Washington Post removes criticism of Hamas hostage’s parents after deeming it ‘unacceptable
The Washington Post faced backlash on social media for a post criticizing the parents of an American-Israeli hostage held by Hamas. The post was deleted after outrage and replaced with an apology. The article in question highlighted the parents’ speech at the Republican National Convention and their focus on freeing their son. Critics noted bias in the article’s initial wording and questioned the Post’s editorial standards. Ultimately, the incident highlighted the divide in public opinion towards Israel and Hamas, with some accusing the Post of anti-Semitic bias.
The Washington Post might be shameless, but at least it can still be shamed.
The failing, flailing newspaper of the nation’s capital came under enough fire on Friday over a social media post that it deleted a reference faulting the parents of an American-Israeli citizen being held hostage by the savages of Hamas.
The parents, the Post indicated, evidently didn’t show enough sympathy for the enemies of Israel — and of the United States.
In a now-deleted post on the social media platform X, someone on the Washington Post’s social media team pointed out that when the parents of hostage Omer Neutra, in captivity since Oct. 7, speak out on their son’s behalf, “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 parents of Israeli-American hostage Omer Neutra have one goal: TRYING TO FREE THEIR SON from Hamas captivity.
That’s all they need to say.
How could this have been posted? Shame on @WashingtonPost for calling the Neutra’s morality into question. pic.twitter.com/ogx95SfV0C
— American Jewish Committee (@AJCGlobal) July 19, 2024
So, the Post thinks that the parents of an Israeli hostage — a member of an Israel Defense Forces tank crew, no less — are the ones who should be shedding public tears over the consequences of a terrorist attack that claims their son among its victims?
Even worse, it cites “local officials” as some kind of neutral arbiter when the only “local officials” in Gaza are the strip’s Hamas rulers — the very terrorists who caused the war that’s resulted in so much suffering.
After being met with a social media firestorm, the Post replaced the X post with another, calling its own initial wording “unacceptable,” and claiming to have “taken the appropriate action regarding this incident.”
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 the appropriate action regarding this incident.…
— The Washington Post (@washingtonpost) July 19, 2024
Many social media users pointed out that even the revised version linked to an article that could be seen as biased, since the initial social media post was more or less picked up from a paragraph about a quarter way through.
But there was a reason for that paragraph, at least.
The article published Thursday profiled Ronen and Orna Neutra, the father and mother of hostage Omer Neutra. The elder Neutras spoke Wednesday at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee.
The article pointed out that the Neutras don’t dwell on the civilian costs of the war (and, yes, it cited the “Gaza Health Ministry,” which is code for Hamas). It also contained a completely unnecessary reference to a “famine.”
But it could be read as intended mainly to set up a quote from Ronen Neutra that put the whole matter in perspective:
The terrorists are “not only holding hostage our son, they’re also holding hostage the people of Gaza,” he said.
And that simply makes the initial social media post worse.
Not only did whoever wrote it have to go deep into the article to find inflammatory wording, he or she also had to ignore the quote that followed.
Hamas is “also holding hostage the people of Gaza” could just as easily have been used in the original social media post — it would have been intriguing, it would have been provocative and most importantly, it would have been true.
But that wouldn’t have suited the leftist audience being catered to by establishment media outlets like The Washington Post, a disgusting segment of the national and world population where Jew hatred is the coin of the realm.
The Post’s revised version calls the original wording “unacceptable.”
The problem really is that Jew blaming is all too acceptable for an all-too-large segment of the Post’s readership.
Fortunately, the Post’s editors could be shamed into backing down this time.
Next time — and there will be a next time as sure as there’s a God in heaven — it might be a different story.
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