Michael Moore commends demonstrators, criticizes New York Times writer’s attack on Israel and additional news updates
Journal of misleading information and risky illusions
This appreciation:
“I’ve talked to a lot of the [protest organizers]. . . . They are the salt of the earth. They are kind and generous. . . . They want to live in peace.”
— Filmmaker Michael Moore, Monday on CNN
We say: Whom exactly did Moore have a conversation with?
The UCLA demonstrators who assaulted a female Jewish student to the point of unconsciousness?
Or those who prevented another Jewish person from attending class?
Individuals who took over a building at Columbia and held a janitor hostage?
Or perhaps those who merely called for “burning Tel Aviv” or for Jews to return to the gas chambers?
And, it’s not just a small group of extremists. The movement itself supports terrorists and specifically targets Israel for elimination.
Some “kind and generous” protesters, indeed.
This statement:
“These young people seek a worthy cause: to end what may be the most brutal military operation for civilians [Israel’s war against Hamas] in the 21st century.”
— NY Times columnist Lydia Polgreen, Friday
We say: The ” paper of record” really needs fact-checkers.
Hamas claims 34,000 deaths in Gaza since the war (including terrorists), yet other conflicts in this century have had much higher death tolls: hundreds of thousands, including many civilians, with numerous children abducted, due to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine; over half a million casualties in Syria’s civil war; 5.4 million deaths, according to the International Rescue Committee, in the Second Congo War.
Furthermore, “Israel has implemented more precautions to prevent civilian harm than any military in history,” exceeding what international law mandates and even more than the United States did in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to West Point urban-warfare-studies chairman John Spencer .
This fact:
“Joe Biden . . . created 9 million jobs during his term in office; Donald Trump has the worst record of job loss of any president.”
— Rep. Nancy Pelosi, Monday
We say: Even left-leaning MSNBC’s Katy Tur had to remind Pelosi that America faced a pandemic in Trump’s fourth year and deliberately shut down much of its economy.
Prior to that, Trump’s job-gain record exceeded Biden’s over comparable periods.
Furthermore, Biden’s job “gains” are primarily a rebound from jobs lost during lockdowns.
This rebuttal:
Reporter: “Since you brought up Charlottesville, what do you say to those critics who say [Biden’s] trying to have it both ways [on antisemitism]?”
WH spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre: “No, he’s not doing a ‘both sides’ scenario here.”
— Wednesday
We say: Give us a break! President Biden, concerned about reelection, has proven completely unable to denounce Jew-hatred without simultaneously trying to counterbalance it with criticism of Islamophobia or showing sympathy for Palestinians.
He did the same on Thursday in response to antisemitic protests on college campuses — despite criticizing Trump for stating that there were “very fine people on both sides” when white supremacists rallied in Charlottesville in 2017.
Compiled by The Post Editorial Board
