The Dictatorship
Pay attention to the language Israel used to justify its attack on Nasser Hospital
This week, Israel struck Nasser Hospital in Gazaone of the largest and last functioning hospitals in the besieged Gaza Strip. The strikes killed 22 peopleincluding health care workers and five journalists (working for Reuters, the AP and Al Jazeera), and injured more than 50 others.
Early reports said the Israeli military hit the hospital twice in rapid succession in what’s known as a “double-tap,” a type of sadistic warfare tactic where one first strikes a target and then follows up with another strike to hit the people who rush to help rescue victims from the initial attack. NBC News later obtained video that showed Israel in fact struck the hospital in four successive strikes.
NBC News later obtained video that showed Israel in fact struck the hospital in four successive strikes.
Israel initially didn’t offer an explanation for why it carried out this strike. But in the face of global outrage, it called the attacks a mishap and attempted to justify them by saying it was targeting a “Hamas camera” — a ludicrous statement by any measure, but especially so given the ruthlessness of a quadruple strike.
These killings are not random tragedies of war. They are the predictable outcome of a worldview promoted by the Israeli government, peddled by American officials and propagated by American and Western media that systematically dehumanizes Palestinians.
That dehumanization is not subtle. In an interview with The New Yorker’s Isaac Chotiner, former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Jacob Lew rationalized the staggering number of child deaths in Gaza by suggesting that Israel views them as “the children of Hamas.” Think about that: a justification for stripping children of their innocence, reducing them to political extensions of militants, erasing their humanity simply because of who their father was. If every child can be seen as “Hamas,” then no child is truly innocent in the eyes of Israel. And as Lew and so many others have made clear, the Biden administration readily accepted that depraved rationale.
Under President Donald Trump, we’ve seen no deviation from that logic, from callously discussing the real estate value of Palestinian land to overseeing $12 billion in arms sales and expedited military assistance to Israel to carry on with its annihilation of the population, all while reducing Palestinians to Hamas members who aren’t interested in peace.
And that same logic was at play in the Nasser Hospital attack when Israel claimed it was targeting a Hamas camera at the facility. Not a commander. Not a weapons cache. Not a rocket factory. A camera.
When Al Jazeera journalist Anas al-Sharif was assassinated along with five other journalists while inside a media tent near a different hospital in a different deadly attack on Aug. 10, Israel claimed without any evidence that he was a Hamas rocket-launching commander. When Israel bombed schools, they were “Hamas” shelters. Mosques? “Hamas” weapons depots. Refugee camps? “Hamas” hideouts. And just this week, the killing of more journalists? Blamed on targeting a “Hamas” camera.
In this Israeli narrative, Palestinians are not people. They are not journalists. They are not doctors or teachers. They are not fathers, mothers or children. They are simply Hamas.
This is not new, nor should it be shocking. It is exactly what Israeli officials have been saying since they launched their genocidal war on Gaza following Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack in which 1,100 Israelis were killed and more than 250 hostages were taken, including soldiers and civilians, when President Isaac Herzog declared “there are no innocent civilians” in Gaza.
Equally insidious is the narrative that Israel claims when it faces global outrage. In April 2024, when Israel struck a World Central Kitchen aid convoy, killing seven humanitarian workers, the Israeli military called it a “grave mistake.” But it took no measures to mitigate such killings in the months and months that have followed.
These are not aberrations. They are patterns excused by the language of error while the system of impunity rolls on.
But these tactics only work in part because Western media, and specifically American media, so often takes these statements at face value. The Wall Street Journal published an op-ed titled “Who is a ‘journalist’ in Gaza?” that all but accused Palestinian reporters of being Hamas propagandists based on unsubstantiated and unverified claims.
These strategies — Israel labeling everything as a “Hamas” target or dismissing attacks that draw condemnation as “tragic mistakes” — gain strength largely because Western media echoes them.
Even more depraved was an article in Bari Weiss’ “The Free Press” that suggested that Palestinians suffering and dying from starvation in Gaza were suffering from “pre-existing medical conditions.” That distortion was so appealing to the Israeli government that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, an indicted war criminal, shared it on his official X account. Think about that: an indicted war criminal amplifying an American media outlet that trivialized starvation in Gaza due to the bad health of Palestinians.
Together, these strategies — Israel labeling everything as a “Hamas” target or dismissing attacks that draw condemnation as “tragic mistakes” — gain strength largely because Western media echoes them rather than challenges them.
Dehumanization drives the narrative. Mistakes go unpunished and the media launders them repeatedly.
History has taught us that atrocities are only made possible by campaigns of industrial dehumanization. For Palestinians, Israel has been leading that campaign for decades, and it has intensified it since Oct. 7.
To justify its genocide in Gaza, whether bombing a hospital or attacking journalists and aid workers, Israel does not need to provide any credible evidence. It simply needs the world, with the help of American media, to believe that Palestinian lives do not matter.
The world must reject this perverted logic. The deaths at Nasser Hospital should not just shock us. They lay bare how the language of dehumanization — “children of Hamas,” “pre-existing conditions,” “Hamas camera” — becomes a license to kill Palestinians. And they remind us that defending Palestinian dignity is not simply a political stance, it is a moral imperative.
Ayman Mohyeldin is an BLN anchor who has long reported on the Middle East and the Arab world. He is a host of “The Weekend: Primetime”which airs at 6 p.m. ET Saturdays and Sundays.
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. President Donald Trump and Vice President JD Vance say their interim deal to end the war with Iran will deliver a financial windfall to American farmers.
But the Iranians deny it. And in the absence of more details, sanctions experts are flummoxed over exactly how billions of dollars’ worth of Iranian assets would make their way to the American heartland from the escrow accounts where they’ve been locked for years by U.S. sanctions.
A tentative agreement reached last week would reopen the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of the world’s oil and natural gas once passed, and allow Iran to start selling its oil freely again during a 60-day period when the two countries will continue negotiating key issues. The memorandum of understanding also promised to unfreeze Iranian assets.
Trump’s deal has come under fire for failing to address the reasons the president cited for going to war with Iran on Feb. 28, including curbing Tehran’s nuclear ambitions, its missile program and its support for militant groups such as Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza.
Lashing back at critics Tuesday on his Truth Social media platform, Trump said U.S. farmers would get a payday: The U.S. Treasury Department, he wrote, would release the Iranian assets “into escrow, controlled by the U.S.A., and will be used for the purchase of food and medical supplies, exclusively from the United States, including Corn, Wheat, and Soybeans from our great American farmers. These are things that are desperately needed by Iran.’’
Vance, who spoke about the proposal after high-level talks in Switzerland, and Trump say that any frozen funds and assets held outside of Iran will be used to buy U.S. crops.
But the Iranians deny that’s part of the deal. A spokesperson for the Iranian Foreign Ministry, Esmail Baghaei, said any agricultural purchases would be based on “prices and quality,’’ not terms dictated by Washington.
“It is interesting that the philosophy and goal of the war, which was the destruction of the Iranian civilization and the collapse of Iran, has become enriching American farmers,” Baghaei said.
Sign up for Morning Wire: Our flagship newsletter breaks down the biggest headlines of the day.
Iran’s ambassador in Geneva, Ali Bahreini, rejected Vance’s contention that the U.S. and Qatar would dictate how Iran uses unfrozen funds. “Iran is the only country who decides what to do with those assets,” he told reporters.
A U.S. official dismissed the contradiction, asserting that Iranian leaders were speaking to their domestic audience. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak on the record.
Joseph Glauber, a research fellow emeritus at the International Food Policy Research Institute, said Iran was unlikely to abandon its other trade partners on food.
Iran’s major suppliers include Brazil, India, Turkey, the European Union, Canada, Australia and Argentina, he said. Trump’s demand to buy from the U.S. would “create some hard feelings with some of our competitors.”
Under previous sanctions, the U.S. has required that money foreign countries spend on imports from Iran — such as South Korean purchases of oil and Iraqi purchases of Iranian electricity — be locked in escrow accounts and typically released only if the Treasury approves and if the proceeds go toward “non-sanctionable’’ items such as food and medicine.
On Monday, the U.S. Treasury approved the sale of Iranian oil, petrochemicals and petroleum products through Aug. 21. It did not mention any escrow accounts.
Richard Goldberg of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, who coordinated efforts to put diplomatic pressure on Iran in the first Trump administration, said in a post on X that he would welcome “a clarification that Iran is actually restricted to only buying U.S. agricultural products.”
Richard Nephew, senior research scholar at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy, said it’s unclear what the new U.S.-Iran agreement actually means for releasing restricted Iranian assets.
Could the U.S. require that the assets be used to buy American farm products?
“Well, we can try!’’ Nephew, who helped design Iran sanctions in the Obama and Biden administrations, said by email. “All you really need to do is to tell a foreign bank that they can move the money but only to a U.S. bank to buy soybeans or whatever.”
Banks do not have to comply, he said. If they refuse, the U.S. could sanction them as well.
But it’s rare for the U.S. to conduct itself that way, he added, “in part because we don’t usually like to give the impression that we treat national security issues as a cash grab.”
___
Associated Press writers Josh Boak and Michelle L. Price in Washington contributed to this report.
Wednesday marks four years since the Supreme Court issued its landmark Dobbs decisionwhich effectively overturned Roe v. Wade and repealed the constitutional right to an abortion. On “Morning Joe,” co-host Mika Brzezinski explained how the ruling set off a domino effect across the United States, affecting not just abortion-related care, but also altering “the state of women’s healthcare as a whole.”
As Brzezinski noted, states across the country have enacted harsher abortion restrictions since the 2022 ruling, with 13 outright banning the procedure with very limited exceptions. This has created a climate of fear among those who treat pregnant patients, with many healthcare providers worrying that any care involving an abortion could violate the law, even when the mother’s health is at risk.
“We are talking about people dying when they’re miscarrying because doctors are too afraid to intervene and save their lives,” Amy Littlefield, abortion access correspondent for The Nation, told MS NOW.
Brzezinski said the laws have effectively limited women’s “access to lifesaving healthcare.”
The MS NOW host reflected on some high-profile stories of pregnant women who faced delayed care in states with near-total abortion bans, noting “the numbers of cases that we’ve covered here on the show of women who have had their lives threatened, have been forced to give birth to dying or dead babies, and then, by the way, denied the access to ever create life again, because they became sterilized in the process.”
“There’s an image I can’t get out of my head,” Brzezinski added, before sharing reporting from ProPublica about Porsha Ngumezi, a 35-year-old mother who died in Texas in 2023 after not receiving timely care for a miscarriage.
“For months afterward, Porsha’s 3-year-old son would chase after women who looked like her on the street, shouting, ‘That’s Mommy!’” Brzezinski said. “That’s the detail I can’t forget. I can’t stop imagining that little boy chasing after strangers on the street. And that story repeats itself.”
You can watch Brzezinski’s full comments in the clip at the top of the page.
Allison Detzel is an editor/producer for MS NOW. She was previously a segment producer for “AYMAN” and “The Mehdi Hasan Show.”
One of the biggest upsets in Tuesday night’s primaries came in New York’s 13th Congressional District, where Darializa Avila Chevalier, a 32-year-old democratic socialist, managed to beat incumbent Rep. Adriano Espaillat, 71, who was backed by establishment Democrats.
Chevalier, a doctoral student in sociology at the City University of New York, secured 49.4% of votes in the district — which encompasses upper Manhattan, Harlem and parts of the Bronx — defeating Espaillat, who received about 46% of the votes after representing the district for nearly a decade, according to The Associated Press. She now advances to the November general election, which she is presumed to win in the solidly Democratic district.
Chevalier’s primary win marks a major win for the Democrats’ left-wing flank that backed her, including New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdaniwho endorsed Chevalier last month during a joint interview on MS NOW’s “The Briefing with Jen Psaki.”
Here is what to know about Chevalier and the platform she campaigned on.
She has never held elected office
Prior to her congressional campaign, Chevalier had never run or held elected office. But she has been involved with advocating for issues that became political flashpoints, including helping organize the pro-Palestinian encampments at Columbia University, according to her biography on the website of the Justice Democratsthe progressive group that recruited her to run.
The daughter of Dominican immigrants, Chevalier also worked as an organizer for Families for Freedom, a New York City group that assists immigrants facing deportation.
Chevalier earned a bachelor’s degree in Middle Eastern studies from Columbia University in 2016 and later worked as a paralegal, according to her LinkedIn.
Chevalier faced scrutiny during her campaign over previously articulated stances and incendiary comments, including her appearance at a Times Square rally the day after Hamas’ attack on Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, where attendees reportedly suggested the attack was justified.
At a March candidates’ forum, Chevalier declined to condemn Hamas, saying that a request to do so “ignores the 75 years of occupation that the Palestinian people have been subjected to and the conditions that that folks were living under before this genocide began,” the local outlet City & State reported. Later, on local radio station WNYC, Chevalier said she did condemn Hamas when asked, adding, “As far as I know, the U.S. does not send a single dime to Hamas. What we fund is the Israeli military.”
In a series of since-deleted social media posts between 2018 and 2022Chevalier also used expletives to refer to former Vice President Kamala Harris and the Democratic National Committee, calling for abolishing borders and stopping all deportations, according to BLN. Other reports noted that she called former President Joe Biden a “rapist” and disparaged white people in some of her posts.
Chevalier has said she has “grown considerably” since writing those posts and that she regrets them. Mamdani defended her after the social media posts surfaced but said he was unaware of them before endorsing Chevalier.
She’s the left’s preferred candidate
Chevalier’s focus on affordability, expanding housing access and opposing war and deportations made her the preferred candidate of many progressive groups. In addition to the endorsements from Mamdani and the Justice Democrats, she was also backed by the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America and several progressive members of the New York City Council.
After her primary win, the Democratic establishment also seems to have rallied behind her, despite her previous expletive-laden critiques of them.
In a statement Tuesday, DNC Chair Ken Martin called Chevalier “a tireless advocate for the hard-working people of New York City” who “will fight for healthcare, affordable housing, public education, civil rights, and an economy that works for everyone.”
Julianne McShane is a breaking news reporter for MS NOW who also covers the politics of abortion and reproductive rights. You can send her tips from a non-work device on Signal at jmcshane.19 or follow her on X or Bluesky.
- Who’s who from the Trump administration
- Usha Vance, Kamala Harris and Hasan Piker walk into a … stadium
- Potential 2028er World Cup attendee leaderboard
- Usha Vance to attend match
- Democrats grapple uncomfortably with World Cup success
- Australia lost. Its ambassador still won.
- Trump nominates new top deputy to RFK Jr.
- Canada’s biggest fan may be its biggest problem
- Tom Kean Jr., absent for months, to hold fundraiser on the day of his return
- Hispanic Caucus members are devastated their chair lost his primary. Will they welcome his successor?
-
Politics1 year agoFormer ‘Squad’ members launching ‘Bowman and Bush’ YouTube show
-
The Dictatorship1 year agoLuigi Mangione acknowledges public support in first official statement since arrest
-
Politics1 year agoFormer Kentucky AG Daniel Cameron launches Senate bid
-
Uncategorized2 years ago
Bob Good to step down as Freedom Caucus chair this week
-
The Josh Fourrier Show2 years agoDOOMSDAY: Trump won, now what?
-
The Dictatorship1 year agoPete Hegseth’s tenure at the Pentagon goes from bad to worse
-
Politics1 year agoBlue Light News’s Editorial Director Ryan Hutchins speaks at Blue Light News’s 2025 Governors Summit
-
The Dictatorship10 months agoMike Johnson sums up the GOP’s arrogant position on military occupation with two words