A Doctor Spewed Vile and Defamatory Claims That Israel Intentionally Kills Children; CBS and CNN Aired Them

Alongside the war in Gaza, Hamas is also waging a propaganda campaign to demonize Israel and Jews in the international arena.

That campaign aims to project Hamas’ genocidal identity and image onto its intended victims: Israel and the Jewish people. The campaign is being executed with the engagement of bad actors and willing dupes from outside Gaza.

The Medical Profession’s Bad Actors

Some of the most dangerous actors engaged in Hamas’ cynical propaganda campaign come from the ranks of medical professionals who have entered the Gaza war zone to care for the injured and sick. No doubt, some are motivated by humanitarian concerns and are disturbed by the medical emergencies, tragedies, and devastation that they witness. They report on the injuries, deaths, and difficulties in delivering medical care in a war zone, but do not go beyond that.

At the same time, however, there are too many bad actors who are motivated by anti-Zionist animus. Beyond reporting on the medical situation in the hospitals they’ve visited, these activists willingly participate in Hamas’ propaganda war, spreading misinformation and falsehoods to demonize the Jewish State and foment hatred of its supporters.

Take, for example, Mark Perlmutter, a physician who traveled to Gaza on a Palestinian American Medical Association mission in April, and who has since been actively engaged in Hamas’ propaganda war. Upon his return to the US, Perlmutter teamed up with Feroze Sidhwa, another participant in the mission, whose anti-Israel activities long predate his becoming a physician.

Perlmutter and Sidhwa did not merely report about humanitarian suffering in Gaza. They launched a media campaign to defame the Jewish State with a salvo of accusations: Israel is guilty of genocide; Israel has committed crimes against humanity; Israel is responsible for the worst cruelty imaginable; the US is complicit in Israel’s crimes. In fact, the only party they did not blame for the situation in Gaza is the party that is responsible for it — Hamas and its affiliated terrorist operatives.

Perlmutter uses his Jewish connection — a Jewish father and surname — to feign expertise on Judaism and endorse tropes that are generally associated with the most vicious, antisemitic circles.

For example, he equates Zionism, which is the idea of Jewish self-determination and an integral part of Judaism, with Nazism. From his X account:

Honesty and truth are cast aside as he spews his extremist, anti-Zionist bile.

For example, to support his false claim that Israel deliberately targets innocent children as part of a genocide, Perlmutter minimizes the number of Hamas combatants, leaders and operatives in Gaza to a preposterous degree, declaring those affiliated with Hamas account for only 0.01% of the Gazan population — i.e. ~200 people:

He falsely casts the war against Hamas as the deadliest conflict for medical workers and journalists that has ever been recorded in history.

But even were one to accept propagandistic casualty counts from pro-Hamas groups at face value, they are still far less than the numbers of medical professionals who were killed in other conflicts such as the Syrian civil war, among others:

What is clear is that Perlmutter is unburdened by the obligation to be truthful; his primary goal is to disseminate anti-Israel propaganda.

The Mainstream Media’s Willing Dupes

Perlmutter would not be able to spread his animus against Israel and Zionists without the willing dupes in the mainstream media who have abdicated their journalistic responsibility to vet pro-Hamas and anti-Zionist propagandists before offering them a platform as authorities on the war. These are the journalists and producers who offer Perlmutter and his ilk a platform to spread false propaganda about an Israeli genocide.

Take, for example the CBS producers who created an entire segment promoting Perlmutter’s claims, or the producers of CNN International’s “Amanpour” show who, a week and a half later, presented Perlmutter with another platform to increase his audience.

Perlmutter’s Questionable Allegations:

The casualties in Gaza are “almost exclusively children.” (CBS, Sunday Morning, July 21, 2024)

The “focus” is on innocent children, as well as healthcare workers and journalists, who are “specifically targeted.” (CNN’s Amanpour, July 30, 2024)

Even the UN’s OCHA casualty count, which is dependent on Hamas’ debated numbers, show that children account for less than a third of casualties.

Here are some more false claims:

Israel engages “the world’s best snipers” to target Palestinian “toddlers” [as part of its genocidal war]. (CBS, Sunday Morning, July 21, 2024)

“Children were specifically targeted by high velocity rifle bullet wounds.” (CNN’s Amanpour, July 30, 2024)

Perlmutter goes way beyond what’s ascertainable from a medical standpoint. In the absence of any actual evidence, he presents himself as an expert able to determine who the perpetrators are and what their motive is.

According to him, the perpetrators are expert Israeli snipers whose motive is to murder Palestinian children and toddlers.

When asked by a credulous Smith to verify that it is indeed snipers who are shooting children, Perlmutter assertively exclaimed, “Definitively!”

As to his evidence, he declared:

I have children that were shot twice … I have two children that I have photographs of that were shot so perfectly in the chest, I couldn’t put my stethoscope over their heart more accurately. And directly on the side of the head in the same child. No toddler gets shot twice by mistake by the world’s best sniper. And they are dead center shots. (CBS Sunday Morning, July 21, 2024)

His CNN testimony repeats the same evidence, adding several additional embellishments:

We found children … that had high velocity bullet wounds, sniper bullet wounds, rifle wounds that were dead center in the chest. I mentioned to other reporters that I couldn’t put my stethoscope more dead center over a heart than the entrance bullet hole was. There was no back to these children. The bullet had removed their entire torso. There was similar bullet hole in two of the children’s temples. So, they were shot twice. Once was certainly a kill shot. The second one was when they were on the ground. And so, no sniper hits a child, and I’m talking toddlers twice by mistake. (CNN’s Amanpour, July 30, 2024)

Beyond his muddled story — how many children and toddlers with two bullet holes were there? — Perlmutter’s testimony raises multiple questions regarding its veracity.

1. Perlmutter only saw the children in the hospital after their deaths. How was he able to ascertain the identity of the shooters, the circumstances of the shootings, and the victims’ position when they were shot, based only on the size and location of bullet holes in the body?
2. Why would a professional army engaged in active combat squander their top military assets — trained snipers and ammunition — to target “children” and “toddlers” instead of adult combatants?
3. Why would “the world’s best snipers” capable of “dead center shots” require additional shots to confirm their victims’ deaths?
4. If expert snipers aimed so “perfectly” and “dead center” over the heart, why would they need to adjust their angle or squander extra bullets in targeting a separate part of the body?
5. If victims were found with shots to different areas of their body, wouldn’t a far more likely scenario be that they were caught in crossfire in a combat zone?

CBS reporter Tracy Smith not only readily accepted Perlmutter’s accusations as truth, but tried to validate them, by invoking other doctors in Gaza who also mentioned “gunshot wounds to children,” as if that was proof enough for the outrageous claim that expert snipers were deliberately targeting toddlers.

That civilians in war zones — either adults or children — may sustain gunshot wounds does not indicate who shot them (Palestinian gunmen or Israeli soldiers) and certainly does not indicate deliberate targeting.

To be fair, CNN’s  Senior Global Affairs Analyst Bianna Golodryga, sitting in for Christiane Amanpour,  was more circumspect in her interview, noting that it is “quite an extreme allegation to make that these civilians were indeed targeted” and citing the IDF’s refutation of the allegations that were also made in the CBS News interview. However, this does not absolve CNN producers for having given Perlmutter a platform to air his outrageous claims.

Ricki Hollander is a senior analyst at CAMERA, Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America, where a version of this article was first published.

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