jews, thereby creating the state of Israel.” But this is incorrect.
Prior to World War I, “Palestine” was but a vague geographic term used to describe a portion of the Ottoman Empire—a portion that was the ancestral homeland of the Jewish people; Jews having inhabited the land long before the Arab and Islamic conquests of the 7th and 8th centuries. The Ottoman Empire was shattered by the Great War. Dozens of Arab states were created out of the Empire’s ashes—although the majority of its Arab inhabitants fought on behalf of the losing side. And in 1917, the British issued the Balfour Declaration, which called for the establishment of a “national home” for the Jewish people. The 1920 San Remo Conference and the 1924 Anglo-American Convention further enshrined Jewish territorial claims into international law.
Many of the Arabs opposed Jewish social and political equality and sought to pressure British authorities administering the Mandate for Palestine. They chose violence to achieve their ends, perpetrating attacks against Jews in 1920, 1921, and 1929, among other instances. They formed terror groups like the Black Hand and, from 1936-1939, unleashed a wave of terror that, while popularly known as the Arab Revolt, could better be described as the First Intifada. British authorities eventually opted for appeasement, moving away from their stated commitment to Zionism, the belief in Jewish self-determination, and eventually closing the doors to Jews trying to flee Hitler’s Europe. Arab leaders like Amin al-Husseini were nonplussed, rejecting early offers for a two-state solution and choosing to ally with Britain’s fascist opponents.
After World War II, Arab leaders rejected a U.N. resolution that would’ve created two states, one Arab and one Jewish, out of the Mandate. By contrast, Zionist leaders accepted UN General Assembly Resolution 181, also known as the U.N. Partition Plan. Husseini’s forces, the so-called Army of the Holy War, and no fewer than seven other Arab states attempted to destroy the fledgling Jewish nation. They failed.
In short: Parker’s wording implies that “Palestine” was a preexisting state that belonged to the Arabs. It was not and it did not. And it incorrectly posits that the conflict began in 1947 when, in fact, it predates the UN Partition Plan by decades. Further, it implies that the UN, and not rejectionist Arab leaders, are to blame. Regrettably, other mistakes follow.
The column declares that the “aftermath” of the October 7, 2023 Hamas-led massacre resulted in “widespread starvation and the deaths of an estimated 67,000 Palestinians” and “is a testament to the power of hatred on one side and a lust for justice on the other.” But this casualty figure can be traced to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Health Ministry, which has a history of inflating casualties. Indeed, the Ministry doesn’t even distinguish between combatants and civilians. Moreover, as CAMERA has highlighted, Hamas’s strategy is one of human sacrifice. The terror group intentionally locates its operatives, munitions, and headquarters in densely populated civilian areas, including schools, hospitals, and UN facilities. The purpose? To create civilian casualties and thereby constrain Israeli action and blacken the Jewish state’s reputation. Hamas counts on the media to omit its strategy. And unfortunately—not for the first time—the Post obliges.
Parker claims that “civilized people elsewhere might have abhorred the lengths to which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was willing to go to destroy Hamas, regardless of the cost to civilians and innocents.” But omitting Hamas’s culpability for these deaths only incentivizes the terror group. Further, Israel has taken extraordinary steps to limit civilian casualties, as John Spencer of West Point, among others, has documented.
Unfortunately, other recent Post articles have also regurgitated Hamas casualty claims. Indeed, an October 9 report, “Deal is struck for truce in Gaza,” flogs the same statistics, although it does note the Health Ministry “does not distinguish between combatants and civilians.” Nonetheless, the article omits Hamas’s control of the Ministry. Similarly, while describing Qatar as the “main mediator” between Hamas and Israel, the Post fails to mention that the Gulf country is a longtime patron of the terror group.
Another October 9 Post dispatch, “The devastating toll of a grueling war,” does one better. Not only does the Post—yet again—parrot claims from the Hamas-run Ministry, but it also even uses these figures in visual graphics meant to show the damage inflicted by the war. And the newspaper claims that “leading human rights experts” had described “the tiny territory as the world’s largest open-air prison.” Yet, the same week that the Post printed this nonsense, a new restaurant opened in Gaza called the “Nova café.”
The restaurant was named after the Nova massacre, in which 378 Israelis were murdered and countless others raped and tortured by Hamas and other Iranian-backed terrorist groups. Apparently, Gazans were so proud of this feat—the largest death toll of any music festival in history—that naming a restaurant after the atrocity was thought to be a good business strategy. A number of news outlets covered the opening of this macabre restaurant. And social media accounts like the “Gaza You Don’t See” even featured footage of Gazans eating and celebrating. But the Washington Post didn’t do so. Nor has the newspaper cited polls showing that a majority of Palestinians support the October 7 attacks—the largest slaughter of Jewish civilians since the Holocaust. Instead, the Washington Post is clearly out to lunch, content with repeating Hamas claims and inaccurate history.