"Rocket fired from Gaza prompts airstrike" (6/19/22) describes how Palestinian militants fired rockets into Israel this past weekend, "shattering a two month lull in violence at the Gaza-Israel border[.]"  The Washington Post concludes the article with a paragraph stating that "[a]n Israeli military raid in the West Bank early Friday, in which three Palestinian militants were killed and eight wounded, could have triggered the rocket attack."

This conclusion is an example of one of the oldest fallacies — that of post hoc ergo propter hoc — that since something happened after an event, then therefore it is the cause.  What the Post could more easily point to is with the philosophy called Occam's Razor, which states that the simplest explanation is usually the correct one.  Hamas is the political/military junta that runs Gaza.  Hamas's founding document — its charter — explicitly directs Palestinians to destroy Israel.  Its directive is not even for a Hamas state of its own, but the destruction of another.  Hamas rocket fire has been ongoing for over a decade.  Doesn't the Hamas modus operandi seem to be the most likely reason for the intermittent Palestinian rocket fire that Israel has seen over the past couple of decades rather than the one last exchange of fire in the West Bank?

Lastly, the Post conveniently left out that "[a] string of four [Palestinian terrorist] attacks that preceded the Israeli crackdown killed 14 people in Israel — the deadliest outbreak of terrorism in years" according to the Times of Israel.  This is pertinent to the understanding of the timing of events.  The Israeli military raid was in retaliation and an effort to halt future terrorist attacks emanating from the West Bank.  The Post inverted the cause of what happened, clouded the timing of events through omitting pertinent details, reversed culpability based on what "could" have been the cause in their opinion.  Certainly, from the pattern of past Post coverage, what the Post could or would conclude, is always for the Palestinian side and against the Israelis.  Why is that?

Dr. Michael Berenhaus is a freelance watchdog activist who works tirelessly to combat anti-Israel bias in the media.  He has been widely published in news sources such as the Economist, the New York Times, and the Washington Post.

Image: Washington Post.