Right-wing media react after Israeli soldiers shoot Gazans: “They can all burn in Hell”

Written by Bobby Lewis

Published

On May 14, the Israeli military shot hundreds of Palestinian protesters along the boundary line between Israel and the Gaza strip, killing “at least 55” Palestinians, according to The Guardian. Right-wing media have defended the Israeli military’s actions by blaming Palestinians for their own deaths. 

Ann Coulter: “Can we do that?”

Far-right personality Laura Loomer: “It’s too bad the United States doesn’t protect its border the same way Israel does.” Loomer positively compared Israeli soldiers shooting Palestinians to the “time of our founding fathers, [when] invaders were usually neutralized for the sake of protecting the sovereignty and borders of our nation.”

Daily Wire’s Elliott Hamilton: “They can all burn in Hell.”

Fox News analyst Sebastian Gorka: “If you love America and Israel, and hate Jihadists, it’s a GREAT day.”

Fox & Friends' Brian Kilmeade: “If someone is determined to create unrest with these great numbers, what are you supposed to do?”

Boston Globe’s Jeff Jacoby: Protests in Gaza were driven by “toxic, self-destructive hatred, inculcated in Palestinians from childhood” and “jihadist mentality.”

Former Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer: “No protests in the Arab Street. Only Hamas.  Only a terrorist group that urged its militants to attack Israel.”

Fox media critic Howard Kurtz: “Hamas clearly precipitated” Israeli gunfire at the boundary line, to “paint Israel as some kind of a military thuggish nation.” 

Sean Hannity: Israel “has the right to defend itself” from “Hamas-inspired protesters.”

CRTV’s Jordan Schachtel: The protesters were actually involved in a planned terrorist attack.

Far-right vlogger Stefan Molyneux: “I can’t help but notice a profound difference between how Israel and the United States defend their respective borders.”

Business Insider’s Daniella Greenbaum: “If 50,000 people approached the US border with a stated intent to maim and kill how would you like our government to respond?”

The Gateway Pundit's Jim Hoft retweeted a tweet that Palestinians “martyred their own baby because she was a girl.”

The Weekly Standard: “They’re not protests. They’re suicide riots.” In a May 15 editorial, The Weekly Standard denied that Palestinian protests could fairly be called “protests,” because “they’re intended mainly to kill and maim both Israelis and the Palestinian ‘protesters’ themselves.” 

In ordinary English usage, a protest is a collective action or gesture meant to bring pressure on a government or corporate entity. The Gaza “protests” are meant to bring pressure on Israel, but they’re intended mainly to kill and maim both Israelis and the Palestinian “protesters” themselves.

These demonstrations would be better described as suicide-riots. For nearly two months, Hamas and other militant factions have been encouraging young Palestinian men to storm the fence separating Gaza from Israel. The rioters cut holes in the fence, charge Israeli guards with crude weapons like axes, and lob fire bombs over the wall in attempts to set Israeli fields on fire. Hamas has pledged to massacre those on the other side of the fence, and these riots are expressions of that intention. Israeli defense forces are obliged to respond with force. An axe-clutching Palestinian insanely charging into Israeli territory isn’t a “protester” but a combatant and a terrorist. The fact that he doesn’t expect to prevail against the might of the Israel Defense Forces—he is in essence on a suicide mission—doesn’t somehow oblige Israeli soldiers not to use force to stop him. The Israelis have no choice but to fire back, and they do, often with deadly results.