PBS Newshour, Oct 8, 2025: Another Misleading Narrative on Gaza

PBS Newshour, Oct 8, 2025: Another Misleading Narrative on Gaza.

PBS Newshour’s October 8, 2025, segment featuring “journalist” Shams Odeh demonstrates a troubling tendency to downplay the responsibility of Hamas, the terrorist organization that consistently initiates hostilities against Israel. Despite the Israeli military operation in Gaza beginning on October 13, not October 7 or 8, PBS Newshour rushes to frame the conflict in a way that obscures Hamas’s aggression and casts Israel as the aggressor.

Host Amna Nawaz introduces the segment with the misleading phrase “Palestinian health authorities” when reporting casualty figures. In truth, these numbers come directly from Hamas, a terrorist group with a vested interest in inflating statistics for propaganda purposes. This lack of transparency misleads viewers about the reliability of the data.

The segment repeatedly portrays Palestinian displacement as a grave injustice, yet it fails to acknowledge that Israel’s actions are driven by a commitment to minimizing civilian casualties while targeting Hamas’s terrorist infrastructure. Displacement, while difficult, is a necessary measure to protect lives—far preferable to the indiscriminate violence Hamas inflicts on Israeli civilians. Israel’s efforts to avoid civilian harm stand in stark contrast to Hamas’s deliberate attacks on Israeli population centers.

PBS Newshour also omits critical historical context. The conflict’s roots extend beyond 1948 to events like the April 1920 riots, when Arab mobs in Jerusalem attacked Jews, incited by calls to “drink the blood of the Jews.” This pattern of violence has persisted, fueled by decades of anti-Israel incitement. PBS Newshour conveniently ignores the pervasive indoctrination in Palestinian society, including textbooks and summer camps that glorify violence against Jews, resembling Hitler Youth-style propaganda. Organizations like Palestinian Media Watch (PalWatch.org) have documented this incitement, yet it remains absent from PBS’s reporting.

What really happened in Gaza on October 7? Widespread celebrations of Hamas’s brutal atrocities against Israeli civilians. Polls from December 2024 and June 2025 reveal that a majority of Arab-Palestinians in Gaza and under the Palestinian Authority’s “moderate” leadership openly supported heinous onslaught. This disturbing reality underscores the challenges Israel faces in pursuing peace while confronting a culture of violence.

PBS Newshour’s selective storytelling distorts the truth, undermines Israel’s legitimate self-defense, and perpetuates a narrative that excuses terrorism. Viewers deserve better—they deserve the full picture of a democratic nation defending itself against relentless aggression.