World leaders, journalists, and activists helped fuel anti-American riots around the Middle East Tuesday evening by spreading the false claim by the Palestinian terror group Hamas that an Israeli airstrike killed 500 Palestinian civilians at a hospital in Gaza.
As Breitbart News’ Frances Martel reported, mobs attacked U.S., United Nations, and Israeli embassies throughout the region:
In Jordan, a mob flooded the streets of the capital, Amman, and attempted to force their way into the Israeli embassy compound. Police responded with tear gas and reportedly managed to subdue the crowd.
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In Beirut, the capital of Lebanon, protesters surrounded the embassies of the United States and France, attempting but failing to storm them. Protesters also targeted the headquarters of a United Nations Mideast program in the capital; video published by local outlets showed the area outside the United Nations building on fire.
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In Turkey, mobs of angry Muslim men convened in both the capital, Ankara, and the largest city, Istanbul, as well as several other mid-sized communities in the country. The secularist newspaper Cumhuriyet reported that a mob formed outside of the Israeli consulate in Istanbul, blocking traffic and threatening the building. Major squares in the city were flooded with mostly male protesters waving Palestinian flags and chanting anti-Israel slogans.
Mobs also took to the streets in Tunisia, Morocco, Yemen, Iraq, and — of course — Iran, whose government supports Hamas.
The facts, which emerged overnight, showed that it was likely a rocked launched by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) terror group had misfired and landed in the hospital parking lot, causing fewer casualties and doing little damage to the hospital itself.
But leaders like Canada’s Justin Trudeau did not hesitate, declaring that “it’s not acceptable to hit a hospital,” as if Israel had actually done so. As Breitbart News’ Simon Kent noted, many other leaders, and news agencies, also repeated Hamas’s claims.
Egypt, Jordan, and the Palestinian Authority blamed Israel and pulled out of a meeting with President Joe Biden, in which they were supposed to discuss ways to help Palestinian civilians. Other Arab governments also suggested Israel had been at fault.
In the U.S., Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) claimed that “Israel just bombed the Baptist Hospital killing 500 Palestinians (doctors, children, patients) just like that.” Her accusation helped fuel outrage — and gave it undue credibility, coming from a U.S. leader.
Israel just bombed the Baptist Hospital killing 500 Palestinians (doctors, children, patients) just like that. @POTUS this is what happens when you refuse to facilitate a ceasefire & help de-escalate.
Your war and destruction only approach has opened my eyes and many… https://t.co/mZYoifT7bj
— Rashida Tlaib (@RashidaTlaib) October 17, 2023
One former British member of Parliament said that Israel had “forfeited any right to exist” following the hospital explosion — calling, in effect, for the genocide of Israelis, who would presumably be exposed to Hamas-style violence without a state.
The violence was not confined to the Middle East and Africa: a synagogue was firebombed in Berlin, Germany, early Wednesday, just hours after Chancellor Olaf Scholz had made a solidarity visit to Israel, on the same day as the Gaza hospital explosion.
Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News and the host of Breitbart News Sunday on Sirius XM Patriot on Sunday evenings from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. ET (4 p.m. to 7 p.m. PT). He is the author of the new biography, Rhoda: ‘Comrade Kadalie, You Are Out of Order’. He is also the author of the recent e-book, Neither Free nor Fair: The 2020 U.S. Presidential Election. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.
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