Netanyahu: Hamas Caused Starvation Problem, New York Times Is Lying

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke today (Wednesday) at the Newsmax US Independence Day Celebration in Jerusalem, where he explained his view of what he calls the "eighth battleground" - the one fought in the global media:

"Hamas caused the hunger problem. Hamas caused the shortage problem. And Israel is blamed, again falsely. We are now engaged in a humanitarian surge of offering safe, secure routes for distribution of food. We're doubling and perhaps quadrupling the number of distribution points that will be safeguarded, and we're doing airdrops and invite other countries to join us. That's what Israel is doing. And as a result, now hundreds of trucks go in daily, and that hunger problem, that deprivation problem has basically been solved.

"What has not been solved, what has not stopped, is the campaign of lies. And especially those photographs of three children. One of them in the New York Times. The reputable New York Times. Nobody's laughing… They put a photograph of an emaciated child, and they said, this is the cause of hunger. He's embraced by his mother. Of course the mother is not emaciated, the brother is not emaciated.

"But this child was not emaciated from hunger. He was emaciated by a genetic disease, cerebral palsy. And two other children, same thing. Made great pictures and so on. Horrific, heart-wrenching pictures. Because it does tear your heart out when you see this. They were also suffering from genetic diseases. But two of the three were actually taken care of by Israel. We let out one of these children to go to an Italian hospital and thank God, he recovered there. The other is incurable. He was in our hospitals, but there's nothing you can do about it.

"So, this is a complete reversal of lies, and I don't take it lightly. I think this battle for truth has historical, tragic historical antecedents. My father was a great historian of the Jewish people, and a great historian of the Jews and the Middle Ages. In the Middle Ages, every single massacre that the Jews suffered was preceded by a campaign of vilification and lies. We were accused of spreading disease, vermin to the gentiles. We were accused of poisoning the wells. We were accused of killing Christian children for their blood, to bake matzos for Passover.

"These lies, horrific as they were, propelled antisemitism right into the 20th century, into the worst massacre of them all—the Holocaust. And the Nazis pretty much said the same thing about disease, about well poisoning, and so on. Well, that same phenomenon we see today. What the Jewish people were accused of in the Middle Ages and the subsequent centuries is what the Jewish state is now being accused of. There's only one difference, then we had no defense. Now we have a country. Now we have an army. And now we fight back against our tormentors.

"And now we have a great ally in the form of President Trump and many of the American people. Yes, some have fallen, fallen victim to the these lies, and have followed them and swallow hook, line and sinker. And I'm talking about all these lies of Hamas, statistics of Hamas, false pictures of Hamas.

"But many Americans have not. Most Americans have not. They recognize that Israel stands for the same values as America. They recognize that we are fighting the barbarians at the gate. And when I say barbarians, this is not hyperbola. It's not only the goal of destroying Israel. It's even the method that they use to murder and mutilate the heathens, as they call them. And we saw that on October 7th, in the murder and rape and beheadings. The murder of women that you have just raped. The beheadings of men. And the mutilation of bodies. And the burning of babies. And the taking of over 250 hostages, grandmothers and their grandchildren, Holocaust survivors. That is the passion, and the fact that they went with GoPro cameras so people could… they could boast about it. There is something wicked and evil in this."

Watch (Source: Israel Prime Minister's Office):