I will warn you up front that I am going to raise a very sensitive, controversial issue — the death of children, especially babies. I am addressing this topic because I see a demonstrable difference between how Israel and Hamas are handling these deaths as a meme to win political support.
First, I want you to recall what Clausewitz wrote with respect to politics and war:
We see, therefore, that War is not merely a political act, but also a real political instrument, a continuation of political commerce, a carrying out of the same by other means. All beyond this which is strictly peculiar to War relates merely to the peculiar nature of the means which it uses. That the tendencies and views of policy shall not be incompatible with these means, the Art of War in general and the Commander in each particular case may demand, and this claim is truly not a trifling one. But however powerfully this may react on political views in particular cases, still it must always be regarded as only a modification of them; for the political view is the object, War is the means, and the means must always include the object in our conception
An essential element of politics in war is what a person or an organization or nation does in order to sway public opinion to support the use of force and violence to achieve victory. Hence the term, “information operations,” aka propaganda. Not all propaganda is false. The pictures and videos the world saw in the aftermath of the allies liberating Buchenwald and Dachau concentration camps at the end of World War II brought a moral clarity to that war and created political support that made the establishment of Israel a reality.
Both Israel and Hamas have pointed to deaths of children as justifications for their respective actions. In the immediate aftermath of the 7 October attack by Hamas I spoke with one of my friends in the U.S. military who was furious over reports that Hamas had beheaded 40 children. He told me that the men and women under his command were blind with rage over the report. That meme was seized on by the Western media and repeated multiple times over all major news casts.
Israeli news channel i24 alleged on Tuesday morning that the Al-Qassam Brigades, “beheaded many Israeli babies” during an early-Saturday attack from the Gaza Strip.
The i24 reporter who first made the allegation took to the X, saying “soldiers told me they believe 40 babies/children were killed.”
Hours later, Anadolu contacted the Israeli military over the phone to ask about the claims, with their spokesperson unit saying: “We have seen the news, but we do not have any details or confirmation about that.”
Here is the problem — Israel has yet to provide the list of the names of those babies. At a minimum I expected at least one or two grieving grandparents to appear on television holding the picture of their beloved grandchild and begging for news of his or her status. I have not seen that. If you have, please forward me a link. Which begs the question — why has Israel not released the names, much less the photographic evidence to buttress its claim?
Hamas, on the other hand, has been very effective in portraying the Israeli counter attack in Gaza as a war crime targeting babies and toddlers. There are videos like the following flooding Telegram and TikTok on a daily basis and these are being seen around the world. The mainstream media largely ignores these images but tens of millions of people in the Arab and Muslim world are watching and are seething with anger.
Hamas supporters, like Iran, wasted no time in capitalizing on this human suffering. The Tehran Times published the following today, listing the names of every Palestinian child killed so far.
Hamas may be losing on the battlefied — being outnumbered and outgunned by the Israeli Defense Forces — but it appears to be winning the propaganda battle with respect to civilian casualties, hands down.
And it is not just the pictures and videos of deceased infants, Hamas also shrewdly released aa video of three female Israeli hostages that turned up the political heat on Netanyahu. I searched in vain for the actual video I have posted below on YouTube. I could not find it. I found reports about it, but none of the new organizations on YouTube are presenting what the woman in the video said. Is that censorship? That is my conclusion. But again, as with the images of dead, mangled children, this hostage video is making the rounds on social media platforms outside the control of the West.
While I do not discount the possibility that this woman was forced to make this video, the passion and anger she displays towards Bibi Netanyahu does not strike me as scripted or forced.
One final comment about Western malaise towards the hostages being held by Hamas. I remember vividly the aftermath in November 1979 of Iranian students storming the U.S. Embassy in Tehran and taking 66 Americans hostage. The ensuing crisis was attended by unrelenting media coverage. It gave birth to the ABC late night news program — Nightline — and launched Ted Koppel’s career as the voice of the Iranian held hostages. Nightline did more damage to Jimmy Carter’s hopes of returning to the White House than any political commercial aired by Ronald Reagan. (Maybe that is why Reagan subsequently gave Israel the green light in 1981 to sell weapons to Iran.)
I discussed the latest on the wars in Israel and Ukraine with the Judge today.