News failures mess with people’s brains. When facts conflict with the media’s portrayals, our minds can respond with fight or flight. Pain sensors get activated, as the amazing Leslie Zane explains in Episode 69. (A must listen, if you haven’t already.)
This was the case when people who got “news” from right-wing media were convinced the 2020 election was stolen. And it’s the case now with people who get “news” from the mainstream media about Israel and Gaza.
Fortunately, They Stand Corrected’s listeners and readers are open to truth.
I previously dug into the media’s wild claims about hunger in Gaza. Now, I have new figures for you. Sadly, people radicalized by the media will be unable to absorb them.
The media ignored inconvenient figures
As a rule, everything news agencies claim about Gaza comes straight from Harakat al-Muqawamah al-Islamiyyah, known by the acronym Hamas. But last month, the terror group said that throughout the entire war, 66 Gazans had died from famine. (They obviously did not include any hostages they have starved to death.) The media ignored this, since the low number did not match the preferred narrative.
I ran the numbers. The Hamas figure established a much lower malnutrition death rate than the United States. For the math curious, here you go: These rates are calculated per 100,000 people per year. With a population of 2.1 million people across 21 months, the rate came out to 1.8. In the United States, our latest figure (pdf) is 5.2:
Before I bring us up to recent weeks, it’s crucial to stop and realize what this tells us. For nearly two years, the media has run thousands of stories claiming starvation in Gaza. In May, Sen. Bernie Sanders delivered his latest anti-Israel diatribe, claiming “mass starvation.” Meanwhile, the latest figure in his state of Vermont: 5.7.
Malnutrition deaths are very difficult to tabulate, because very often other factors are involved. In Gaza, many of the deaths you hear about are actually from congenital illnesses. These are more common because of high rates of consanguinity — about 40% of marriages in Gaza are between cousins. Half of those include “compound consanguinity,” meaning not only are the children products of cousins, but their parents are as well.
What we know now
Over the past month, has widespread starvation suddenly taken hold in Gaza? One group claiming this, the United Nations, has falsely screamed famine throughout the war and is refusing to deliver giant amounts of aid. The media, of course, insists as usual that it’s definitely happening. But the truth is: we don’t know how many Gazans are unable to access food.
We do know that they celebrate the starvation of Israeli hostages and slaughtered people at a kibbutz who tried to help them grow food.
For more on this, check out Episode 45.
Hamas, which creates whatever lies will hurt Israel the most, is of course claiming new figures. And while the media treats those as fact because they do support the narrative, the same media ignores what Israel says — even though, unlike Gaza, Israel is a democracy and provides evidence.
To the media, Hamas claims should be treated as fact, while Israel’s should be ignored. This is not journalism.
Share your thoughts and questions. More to come on this.
JL