Fox News: Beating the Drums of War While Openly Mocking Republicans Over the Speaker of the House Fiasco
A condensed overview of 16 hours of Fox News for the week ending 10/22/23
Fox loves a good war story as it’s ideal fuel for any propagandist. One side becomes the perfect champion of democracy and freedom while the other is a demonic, subhuman force that is a threat to civilization.
For a network like Fox the war is a good fit as Israel a much wealthier and modernized country with strong ties to the U.S. and Gaza is filled with impoverished masses who practice a faith that conservatives have long vilified and feared.
By enthusiastically supporting Israel Fox News is also playing up to the Christian evangelical community that views Israel as part of a biblical prophecy that will bring on, ‘the rapture,” a time when believing Christians will ascend to heaven as the world descends into chaos and destruction.
The network has made no attempt to explore the complex history of the region that might explain why the Palestinians in Gaza live largely in poverty in a walled off area where their movements are greatly restricted. It also has provided no context to why Israelis might live in fear of their Palestinian neighbors.
Fox has ignored most stories from the region since I started this project in February 2022. When the network did cover an incident the segments were brief, oversimplified and biased towards Israel.
Coverage of the war last week helped diminish the ongoing fiasco that is the Republican Party’s search for a new Speaker of the House. There was also little mention of former President Donald J. Trump’s many legal problems.
On Thursday Sean Hannity seemed to think that a ground invasion of Gaza would happen during his broadcast. The network dedicated two full hours with limited commercials to the war.
The two-hour live broadcast reminded me of times when Fox News would train cameras on various cities hoping to catch footage of a riot after the Dobbs decision or any number incidents that involved police officers brutalizing a Black suspect.
Despite Hannity’s insistence that his sources were telling him the ground invasion was likely to start Thursday evening the Israeli Defense Forces remained in Israel.
Shows I covered on Fox News last week
Fox & Friends
The Five
Hannity
Jesse Watters Demonized Palestinians Throughout the Week
Watters started the week on “The Five,” discussing the conflict in Israel as a precocious preteen might.
“That's how you have to frame this. This is about civilization. And then you have monsters on the other side. How would you like to live next door to a serial killer who is plotting to kill your children all day long? That's what they're expecting the Israelis to do. These people cannot co-exist as neighbors. They just cannot do it,” said Watters.
Later on in the same program he went a bit further.
“I don't think we can have a Palestinian state at this point. I've had it with the Palestinians. I've given up on the Palestinians. If I was in Israel, I wouldn't be talking about a Palestinian state right now. I don't think Joe Biden should be talking about a Palestinian state right now. And I don't like how people tried to differentiate between the Palestinians and Hamas to me. I see people with guns. That's Hamas. The people without the guns are the Palestinians. They believe the same thing.
The Palestinians hire Hamas to run their government. You poll them. They all love killing Jews. It’s in their charter, they say they believe in suicide bombings. Every time a Palestinian refugee goes to another country, it doesn't work out so well for the other country and for those Palestinians.
No one wants them. You don't see Egypt opening up their doors. You don't see Jordan opening up. You don't see the Saudis. Why don't they want the Palestinians, Dana? I think we all know why they don't want the Palestinians and it's not working out having these Palestinians and Hamas right next door to the Israelis,” said Watters.
Hamas won an election in 2007 then deprived people in Gaza of any opportunity to pick new leadership. As I pointed out last week when Palestinians living in Gaza have attempted to protest against Hamas they are met with brute force. Their homes are searched and ransacked, they are tossed in prison or beaten and tortured by police.
In 2019 during a large demonstration Hamas arrested over 1000 protesters including two senior representatives of the Palestinian watchdog the Independent Commission for Human Rights (ICHR) as well as journalists and political rivals from Fatah a competing party that partially rules the West Bank another Palestinian enclave that under Israeli military occupation.
The regime also imposes stiff taxes on Palestinians living in Gaza and has diverted international relief aid to help pay for tunnels, weapons, and rockets to attack Israel.
On Wednesday during a discussion about President Biden’s trip to Israel Watters brought up the topic of radical Islam.
“Now, why didn't he mention radical Islam?” asked Watters.
Only President Biden could accurately answer that question but I would guess that Biden’s motive for avoiding the term ‘radical Islam’ is similar to President Obama’s. Obama wanted to avoid conflating most Muslims with a radical twisted interpretation of the faith.
“We are not at war with Islam. We are at war with people who have perverted Islam,” he said at the Summit on Countering Violent Extremism in February 2015.
On Friday Watters made several assumptions about Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) a Muslim who represents a predominantly Muslim district.
“That's the thing that's driving this. And Omar seems angry at Jewish people more than she's angry at Hamas. And they have to understand that Hamas brought the suffering upon the Palestinian people. The Jewish people did not. So this is going to be a big problem for Joe Biden electorally, and it's going to be a big problem for the Democrats in terms of their brand,” said Watters.
Watters conflated ‘the Jewish people’ with Israelis or the Israeli government. This might not seem like a big deal but it’s extremely problematic.
Why Israelis Should Not Be Referred to as “The Jewish People”
The global Jewish population is 15.3 million with about 6.8 million Jews in Israel which means about 56% or a solid majority of Jews live outside of the country. Roughly 41% of the total global population lives in the Unites States but Jews also live in Europe, South and Central America, Australia, Asia, Africa as well as some countries in the Middle East that are predominantly Muslim.
When someone equates “the Jewish people” with Israelis they are lumping in Jews in Minnesota or Tokyo with the government of Israel. Jewish people around the globe cannot vote in Israeli elections and have no say over how the country is run unless they have dual citizenship.
Including all Jewish people with Israelis is simply inaccurate and it suggests that somehow all Jews have an allegiance with the country or that they agree with and support the Israeli government.
Many of the most outspoken critics of the Israeli government are Jewish people who live elsewhere.
Also, about 21% of the population of Israel is Arab spanning various religions including Islam, Christianity, and Druze. The Israeli population should never be referred to as the “Jewish people.”
Fox Hosts Still Found a Way to Talk about Every Other Topic While Discussing the War.
On “The Five,” last week almost every single segment was dedicated to discussing the Israel-Hamas War. The Fox News hosts still found a way to work in their favorite hot button topics anyway.
During a segment on Monday about FBI director Christopher Wray’s warning to stay vigilant to any possible terrorist threats Judge Jeanine Pirro verbally unloaded.
“You've got to stay vigilant. All of you out there, why disagree? I think he's got to stay vigilant. I think the FBI has got to stop with the Catholics, with the pro-life people, with the with the pro-life people, the Catholics and the school, the parents and everyone else and the MAGA supporters. Maybe they should be doing things that they were supposed to do after 9/11, but decided to give up,” said Pirro.
Jesse Watters managed to bring up transgender Americans.
“And Biden's always talking about ultra MAGA ultra MAGA. What about ultra jihadists? This isn't about antisemitism. This is about pro political violence. And to your point earlier,” said Watters as he gestured to Greg Gutfeld. “These college students don't even know what gender they are, but they're damn sure they know Israel is evil.”
The next day Greg Gutfeld brought up trans people again during a discussion about pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses.
“Yeah, it's jarring. Misgender a guy in a dress. All right. That's hate speech. This isn't,” said Gutfeld.
An Expert on Fox & Friends Makes a Claim with No Evidence.
On Monday Steve Doocy introduced Chad Robichaux, a former Force Recon Marine and contractor for the Department of Defense, to talk about the weapons used by Hamas.
Before Robichaux appeared on screen Doocy claimed that Hamas might be using weapons the U.S. military left behind for the Afghani army during the withdrawal from Afghanistan. Robichaux referenced, Tim Kennedy, a former Green Beret, who also said Hamas might be using American made weapons on Fox News earlier in the week.
“Good morning. What do you make of that? They could be using our our weapons to shoot at the Israelis,” asked Doocy.
“Yeah, well, Tim's right. And not only is Tim right, there are several reports from the ground from IDF saying that Hamas has American weapons. Look, if they have U.S. weapons, they came from us leaving them behind us. Weapons don't just get in the hands of Hamas.
Our military is very strict on procedures, even at the lowest levels. If you lose a pair of night vision goggles or a single rifle, like in a position that I was in, you're looking at losing your career. But the truth is, it doesn't really matter if it's true or not. The fact that it's possible because President Biden left tens of billions of dollars of U.S. equipment in the hands of the Taliban, makes America either look complicit or incompetent. I don't know which one is worse,” said Robichaux
Other than his reference to the IDF Robichaux offered no proof of American weapons on the ground Gaza or Israel. In the brief clip that Fox played of Tim Kennedy’s appearance he also didn’t offer any solid proof of anything.
Many of the weapons the U.S. left behind in Afghanistan were meant for the Afghani army which the U.S. had trained for years. Almost as soon as the U.S. military left the country the military apparatus and most of the government in Afghanistan collapsed putting the weapons and equipment in the hands of Taliban forces.
Some of the larger equipment, including some aircraft, was rendered inoperable before the US military left, according to a mandated report from the US Department of Defense.
When I was watching the PBS NewsHour I noticed the weapons Hamas used were brought up in another segment that aired the same day that Robichaux was interviewed.
Special correspondent, Leila Molana-Allen, reported from a military bunker inside of Israel. The scene featured thousands of munitions neatly stacked and sorted.
“The Israel Defense Forces found a huge cache of weaponry, thousands of pieces, and they suspect that Hamas planned a much longer fight. Scattered amidst the carnage, hand grenades, anti-tank mines, artillery rounds. North Korean manufactured rocket propelled grenades, improvised rocket launchers, and vitally Iranian made mortar rounds. The first material evidence that Iran is directly supplying weaponry to Hamas in this fight,” said Molina-Allen.
The segment then featured an Israeli soldier holing up a mortar shell.
“This is made in Iran. No doubt about it. We knew they had those. We knew they had mortars. But these are Iranian mortars. This is the first time that we’ve seen it on this battlefield,” said the soldier.
Molian-Allen continued.
“It's taken bomb squads more than a week to safely disarm all these munitions. And now here they sit deep in an Israeli base, a testament to the sheer scale of the firepower Hamas has stockpiled.”
An Expert Explains Hamas While Correcting Brian Kilmade
On Tuesday, on “Fox & Friends,” Brian Kilmeade interviewed Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somalia-born, former Muslim and advocate for women. Ali used to have extremist views herself and sympathized with the Muslim Brotherhood. She eventually moved to the Netherlands and became disillusioned with Islam after the 9/11 attacks in the United States.
Ali was briefly a member of the House of Representatives in the Netherlands before she resigned over an accusation that she lied on her application for political asylum. She is an advocate for the rights and self-determination of Muslim women, opposing forced marriage, honor killing, child marriage and female genital mutilation.
Ali currently works with the Hoover Institution a conservative public policy think tank.
Kilmeade started the segment.
“They did a poll in 2021, and 53% of the Palestinians say they believe Hamas is most deserving of representing the Palestinian people. Only 14% of Fatah with Abbas, they prefer that secular part of them. So one would think as an outsider that these are the representatives that they want,” said Kilmeade.
Ali responded.
“I think it is very difficult to poll a society that is governed by an entity like Hamas. Can you imagine if you are living in the Palestinian Gaza and you say something other than that and what the consequences would be? I have talked to a number of Palestinian people over the years, and what I find is they (Hamas) do not represent all Palestinians. But this is much more important. Hamas see Palestinians not as human beings, but as pawns, as tools to use in their nihilistic desire to annihilate Israel and all Jews,” said Ali.
For context, Fatah is a rival political party that is the dominant ruling force in the occupied West Bank. Mahmoud Abbas is the President of the State of Palestine and the chairman of Fatah.
Fatah and Hamas have struggled for power in the region for years. Fatah recognizes Israel and wants to build a state on 1967 borders through negotiations. Hamas is based on a radical interpretation of Islam and seeks to eradicate all Jews and the state of Israel through armed resistance.
Hannity Praises Bibi Netanyahu
On Wednesday on “Hannity,” the Fox News host praised the prime minister of Israel during a long monologue about the crisis.
“Now more than ever, America in the world needs a strong leader with a clear message, a person with moral clarity like Bibi Netanyahu,” said Hannity.
I audibly screamed.
Hannity is allowed of course to have his own opinions about Benjamin Netanyahu. The phrase that caused me yell so loud I scared my cats was “moral clarity.”
As I explained in last week’s newsletter Netanyahu has been embroiled in a criminal trial since 2020 where he faces various charges for bribery, fraud, and breach of trust in three separate cases.
Netanyahu is often described as an Israeli version of Trump. Like Trump Netanyahu is a right-wing populist who presents himself as a savior of his country.
The Israeli prime minister also surrounds himself with loyalists who won’t challenge his decisions. He’s also been known to attack the press.
For months Netanyahu and his far-right coalition have tried to push through judicial reforms that would limit the power of the Supreme Court and the court system in general. Many of his critics have claimed Netanyahu is doing this for his own self-interest.
His attempts to reform the judiciary resulted in massive protests across the country. Former U.S. officials have cited the political divisions inside Israel as one reason Hamas decided to attack southern Israel on October 7th.
Fox News doesn’t report on Israel often which is why Hannity can just create whatever narrative he wants about the controversial prime minister. Fox News has presented the deeply unpopular leader as a brave and virtuous man.
Clutch Your Pearls Sean Hannity!
Although the war dominated most of the coverage last week, Fox did spend some time on the crisis in the House of Representatives. Many in the press criticized Sean Hannity for personally calling House members and urging them to vote for Jim Jordan as Speaker of the House.
Many media companies do not allow journalists to express their own political opinions publicly, donate to candidates or attend protests or political rallies. For Hannity to personally involve himself in the process of picking the next Speaker of the House was outrageous.
Hannity was deeply offended that anyone might criticize him for this.
“Every member of the mob asking and saying, How dare Hannity ask these questions? Do you even know what my job is? You don't even know what your own job is. I'm a member of the press, whether you like it or not. I am a talk show host on radio and TV. I can produce thousands of hours of television, radio coverage that is straight cover, straight news coverage. We also do investigative reporting. You know, we got the rush hour X right?”
For years Hannity has referred to himself as a talk show host not a journalist which made his ‘I’m a member of the press’ claim even more ridiculous.
Newt Gingrich is Fed up with House Republicans
On Thursday, while a guest on “Hannity,” former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich went off about Jim Jordan’s quest for the Speakership.
“My sense from talking to people in the House tonight is that in a next vote, you might actually get fewer, not more votes. If that happens, we can't sit around and suck your thumbs and hope the world will wait until the House Republicans get their act together. You're every day we're closer to the end of the continuing resolution.
Every day we're closer to a huge package for for Israel that has to be passed. Every day we are failing to do the investigations we need to be doing. And so if in a worst case, I think we've had our two best shots, Scalise and Jordan, if Jordan can win, I am totally for him. This is not to undercut him.
And Jim is a good guy. A very competitive guys, you know. He's 156 to 1 in high school wrestling. He was twice the NCAA wrestling champion for the country. He's a very competitive, very smart guy.”
Brian Kilmeade Openly Mocked Republicans on “Fox & Friends”
On Tuesday Brian Kilmeade could not hold back his frustration about the chaos in the House.
“Republicans are very determined not to have a voice it seems. Whatever they do, they want to make sure that they don't have a voice. And that's Matt Gaetz and his seven geniuses. This is what he got. He had no plan. He just wanted to blow the place up,” said Kilmeade.
Stories Fox News Ignored
Every week I compare the hours I’ve analyzed on Fox News to five hours of the PBS NewsHour. The following are stories the PBS covered that Fox News did not.
Climate Disasters
Scotland was hit with 26.4 inches of rain combined with 70 mile per hour winds when Storm Babet slammed into the area which caused extreme flooding. At least three people were killed and 33,000 lost power in the region.
The U.S. government has reached a settlement with migrant families who were separated under the Trump administration’s family separation policy. Affected immigrants will be allowed to stay in the country and receive a three-year renewable work permit, plus assistance in finding housing. The settlement also prevents the federal government from implementing a similar program for eight years.
Former attorney for Donald J. Trump, Sidney Powell ,pleaded guilty to charges in the Georgia election subversion case. As part of her plea deal she has agreed to testify against other co-defendants in the criminal case. Another attorney, Kenneth Chesebro, pleaded guilty to a felony charge for conspiring to overturn the 2020 election results in Georgia. In the plea deal, he agreed to testify against his co-conspirators in the racketeering case brought by Georgia prosecutors against former President Trump and others.
In Poland, the Civic Coalition (KO) party, in a coalition with other pro-European political parties, is set to overtake the ruling populist party.
Center-right candidate Daniel Noboa, 35, the son of wealthy banana planter, will become Ecuador’s next president.
The Rite Aid pharmacy chain filed for bankruptcy protection. The company was saddled with massive debt caused partly due to 1,600 opioid lawsuits from state and local governments, hospitals, and individuals. The federal government has accused Rite Aid of ignoring red flags while filling illegal opioids prescriptions.
PBS produced a segment about how college essays have changed since the Supreme Court ruled against affirmative action programs in higher education.
The Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on the NCAA, the future of college sports and student athletes profiting from ‘name, image or likeness’ deals.
Jacob Lew, Biden’s nominee to be ambassador to Israel, told senators last week that he would “ensure Israel has what it needs to defend itself” and would work with the U.S. ally to end the attacks by Hamas if he were confirmed.
Police in Germany are searching for the assailants who tried to firebomb a synagogue in Berlin.
Vladimir Putin said the U.S. is going too far in aiding Ukraine.
The average U.S. family’s net worth increased 37% between 2019 and 2022 partly due to increased home values. The share of families who'd filed for bankruptcy in the past five years fell to just 1.3% from 2% in 2019 and 3% in 2016.
PBS produced a segment about how the affect of police brutality and the Native American population.
Federal regulators have approved a new gas pipeline in the Pacific Northwest.
The Federal Reserve chairman Jerome H. Powell said in a speech last week that the central bank might need to raise interest rates more if economic data continued to come in hot.
Nokia, the Finnish telecommunications giant, plans to cut 14,000 jobs after a plunge of 69% in profits.
Sen. Laphonza Butler, who was appointed by California Governor Gavin Newsom after the death of Sen. Dianne Feinstein, said she would not run for the seat at the end of her term, saying it “this is not the greatest use of my voice.”
A new law in the European Union, that went into effect in August, makes big tech companies including Amazon, Google, X, Meta, and TikTok legally responsible for the content that appears on their platforms.
According to the Pentagon, China is building new nuclear weapons faster than U.S. officials anticipated.
Alsu Kurmasheva, a Russian-American journalist working for an U.S. government funded media company was just detained in Russia and charged with failing to register as a “foreign agent.” She is the second American journalist to be arrested and charged in Russia this year.
Fox and Fiends. The Faux moins Une. . . . See if they cover Cohen and Ellis today. And identify the real Pres's of Turkey and Hungary, unlike their leader. And 4 attys testifying under oath in court vs their former boss. Goodbye mob boss. Hello Prisoner # 374885.