A letter to Charlotte Gill

Dear Charlotte

As a British journalist and commentator known for exposing "government waste, academic capture, ideological absurdity in UK universities" and your critiques of woke ideology you have done valuable work exposing the dubious funding of woke charities and quangos.

However, you seem to have joined the long list of the professed right minded who fall for and promote obviously fake Hamas propaganda designed explicitly to demonise Israel. This is what you posted on X yesterday:

In response, I sent you a polite private message stating how much I admired your rigorous research and was surprised you would fall for such an obviously staged photo of a bunch of children crammed into a bed for some kind of dramatic effect, posted by a well-known Hamas propagandist. I suggested for your own credibility, to consider retracting your post.

Twenty-four hours on I have yet to receive a response from you and, judging by your subsequent X posts, you are standing by your statements. In fact, despite largely negative replies, you decided to double down and repost one of the only replies that supported you, one that contained a cartoon pushing the most appalling blood libel against Jews and the Jewish State:

Also, in response to the many respondents who made the point that the children in the photo were clearly alive and uninjured, you posted: "I know two are alive. And I find it a horrific image."

I would add, as I am an admirer of your work, for someone who sets such great store by their rigorous research, it's odd that you fall unquestioningly for Hamas propaganda, which has been well evidenced and wouldn't take much for you, as a self-proclaimed researcher, to verify its veracity. If you had, you’d discover the person whose post you reposted is a well-known Hamas propagandist and this is yet another of their staged photos, some would say obviously so. Look at it critically and tell me what in it supports the caption “we’re being eliminated”?

You seem to have cast aside your skills where this post is concerned and allowed yourself to be brainwashed in the way you say others have been, particularly those on the “left”. Is it this same “left” nexus promoting Hamas propaganda? Maybe use your skills to see if there are links between organisations that fund the UK nexus and those who fund Hamas propaganda? And where else those funding sources may be directed. There are quite a number of charities you could start with. 

In many ways, Charlotte, falling for this fake story is up there with the recent case of the starving child fake story that fooled so many professed right minded commentators:

Being first published in the New York Times was no excuse. It manipulated the plight of a very ill and genuinely skeletal child in Gaza. As David Collier (and others) exposed, this was a child with cerebral palsy whom Israel had already helped move to Italy to get treatment. The photo was also cropped to avoid showing the well fed mother and older sibling. Other photos of the mother and sibling with this child reveal the depths which the propagandists and their willing believers will plumb:

The one thing in common between the right minded who promote blood libels is their resounding silence when they are called out and it is made clear that they have proliferated fake images and Hamas propaganda. None have the courage to then retract or delete their posts.

In joining the ranks echoing Hamas propaganda, Charlotte, you contribute to one of the greatest surges in antisemitism in the West. Even if just for the sake of your own credibility please retract or delete your promotion of these images.