US Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee decried the “reckless and irresponsible” reporting of major American news outlets, including the New York Times, the Associated Press and CNN, on the humanitarian situation in Gaza on Monday in an official statement.
Huckabee said the reports were “contributing to the antisemitic climate” which resulted in the murder of two Israeli embassy staffers in Washington and an attack on pro-Israel demonstrators in Colorado.
Huckabee added in his Monday statement the accusation that the media sources had parroted Hamas and its collaborators' claims without authenticating the information.
In particular, Huckabee noted that the media outlets had reported claims that Palestinians seeking food boxes from the Gaza Humanitarian Fund were killed by the GHF, a claim that was proven false by the Israeli military.
“Drone video and first-hand accounts clearly showed that there were no injuries, no fatalities, no shooting, no chaos. It is Hamas that continues to terrorize and intimidate those who seek food aid,” Huckabee wrote. “The only source for these misleading, exaggerated, and utterly fabricated stories came from Hamas sources, which are designed to fan the flames of antisemitic hate that is arguably contributing to violence against Jews in the United States.“
Huckabee asserted that the media sources responsible for the “libelous allegations” owe an apology and should “recant their fake news.”
“The efforts of GHF have resulted in over 5 million meals to civilians without incident. For the New York Times, AP, and CNN to be part of a Hamas-fed false narrative is reprehensible. It represents more than mere sloppy journalism. It’s feeding and inciting violence against innocent people in the United States,” he added. “We are demanding an immediate retraction of the lies and are appealing to all media sources to act with objective professionalism to cover actual events instead of being a partner of terrorism by blindly following Hamas news releases.”
Attacks targeting the Jewish and Israeli community in the United States
Huckabee’s statement follows two major attacks targeting the Israeli and Jewish communities in the US. Yaron Lischinsky and Sarah Lynn Milgrim, two Israeli embassy staffers, were murdered in Washington last month by a pro-Palestinian gunman at the Capital Jewish Museum. A number of pro-Palestinian groups has since celebrated the attack on the Jewish institution.
On Sunday, a pro-Palestinian attacker wounded a number of people with a Molotov cocktail and homemade flamethrower at a vigil for the 58 hostages remaining in Hamas captivity. Witnesses noted the attacker shouted a number of anti-Israel statements during the attack.
The attacks also followed a year of heightened antisemitic incidents, according to official data.